Rosters: Managing the list

This summer, I've been organizing pickup hoops at my university's gym. I'd heard that the pickup scene is usually pretty dead during the summer, so I spent the spring collecting e-mail addresses from the regular players and compiling them into a list. It's been great so far. I've got more than 40 players on the list and we get 15-20 out there every time I send out a basketball alert.

Overall, I like administering the list because I can virtually guarantee that any time I want to play, there will be others to play with. I also like the fact that I have some control over who gets on the list, and more importantly, who is excluded from it. Now don't get me wrong—this isn't some velvet rope thing, and it certainly isn't as exclusive as this basketball list. I invited almost all the regular players at the gym. However, I was also able to subtly exclude a few bad apples by intentionally failing to mention the list when they were around.

But now the list has grown beyond my control. People talk about it during our pickup runs and I am getting quite a few referrals via e-mail and in person. In principle, I have no problem with this, but the existence of the list is so well-known at this point that it can no longer be hidden from those that I wanted to hide it from.

This guy, for example, is one of the biggest doofuses in the gym and I had taken great pains to keep him out of the loop. But the other day I was running in a game and I heard him yell to me from the sideline, "How come I didn't get on the e-mail list?" Others must have been talking about it. I was overcome with two distinct negative emotions. I felt guilty for excluding him and I also felt annoyed that he was acting so entitled about getting on the list. Ultimately I had no choice but to add him and now he's coming almost every time (and acting like a fool).

On the one hand, I feel like a jerk for applying my own standards of play and personality to list membership, even if those standards are fairly lax. Isn't this the sort of anti-democratic elitism that we want to eliminate from our society? Haven't we all felt bad for being excluded from something? On the other hand, some dudes are meatheads and need to stop playing competitive sports with reasonable people. Moreover, I am constrained by my position at the university. If I were a student, I could probably be more of a hardass about restricting inclusion on the list. But as a professor (and the only one who plays pickup ball), I feel a duty to act charitably and promote harmony in the university hoops community.

I feel that this issue reflects a fundamental dilemma in the democratic process. In theory, democracy is a good thing because it is inclusive and fair. But at the same time, democracy is messy and inefficient because all voices demand to be heard. (In this case, all players demand court time.) Even America's founding fathers designed our wacko electoral system to limit the irrational and uninformed influence of the masses. Why shouldn't I be able to limit the influence of mean, unsportsmanlike players?

"Worse than he thinks": Self-image versus ability

I recently wrote about appearance versus ability—specifically, about players who are "better than they look" and those who are "worse than they look." Another important issue, and one that is a source of endless frustration to thinking ballers everywhere, is self-image versus ability. To me, the worst players to run with (aside from the belligerent and insane) are those with drastically inflated self-images. You know these players. They're the ones who think that they're the best on the court, the ones who think they know how the game should be played and how you should be playing it.

There are a lot of things to despise about these types. They often tend to ballhog. They "coach" a lot, telling others what to do and where to go. The construct completely distorted histories of games and their roles in those games, rarely blaming themselves for losses but almost always overstating their contributions to victories. But what I hate most about these players is that there is nothing you can do to make them understand the lunacy of their perceptions. There is no such thing as constructive criticism. In fact, there is no place for criticism at all, unless they are criticizing you. After playing with a worse-than-he-thinks player, one is invariably frustrated. You know, and others know, that worse-than-he-thinks is indeed, worse than he thinks, but there is nothing you can do to make him grasp that. Ignorance might be bliss for him, but certainly not for us.

In my experience, worse-than-they-think players tend to overfocus on their good skills and ignore their weaknesses. Such a player might be a good jumpshooter, and ramble on incessently about this shooting prowess, but never acknowledge that he fails to effectively rebound, defend or pass. When his ballhogging costs his team the game, worse-than-he-thinks will chastise his teammates for failing to hit shots, rebound, defend or pass. Argh.

