Background:
The informant is my best friend from middle school. He has a twin sister and is older by a couple minutes. He currently works for the California Gas Company and on the side does voice overs for D.J. drops.
Transcript :
Me: So what do you mean by Dime. Are you talking about money?
Informant: Not necessaruly. It can mean different things depending on how it’s used.
Me: Give me some examples.
Informant: Alright so in basketball if you throw a nice ass pass without looking to where the ball is headed that leads to a score you can call that a “dime” instead of an assist.
Me: I see I see. So you can say someone like Chris Paul or Stephen Curry dishes out a ton of dimes
Informant: Exactly.
Me: where did you first hear dime used in basektball terms?
Imformant: I can’t remember exactly but I hear it said a lot while playing and watching games on T.V.
Me: Alright. Well what else can it mean?
Informant: Well if you’re talking about a beautiful girl you can call her a dime which means she is a ten out of ten.
Me: (laughs) That’s interesting. Where’d you pick that up?
Informant: The term is big in Hip-Hop culture. And I would always hear my uncle say it and when I was younger and I would copy everything he did.
Analysis:
I think the use of dime to describe a beautiful girl is clever with a dime being worth ten cents hence the idea ten out of ten. In the context of basketball, it hints to the idea of dropping a dime because people tend to drop change a lot without knowing or seeing. Obviously a player knows when they intend to pass but it has to do with not looking towards the direction the ball is going. It is a way of being finese and slick on the basketball court. Dropping something (a dime) and making it look EASY!