OPINION: Before the Tall Blacks or Steven Adams, there was THE shot.
If you're old enough to remember that crazy night almost 40 years ago, you'll remember the real birth of basketball in New Zealand.
Sure, the game had been around for decades before, played at the local YMCA and Boystown by some of the country's greatest athletes that no-one had ever heard of... mostly tall, gangly kids who were too skinny for rugby, but relished the physical ballet around the keyhole or the distinctive sound a basketball made when it touched nothing but net.
Kenny McFadden, who died overnight aged 61, was the Sultan of Swish.
Before the Washington State University guard arrived in New Zealand, the most heralded shot in NZ basketball was probably John Hill's offensive tip-in that propelled the national men's team to their first-ever victory over Australia at Lower Hutt's Walter Nash Stadium in 1978.
As the '80s dawned and flashy Los Angeles Lakers guard Earvin 'Magic' Johnson elevated the American NBA to somewhere near where it is today, the 'Mac Attack' was doing the same for the NZ National Basketball League.
McFadden was New Zealand's Magic and Wellington's Exchequer Saints - sponsored by one of the capital's swankiest nightclubs - were the Lakers.
THE shot came in the final seconds of the 1985 NBL final at Wellington's Madgwick Stadium, between Saints and DB Auckland, guided by American Steve McKean (known simply as 'Coach') and featuring the colossus of Kiwi hoopsters, Stan Hill (John's brother).
With 18 seconds remaining, the score was tied at 111-111 and McFadden brought the ball upcourt, marked by one of the competition's best defensive guards, Alan Ovens.
As the clock ticked down, Saints teammate Rick Wineera set a screen for McFadden, forcing their defenders to switch. McFadden now had diminutive Steve Campbell on him and unleashed his three-point jump shot over his shorter opponent as the buzzer sounded.
Swish!
That was the moment that inspired the next generation to try this new, trendy pastime, henceforth described as "the sleeping giant of NZ sport".
Gangly, skinny Sean Marks cracking the NBA... the Tall Blacks' historic 2002 world championship campaign... Adams forging his reputation for Oklahoma City Thunder... perhaps none of those things happen, if not for THE shot.
One of the first things you noticed when meeting McFadden were his hands, which shot the ball so unerringly straight during his heyday, but left him with unmended broken fingers pointing in directions they simply had no right to point.
He catapulted Saints to four NBL championships during the 1980s and would win many more on the coaching staff over subsqeuent decades, the most recent just last year.
When his playing days ended, 'Kenny Mac' continued to inspire generations of Kiwi ballers off the court.
There are probably three kinds of coaches in basketball - master 'Xs & Os' tacticians like former Tall Blacks genius Tab Baldwin, supreme motivators like former Hutt Valley Lakers/Waikato Pistons maestro Jeff Green and those that unlock the gym at 6am every day, spending hours honing the skills that make better players and better people.
That was Kenny McFadden. He won many national titles with Wellington junior teams over the years and coached the Junior Tall Blacks at the 2009 U19 world championships, but his lasting legacy will always lie beyond the trophies, with the thousands of men and women he shaped along the way.
McFadden taught "ATTA-TOOD!" and his smile could light up a stadium. Among the social media tributes posted over the course of today, many recall his advice to "listen to your parents, eat your greens and do your homework".
While Adams was his most famous student, plucked from the mean streets of Rotorua by uncle Warren - a former teammate of McFadden's - and moulded into the Kiwi folk hero he is today, many, many more passed through his NZ Basketball Academy over the years.
Legend had it McFadden once offered a pair of new sneakers to any of his young proteges who dunked in a game. Current Tall Black Dion Prewster, then a spring-heeled teenager, reportedly threw down four times in his next outing - but history does not relate how many shoes he received for his exploits.
Last year, NZ basketball lost Coach McKean and now 'Mac Attack' - two of the game's most influential characters of the past half century.
It's getting late - Kenny Mac has turned out the lights and locked the gym for the last time.
Who will open up tomorrow? RIP Kenny McFadden.
Grant Chapman is Newshub online sports lead