There is an older guy in my current run that is the epitome of this type. I really don't like him, nor do the other thinking players at the gym. Last night, he was on a very good team and spent a lot of time puffing his chest out and acting like he was the king of the court. The truth was that his teammates were carrying the load and all he was doing was yapping like a miniature dog. When my team played his team, I was forced to guard a strong, highly skilled player. On one play, worse-than-he-thinks set a screen for my man, who hit a long, contested three (I managed to get over, but a little too late, and my man hit a good shot.) Coming back down the court, worse-than-he-thinks sidled up next to me and exclaimed, "THAT WAS A BIG PICK RIGHT THERE," as if he was the one who deserved credit for the shot. I wanted to smack him in the mouth.

Here again, the words of Obama brother-in-law Craig Robinson echo in my mind: "You can tell a lot about a guy by the way he plays basketball. You can tell if a guy is selfish. You can tell if a guy is phony. There's a lot of different ways on the court you can tell that." My view is that the on-court personality issues of worse-than-they-think players seem to be exhibited off the court as well. Whenever I encounter one of these self-absorbed douchebags in real life, they turn out to be, well, self-absorbed douchebags.

Any advice on dealing with these types?

"That guy is better than he looks": Appearance vs. ability

Here's a topic I think about all the time: What factors most affect opinions about players' skills, and by what process do those opinions change? In pickup basketball, there are often unknown players rotating into the playing roster. For purposes of team selection, shot distribution and defensive assignment, other players must evaluate them quickly and make uninformed assessments about their prospective abilities. It's like speed dating.

In my view, the following characteristics carry the most weight in these initial evaluations:

Height: The taller the better.

Fitness/build: Overall, the fitter the better. Moreover, players who have a "basketball build" (lean and athletic) also experience an initial status upgrade.

Age: The age-status curve is shaped like a bell. Players who appear to be in their early 20s to early 30s have the highest status, as they are believed to be mature enough to have absorbed necessary knowledge of the game, but young enough to still run and jump effectively. The very young and the very old have the lowest status.

Race: In general, black players get the most credit. Asian players get the least credit (believe me on this one).

Attire: This is complicated and multifaceted. Length of shorts is key. Tightness of shirt and style of sneaker are also important factors. Players who wear NBA jerseys, or worse, full NBA uniforms, lose credit. Players who wear the jerseys of teams that they appear to have actually played on get a lot of credit.

Language: Players who speak competently about basketball (e.g., "screen and roll," "going left") will get credit. Those who obviously lack hoops vocabulary will lose credit.

Certainly there are others, but these, in my opinion, seem to be the main criteria by which new players are judged. However, what's even more interesting to me is the process by which players rise and fall in status as their actual abilities become known. Specifically, I think that initial status characteristics are integrally related to status mobility. Here, I propose two interrelated hypotheses:

H1. Players who look like they'll be really good, but who turn out to be average or bad, lose status much more quickly than players who look like they'll be bad and actually turn out to be bad (the "worse than he looks" hypothesis).

H2. Players who look like they'll be average or bad, but who turn out to be good, gain status much more quickly than players who look like they'll be good and actually turn out to be good (the "better than he looks" hypothesis).

Evidence for these propositions can be found in almost any pickup game. I feel like players who "look the part" but don't have the skills to match are severely denigrated (e.g., "waste of height"). Conversely, players who look ordinary but who exhibit great skill come to be held in extremely high regard. My favorite example of this was one of my hoops mentors in college. Pete was this tiny Vietnamese guy—literally 5 feet tall—but he was lightning fast, passed like Stockton, and had insane handles and deeeeep range. He would also pick your pocket if you stopped paying attention for any amount of time. Guys were always underestimating him and getting their asses busted. I was guilty of this as well. The first time I guarded him during my freshman year, he got the ball on the perimeter and pump faked. I went up thinking I was going to swat his shit into oblivion, but found myself way up in the air as he ran through my legs and laid the ball in. (Spectators and other players, of course, went crazy.) Then, because I was scared to bite on any more shot fakes, he proceeded to hit about 500 threes in my eye over the course of the night. Over the years, I saw Pete victimize countless suckers like this, and he was considered a legend in our college gym—the prototypical "better than he looks" baller.

Setshot in the Chicago Tribune!

