A hoop, a backboard, and the sport that captures the world’s spirit

Sean Hemmerle’s photos range from pastel landscapes of international conflict zones to iconic architecture of the American Rust Belt. His HOOPS photos were taken over the past 20 years, from Baghdad to Springfield, Mass.

I grew up watching the Phoenix Suns on television and occasionally in person. We were sometimes gifted tickets, and we always arrived early to see the players warming up. On one such occasion, I low-fived with Walter Davis and watched, completely star-struck, as Dr. J glided onto the parquet floor at Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. He was the coolest person on the entire planet at that moment – his moves the stuff that slow-motion was invented to highlight.

Twenty-three years later in Baghdad, I was noting with some sentimentality that basketball had found its way to Iraq long before our forces arrived to oust Saddam Hussein in the “War on Terror.” It occurred to me then that basketball is perhaps America’s most important cultural contribution.

In my lifetime, basketball has evolved to become one of the most played sports in the world. It is the most popular team sport in China, the Philippines, Lithuania and Estonia. The distinctive backboard and hoop raised 10 feet above a flat surface is as enduring an American icon as exists in the world, but without much of the baggage that now accompanies many of my country’s cultural signifiers.

Basketball is a better representation of American democracy. It represents the diversity and spirit of my country more honestly than many of its other exports. Players in the NBA are pop culture icons and devoted team members, often espousing the benefits of family and dedication to craft. In 2020, the Toronto Raptors, a team comprised of players from seven countries, covered their tour bus with the words “Black Lives Matter.” Basketball hoops are a static symbol of potential dynamism, an invitation, a challenge, to excel with grace.

Joel Sternfeld’s photograph from “Near Lake Powell, Arizona, August 1979″ is the first picture I can remember that engaged me intellectually, emotionally and aesthetically: a hoop in sagging profile diagonally crossing the high-desert horizon. The palette is distinctively South West, and from my backyard, transformed through the visual mash-up of sport and landscape. I thought of this image while standing on the concrete slab in Baghdad in radically different times seeing signs of an America from long ago. As with all the hoops before, this one had been hung with joyful, neighbourly anticipation.

Every landscape bears its story; all of these have been marked by American values and the elevated circle of the game, the one invented by a Canadian in Springfield, Mass., more than a century ago. At a time when our society is so deeply divided, the game of basketball is thriving. Long may it reign.