Saturday, New York's Nate Robinson saluted before taking his first free throws. Seems he was proving his identity to a Call of Duty: World at War player he'd faced earlier this week.
Inside Hoops, a comprehensive site covering just about everything in the NBA, reports the item. But there's no video or audio of this. But according to it, announcer Al Trautwig on the Madison Square Garden network said that Robinson's salute before shooting two in the second quarter against the Sixers was to tell a fellow CoD:WaW player that he had been gaming with the 2006 NBA Slam Dunk Champion.
Robinson's talked about his love of video games before. Robinson's also said before that nobody believes him when he tells his opponents/teammates who he is.
"When I tell people I'm Nate Robinson from the Knicks they're like, ‘Yeah, right. Get out of here!' They don't believe me. And I'm like what do I have to do to make you believe me? And I end up naming my whole team, naming their kids, everything."
So the last guy he faced apparently said, prove it, and the two came up with that salute as a way to do it. He hit both free throws, by the way, and led the Knicks with 26 points in the loss at Philadelphia.
Again, no video of this yet. But lots of commenters are saying they heard the same thing, and Robinson's bonafides as a gamer are known. Nice gesture, Nate.
Nate Robinson Plays COD5 on Xbox Live [Inside Hoop, thanks Rob R.]