Well, we've finally made the big time. Setshot was interviewed by the Chicago Tribune about the significance of Barack Obama's love of pickup basketball. We are described as a "slightly tongue-in-cheek blog."

The article can be found here.

Careers: A 73 year-old college basketball player!

I've just come across this amazing story about a guy returning to play junior college ball at the age of 73. Previously, Setshot has reported on a 52 year-old college player and a 50 year-old WNBA player, but this guy's story seems patently absurd. Ken Mink last played organized college basketball in 1956. Now a semi-retired journalist, he's somehow made the team at Roane State Community College in Tennessee.

There is video of Mink practicing with the team here and here. While the whole thing seems kinda gimmicky, and it's clear from the video that Mink is not really on the same level as his juco teammates, you've got to admire the guy's moxie. The Roane State coach says he hopes to get Mink some minutes during garbage time in blowouts. Setshot will be eagerly awaiting those YouTube clips.

A fantastic quote from the coach: "Our weakness last year was experience; I think I've taken care of that.''

The best part of the video is near the end, when Mink's teammates ask him to come to a party. The coach discourages it because, he claims, Mink will need to stay in top condition to continue practicing and playing. And then Mink calls his wife to ask if he can go, and she says no. In response, the coach praises Mink's "support system at home." I love that:

a. He is asked to go to the party.
b. He wants to go to the party.
c. His coach does not want him to go to the party.
d. His wife does not want him to go to the party.
e. He apparently needs a "support system" to keep him from making reckless decisions.


**UPDATE 11/4/08: Mink scored 2 points in his first game! Video here.**

Race: Losing anonymity

One strange and unexpected aspect of my new hoops-life here in Denver is that I have lost a significant degree of racial anonymity. Having played in NYC and the SF Bay Area for the last decade, I'd become accustomed to being one of many Asians on the local basketball circuit. Here, however, I am one of only a few, and as a consequence, I'm identified and remembered much more quickly than I'm used to.

I'm not sure if I like it or not. On the one hand, I have been able to more effectively develop a rep in my regular game because people remember me as The Talky Asian Guy Who Plays Ball Here. On the other, I have noticed that defenders are better able to get in tune with my moves. That is, because I am more memorable, they learn my tendencies and tricks a lot faster, which is a pain in the ass for an aging baller who's losing a step.

In certain ways, this reminds me of my playing days as a teenager in upstate New York. Back then, most Asian kids didn't play ball and I was viewed as a comical aberration. In fact, the guys in my local game simply called me "Chino," which was totally racist, but I liked it because it made me feel like I belonged. Even in NYC, when I played on a court with mostly Hispanic guys in the days before Yao Ming and the emergence of global hoops, the other players called me "Ichiro" (as in the baseball player) because he was the only Asian athlete they knew of. I liked that too.

But now I'm old and not looking to be the belle of the ball anymore. I just want to play, have a good time, and work off the three donuts I ate for lunch. Anonymity has become more important to me and yet I've found myself in a place where I can't have it. I'm considering playing in whiteface.

Politics: McCain panders to aging ballers

John McCain's choice of Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running mate has the media clamoring to paint the selection as a political ploy to win over disaffected female voters and appease the Republican party's conservative base.

Setshot knows better. Palin (number 22 in the photo) was actually chosen to draw the politically powerful aging baller community to the GOP in November's election.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama is well known for his love of pickup hoops, even at his advanced age (47). YouTube is filled with clips of Obama balling on the campaign trail. (Check out this excellent mixtape.) Clearly, Senator Obama has the skills to pay lower the bills.

But what about Governor Palin? Apparently, "Sarah Barracuda" (her high school hoops nickname) played point guard on a state championship squad from Wasilla, Alaska, but there is scant evidence that she plays anymore.

Nice try McCain, but the aging baller community is too savvy for that. Despite our temptation to support a cute former high school basketball star, we're going to stick with our man Barack, who continues to find time to play the game, and has even proposed building a court in the White House.

As always, Senator McCain, the ball doesn't lie.

