A fadeaway is a jump shot taken while jumping or leaning backward, away from the defender, creating space for the release at the cost of balance.
The fadeaway trades balance for space. The shooter jumps or drifts backward as the shot goes up, so the ball releases behind the body's original position, beyond the contest of a defender who played the shot perfectly and still cannot reach it. It is a difficult, low margin shot, and the players who master it become unguardable in the specific way record books remember.
Its masters define eras of scoring craft. Michael Jordan's post fadeaway anchored his second three peat, Kobe Bryant rebuilt his late career offence around the same shot, and Dirk Nowitzki's one legged fadeaway, falling away off a single foot at seven feet tall, may be the most unblockable shot ever standardized. Each version turns a defensive win, perfect position, into a made basket anyway.
Coaches historically discouraged the fadeaway as a bailout, and for most players it is one: percentages fall fast as the drift increases. The glossary keeps the term because the exception is the content. Quiz questions about signature shots reach for it constantly, and the correct answer usually hangs on which superstar made a backward falling jumper into a primary weapon.
In use"Pinned on the baseline, he spun and hit the fadeaway over two outstretched hands."