The Million Dollar Shot

By beginning the story with Eddie’s negative experience in gym class, Dan Gutman immediately stresses the importance that a single shot can have on a game of basketball, and the moment also reveals that Eddie’s greatest weakness is his inability to concentrate and perform under pressure. Both of these details serve as pointed foreshadowing that will be highly relevant to the climactic scene of the novel. Because Eddie’s narration explains that he typically has great aim, this passage indicates that The Power of Confidence—or the pointed lack of it—will make all the difference for Eddie in any high-stakes situation. His attitude also explains his later confidence in his ability to enter the Finkle contest and make the shot to win $1 million. Together, these aspects of Eddie’s personality and skills indicate that he is both emotional and talented.

Eddie’s nickname of “Air Ball” is a play on an actual basketball term that describes a situation in which a shot completely misses the net and backboard. The use of it in this scene foreshadows the name of the company that Eddie will eventually create with his contest winnings at the end of the novel—The Air Ball Company. This early detail also foreshadows the success that the company will bring to his and Annie’s families. However, at this early point in the narrative, the author has associated the phrase with negative connotations, and only by beating the odds and winning the contest will Eddie be able to reclaim this term as a positive phrase that celebrates a new chapter in his family’s life. Thus, by the end of the book, the phrase “air ball” will come to mean that Eddie is able to make the best of what he has and use his talents for the benefit of those he loves.

The Stress of Navigating Change appears in many aspects of Eddie’s life, for before the story even begins, he has endured a substantial amount of upheaval in his family life and friendship connections. For example, Eddie grew up playing basketball with his dad, who died of cancer about a year prior to the beginning of the story. For this reason, Eddie does not just enjoy basketball for its own sake; the sport also serves as a concrete link to his father’s memory, and that memory carries Eddie forward through the tumultuous events of the novel, right up to the moment that he makes the contest shot. Against this backdrop of loss, Eddie must also deal with significant shifts in his own friendships and social life, for his budding connection to Annie causes him to drift away from the friend group that he previously favored. Because he highly values Annie’s friendship, he realizes that the other boys he once spent time with were never truly his friends. By contrast, Annie feels like a true friend from the start, as demonstrated by the bond they form during their first game of HORSE. Their nearly equal skill at basketball foreshadows the fact that they will remain friends and go to New York together when Eddie is later chosen to make the shot at the NBA game. The two children’s fast friendship also indirectly foreshadows the romantic relationship that blossoms between Eddie’s mom and Annie’s dad, although this relationship will become a point of contention for Eddie.

Although the author primarily focuses on the story’s protagonists in these early chapters, he also takes the time to introduce and develop the clear villain of the novel, Mr. Finkle. Many characters have a poor opinion of the Finkle factory and its owner, and this fact foreshadows the fact that Mr. Finkle’s actions will both propel the plot forward and introduce several important points of conflict throughout the novel. The Finkle factory backstory that Eddie provides in Chapter 3 reflects the rags-to-riches story that is advertised on the Finkle packaging, but it is also important to note that there is no concrete evidence of how the company’s trademark snack was actually created. The origin story of the Finkle snack food is therefore the novel’s first example of an effective marketing technique, and the author uses this detail to imply that consumers respond more positively to products that invoke an emotional connection. On a more practical level, the story indicates the way that Mr. Finkle conducts business, for although he works to promote a family-friendly and wholesome brand, he nonetheless treats his employees unfairly, paying them a very low wage to work in unfavorable conditions. Thus, the Finkle backstory and marketing ploy foreshadows Mr. Finkle’s antagonistic role, for he does not care about others and focuses only endeavors that benefit him or his company.