Careers: Being old and new, part 2

Things are coming together basketball-wise here in Denver. I've found a pretty good Sunday afternoon run and I've also started to play a little at my new school's gym. The games there are good exercise and fairly fun, but they've definitely highlighted the fact that I am significantly older than most players on a college pickup court. Luckily, I look young and can pass for a student-type, but as we have said many times on this blog: it's not how old you look, it's how old you feel.

Yesterday I was at the school gym shooting free throws by myself when what appeared to be the entire women's basketball team rolled in. I wasn't sure what to do, so I asked one of the players if they were practicing. She said that they were just playing pickup and that I was welcome to join in. I ran with them for a couple of games, but pretty much stayed out of the way and kept quiet. The players were really nice, but I felt like I was intruding and I absolutely did not want to be the doofus who tried too hard to impress all the ladies. After a while, some regular joes—mostly college-aged—started to play on the next court over. I told the women I was chatting with on the sidelines that I was going to "go play with the civilians" and one of them replied "yes, you should." Very subtle.

Eventually, the civilian game got enough players for full court and we started to run. It was a decent game and I was one of the better players on the court, so feeling outclassed or out of place were not issues. But during (and between) games I noticed that the other players seemed to be taking the outcomes very seriously—often criticizing teammates for defensive lapses and poor shot selection. Losing players seemed to be genuinely upset as they sat and waited for next game.

Now that I'm an older player, it's easy for me to forget how important everything seems to younger guys, and how, so often, basketball outcomes stand in for their larger senses of self worth. I've played so much pickup ball in my life that every outcome—from the most devastating loss to the most unlikely victory—has happened to me a million times. Don't get me wrong, I'm competitive and I always play to win, but the disappointment of getting smushed on the court does not linger emotionally for me any more. I know that there will always be another game, and that all wins and losses eventually fade into obscurity. To me, what matters the most is one's reputation as a competitor and a sportsman.

After games, I would go and shake hands with every person on the other team, telling them that they played well (whether they had or not) and that the game was a lot of fun (whether it was or not). Many of the young guys actually seemed surprised by this—like you're not supposed to commiserate with the enemy or something, and that "fun" is not really what pickup ball is about. It reminded me of how much my perspective on recreational hoops has changed over the years, and that for younger guys, victory and personal performance seem far more important than camaraderie and sportsmanship.

So while I will continue to play at the school gym because it is close and convenient, I'd like to find a group of older players to run with. I may look young, but man, I feel old.

Careers: Being old and new

I've just moved to Denver from the Bay Area. In a lot of ways, the move is great: great new job, great new apartment, great new city. What's not great is that I have to find new places to play basketball. I've moved a lot in my life, and each time, I've had to find good pickup games in unfamiliar places. It's always tough, and even tougher now that I'm old and crabby. As a younger guy, I'd play in any game I could find, but now I'm much more picky about quality of play, and more importantly, level of sportsmanship. Plus, I have to reestablish myself in new socio-hoops environments, which can be stressful.

I've been in Denver about two weeks now and I still haven't found a decent game. One reason for this is that it's incredibly hot—like record-breakingly hot—so no one is playing outdoors.

Yesterday I went to a rec center near my apartment and found a few guys shooting around. We all shot for a while and then made an awkward transition to two-on-two. The game was pretty good. My teammate, incredibly, had played basketball for my alma mater. He was a terrific player with a deadeye jumper and seriously polished moves around the rim. Our opponents were also quality players. One was a high-school kid who claimed that he almost broke the state record for three-pointers. I'm not sure I believe that, but he was indeed a very good shooter.

We won a couple of games—mostly because my teammate was unstoppable. I played pretty well, repeatedly posting the high school kid up and tossing in various old man shots (he hated it and was despondent about being "shitted on"), but after two games I was done. The altitude just destroyed me! Each game was to fifteen, and by eight I was begging for the end. By fifteen I was clutching my shorts, gasping and unable to speak. I should have expected this, as I've routinely been running out of breath while performing strenuous tasks like climbing stairs, walking to the store, and petting my cat.

So now I'm facing a sorta-Catch-22. I want to find some full court games to play in, but I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up because of my sea-level conditioning. However, the only way I'll get into mile-high shape is to play in said full court games. And the whole dilemma is irrelevant if I can't find any games to actually play in.

