#NBA#Straya – Never Forget: This week, in 1996… HAMMER TIME!!!! Shane 
Heal’s career night vs the Seattle Supersonics
That’s right: every year, allllll around this wide brown land we loving call ‘Straya’, we have a week there’s not a dry eye OR an unbent elbow as an entire proud nation celebrates & tips back a few tins in honour of HAMMER TIME!
Yep, HAMMER TIME. A non-stop celebration of dead-set Aussie ledge, the Blonde-Bombshell, the Sydney Smasher, the Geelong Goolie-Gnasher, the Brisbane Ball-Slinger, the Yarra Junction Yahoo, the Charles Barkley Chin-Musician himself… Shane ‘The Hammer’ Heal!
It’s all because 25 YEARS AGO this week, Hammer pulled on his tighty-whiteys — no-doubt tight due to the strain of covering a hog that’s still talked about in hushed tones around Geelong, Brisbane & Sydney — and went to work on my beloved Seattle Supersonics like me going to work on an icy-cold sixer for Friday froths.
On a cold Minneapolis night, in only his 9th ever NBA game, Hammer came off the bench for his Minnesota Timberwolves and proved that when people ask: ‘What would happen if you combined Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Pistol Pete Maravich AND Steph Curry… AND a vat of peroxide’ the answer is ’Bloody Shane Heal, ya drongo’.
Cos in the 4th quarter alone… Hammer chucked in a whopping FIFTEEN POINTS… ALL ON THREES! Against bloody Gary ‘The Glove’ Payton & Hersey Hawkins! That’s a Defensive Player of the Year, NINE All-Defence 1st Teams… and Hersey Hawkins!
Mate. Hammer was more on fire than that time at a party outside of Ballarat my mate Tall Kane chucked some petrol on a bonfire and it went back up the jerry can and bloody exploded and literally set Tall Kane on fire!
AND! Most impressively… Legend has it that as his FIFTH three sailed in over the top of the head of an increasingly confused Hersey Hawkins, 15 women in attendance instantly fell pregnant. They’re still known in Minnesota as ‘The Hammer 15’ and have ALL gone on to be in the NBA. (That’s not to be confused with Shawn Kemp’s 17… which came from Shawn Kemp rooting 17 ladies at once, and the results of whom are all still waiting for a call from their dad.)
And, in proof that the Anti-Strayan Bias of the NBA has a long and storied history, those flogs in charge of Minnesota at the time looked at Hammer… looked at his 15 pts on 5-of-9 shooting ALL FROM THREE… IN ONLY BLOODY 12 MINS… then decided to pin the poor bugger right back to the bench the very next game! And, as such, he’d never reach such lofty NBA heights again! How f*cked is that!?
Anyway, now when people ask ‘wow, how much did Steph Curry change the game!?’ you can set em straight & say ‘mate, bugger that little pre-pubescent dork: he was just following in the footsteps of the one, the only, Shane ‘The Hammer’ Heal.
’And that, friends, is why while the US might celebrate Thanksgiving this time of year, we celebrate the bloke who tried to punch on with Charles Barkley, despite being a foot shorter than him cos he’s 60% grit, 40% heart & 100% sheer ball-tearing fury… with HAMMER WEEK.
#ONYA Hammer! 
be a legend & SUBSCRIBE TO THE NBA Straya PODCAST HEREhttps://podfollow.com/nba-straya
