Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls is holstering his finger guns. For good.
The move became as much a staple of Noah as his hair or energy. Every time he knocked down one of his sidewinding jumpers, he'd pause for a moment, stick his pointer fingers out to make a gun, and shove them in imaginary holsters.
But with what's happened over the past week, Noah's done with that. Via CSN Chicago:
“It wasn’t just what happened in Connecticut. You just have to be kind of compassionate about what’s going on, man. We have issues with guns. Gun violence in this country is out of control and you’ve just got to be sensitive to that. I love this country. This country did so much for me.
"But I think it’s important to be more critical and we have issues. I feel just as American as I do French and the issues are complicated, but you’ve got to be sensitive and a lot of kids are dying. In Chicago, a lot of kids are dying in the streets, so that’s why I’m not doing that anymore.”
The "finger guns" move is a pretty popular one in the NBA. Gilbert Arenas was suspended for doing them, but that was following his locker room gun incident with Javaris Crittenton. Russell Westbrook does his "3 holsters" where after hitting a 3-pointer, blows on imaginary finger guns and holsters them.
Regardless of where you fall on the touchy subject of guns, Noah's sensitivity and awareness is remarkable. Most everyone knows the finger-guns thing is meant to be only fun and not symbolic of actual shooting. It's just a silly basketball celebration and isn't going to prevent any kind of shooting in the future.
But to Noah, it's just not worth it. Guns aren't fun to him, and he doesn't even want to shoot pretend ones with his fingers.