I'll keep you posted on the Denver Old Man Pickup Hoops Scene, and if anybody out there knows of good runs in the 303/720, please let me know.

Women's basketball star returns to action—at 50!

Our friend and fellow aging baller Ali directed us to this story about women's basketball legend Nancy Lieberman being signed to a seven-day contract with the WNBA's Detroit Shock. Lieberman—who has already been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (in 1996!)—returns to play at the ripe old age of 50. In her "first" game with Detroit, Lieberman recorded zero points, two assists and two turnovers in nine minutes of action.

Wow! While Setshot has previously drooled over expressed admiration for Iowa's "Granny Basketball League," Lieberman has taken old lady hoops to the next level. Whether you care about women's basketball or not, this story is an inspiration.

Tips: Kareem 's advice to players over 40

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes a cool blog for the LA Times that reports "the insights of the NBA's all-time leading scorer."

Recently, I was directed to this entry, in which he gives some solid advice to ballers over-40 who want to keep runnin' with the young-uns. In so doing, Abdul-Jabbar touches on issues that have become Setshot staples: lack of respect, diminishing abilities, and increased injury risk, to cite a few. I'd recommend reading his post, which is pretty brief, but if you need further brevity, here's a summary of Kareem's advice:

1. Lift weights.
2. Stay in shape and keep your cardio conditioning up.
3. Specialize more in your play.

By the way, that's a vintage photo of Kareem giving me basketball advice in the 1970s. He was demonstrating a technique called "Kermit Washington style."

Relationships: The poisonous player

Have you ever played in a game in which there was one person who just ruined it for everyone else? In my favorite weekly pickup game, there is a guy who comes semi-regularly and poisons the whole atmosphere. Old School and Hops both play in this game, and they will agree that this guy (I'll call him "the Idiot") is a serious problem.

The Idiot is actually a good player. He is in great shape, works hard on both ends of the floor, and has a versatile game. Unfortunately, he is also psycho-competitive and talks constant trash. Now, I'm not opposed to a little trash talk, but the Idiot takes it way too far. His banter is not at all playful and he invariably upsets someone to the point of fighting (usually verbal, but it has escalated beyond that). He also likes to denounce his opponent after his team wins—in my opinion, a form of unbelievably poor sportsmanship. I'm the type of guy that normally recoils from conflict, but a couple months ago I got into a screaming fight with the Idiot because he was being such a jerk to one of my teammates that I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. In fact, the Idiot pretty much gets into a fight with one or more players every single time he plays. (If you're wondering if I'm doing any racial coding here, it should be noted that the Idiot is white.)

I think that the crux of the problem is that the Idiot's style is totally out of sync with the culture of the game. His never-ending belligerence shuts everyone down emotionally and saps all the fun out of playing. I've played in games where this kind of behavior would be slightly more appropriate, but the game I'm talking about is a "nice guys" game. The same people come out every week. We all know each other and for the most part, genuinely like each other. The games are very competitive, but the governing code of the court is to be considerate, friendly, and a good sport in both victory and defeat. Trash talking is kept to a minimum, and when it's done, it's without malice. That's why the Idiot stands out so much. His poisonous attitude is just a total wrench in the works. Last week, to the shock of many, one of the nicest players in the game lost his temper and yelled at the Idiot: "This game is normally so much fun—except when you're here!" The rest of us were thinking the exact same thing.

The basketball court is one of the few venues in polite society where strangers can come together and compete in a casual way. Everyone has a right to show up and play, but when games develop a regular cast, as ours has, there is a tendency to want to exert control over the playing roster. However, there is no easy way to exclude someone like the Idiot from participating. We hoop in a public park and abide by the rule that if you show up and call next, you play next.

So Setshotters, what can we do? Is there any way to discourage him from playing? And when he does show up, how can we minimize the effects of his poisonous personality?

Strategy: Psychological tactics for aging ballers

As I've gotten older and more injured, my game has evolved to compensate for reduced mobility and ever-slowing reaction times. Previous Setshot posts have discussed scouting, ball tricks and other strategies for remaining effective as an aging baller, but lately I've been thinking about different psychological ploys that can be used to deceive, demoralize or intimidate opponents. As a smaller player, I've always utilized these approaches to an extent, but in recent years I've had to rely on them even more, and I've found a few that work very well for me.

I think of many of these psychological strategies as "precedent setting." That is, they are things that I do early in games to establish a pattern that my opponent believes will continue. Later in games I may abandon them, especially if they have already accomplished the desired result.

For example:

1. I run harder when I sense my man is winded. Early on in games, especially the first game of the day, I often run out of air, only to regain it when my lungs adjust and I get a second wind. When I think my opponent is on his "first wind," I make it a point to run my ass off for a few plays, even if it kills me. I also do a lot of curling around screens because my man will have to expend energy to get over and catch me. The payoff can be great, as players will make defensive adjustments to my sprinting—such as giving me more space and switching more often on screens. I won't (can't) run this hard for the whole game, but my defender doesn't necessarily know that. One of the most common things I hear opponents say about me to their teammates is "he runs a lot." This is sort of true, but it's partially due to advertising.

2. Early in games, I box out hard on every play if my man is bigger than me. I don't want to deal with bigger opponents in the paint. I'd rather compete on the perimeter, where I'm more likely to have an advantage. So what I do is set a precedent by boxing out aggressively at the start of games. Again, I won't necessarily do this for the whole game, but I find that most pickup players don't really like to deal with this level of effort, and at the end of games, I almost always find myself guarding on the perimeter, no matter how big my man is.

3. I talk to imaginary teammates. What I'll do is call for a screen that isn't really there, pointing to a spot on the floor and yelling "Screen! Screen here!" to the empty air. To make it even more convincing, I open my eyes as wide as I can and nod, just like I would if I were really asking for a screen. If I sense that my defender has shifted in anticipation of the screen, I'll drive the other way, having been given a few extra inches of space. A similar trick is to yell "Post up!" to an imaginary teammate (or even a real one), hoping that my defender will drop off to guard the entry pass and give me space for a jumper. I did this last week, sticking a 15-footer as my young opponent fell back to double our center. As we were running back up court, my defender rolled his eyes, extended both his middle fingers and screamed "Yo f*ck you Jeff!" I loved it.

4. If my defender is watching me instead of the ball, I follow a nonexistent shot with my eyes. Try it. Just make your eyes and head do a parabola—like you're watching a jumper in flight—and see how often your defender will turn to look for it. (Make sure no one is dribbling at the time. The sound gives the trick away.) It's a great opportunity to run away from your man, and after you do it a couple of times, he'll start to get confused about when your eyes are lying and when they're telling the truth. He may even lose out on rebounds because he'll keep looking at you when a shot is actually in the air. More importantly, it will annoy him.

A related tactic I use is looking at the floor and acting nonchalant when a long pass is coming to me. My defender will be relaxed because it doesn't seem like anything is going on, but I'll suddenly wind up with the ball in my hands, racing towards the basket. I learned this one from John McPhee's book, A Sense of Where You Are, about Bill Bradley's playing days at Princeton. Bradley was reported to have outrageous peripheral vision (he could look at the floor and see the ceiling), and he did these kinds of tricks all the time.

5. I pass early and shoot late. Early in games, I try to play "true point," focusing on ball distribution and offensive flow. I'll be aggressive, but I'll mainly drive with the intention of dishing. On the perimeter, I'll mostly look to reverse the ball to the weak side, trying to make the defense to rotate and adjust. What I want to do here is make the defense forget about me as a shooting threat. Later in the game, however, I'll ramp up my shooting because I'm usually getting more space from my defender. I have a fetish for taking shots with the game on the line, and I think that this strategy gets me better looks during crunch time.

Setshotters, if you'd like, share your own psycho-tactics below.

Seriously, Barack Obama is a baller

Last year, Setshot endorsed Barack Obama for President based on reports about his lifelong love of basketball. By all accounts, he continues to play and so, like each of us, he is an aging baller. Now, as if speaking directly to the Setshot community, he has promised to build a basketball court in the White House if he is elected.

Can he be President, like, now?

What's more, he wants to build his court over a bowling alley that Nixon commissioned. Out with the exclusionary, imperialist Alley of Shame and in with the Obama Hardwood of Racial Harmony!

Setshotters, here's the real question: How are we going to finagle ourselves a pickup game on President Obama's court? Could it be as easy as showing up and calling next?

*Update: Great footage from HBO showing Obama playing pickup ball. He looks pretty good, but clearly can't go right at all. Thanks to our friend Sully for the link. And another clip from friend and Jazz fanatic Matt. Sweet passing!

A news article about the Obama Court is reprinted below.

Basketball court in White House future?
By Bob Kravitz [Indianapolis Star, April 1, 2008]

Many years ago, President Richard Nixon had a small bowling alley built in the White House.

If Sen. Barack Obama is elected president, he will replace the bowling alley with something more suitable to his tastes: a basketball court.

"There's not only a chance (that he'll have one built), but it's a guarantee," Obama said Monday on WFNI 1070 The Fan.

When it comes to basketball, Obama knows his stuff. During a 10-minute conversation, he talked about his NCAA bracket -- well, what's left of it. He talked about his days as a high school player in Hawaii, where his team won the 1979 state championship. He brought up Eric Gordon, saying "he could use some guidance." And he talked about becoming the Baller In Charge, saying he would have a basketball court constructed inside the White House.

"I tried bowling (Sunday) in Pennsylvania and threw two gutter balls," Obama said. "So we'll have a basketball court, at least a decent half court."

As a high schooler, Obama wore No. 23. "I was No. 23 before Michael Jordan was 23," he said with a laugh.

He described himself as "a slasher, a three, maybe a poor man's Scottie Pippen or Tayshaun Prince -- a guy like that without as much talent.''

Psychology: Scouting in pickup games

The other day I was waiting for next game at the gym, talking to a teammate-to-be about this teenage kid that was playing and that I would have to guard. The kid was fast and had some good moves, but he didn't seem to be able to shoot from the outside, so we decided that I should go underneath every screen and dare him to put it up. When we came on, I went with the scouting report and cut under every pick, letting the kid have any three he wanted. It worked. He had been the leading scorer in the previous game, but we held him to one basket.

I really enjoy scouting other players in pickup games, but I feel sort of alone in this. Not only do I find it hard to get others to talk about player tendencies and good counter-strategies, but many people look at me like I'm a nutcase when I start developing scouting profiles of opponents. And it's not like I'm doing Sabermetrics or anything out there, I'm just saying stuff like:

"He can't shoot with his off hand. Force him left."
"He's really out of shape, so you should run."
"He always spins to the middle."
"He won't shoot from beyond 12 feet."
"Watch his hips. That's where he's going."

Sometimes I engage in more psychologically-oriented scouting, like:

"He's mentally fragile. If you show some toughness in the post, he'll shut down and stop playing hard."
"His ego is bigger than his game. Let him shoot and freeze his teammates out."

I love this stuff because it takes the game beyond the physical aspects of play and introduces interesting strategic and psychological considerations that can be exploited. But again, it's hard to find players who are willing to have these discussions with me. Don't get me wrong, other players are usually gracious and they listen to me ramble, but no one ever seems as enthused as me about this facet of the game.

Why not?

I think that part of it is laziness. Many people just come for recreation and exercise, so they don't feel that they have to engage the game at this level--fair enough. Some other players just don't possess enough basketball knowledge to have these discussions. But I think that there are some, particularly alpha male types, who think that the game is really truly about physical dominance, and that if you can't beat the other guy with your game, you don't deserve to win. Thus, there is no need to talk about the strategic stuff. Just get out there, bust your man's ass and walk off like a stud.

Or maybe I'm just going about it wrong. Maybe I have to introduce scouting insights more gently and not seem like I'm taking the game so seriously. Whatever it is, I'm not going to stop scouting at the gym. Not only do I believe it to be effective, but it's really a lot of fun for me.

The Midrange Game

Analysts have long lamented the wilting of the midrange game, and here's some pretty definitive proof. The chart shows data from 340,000 shots over the past 5 years of college basketball. Things might look a bit different if Joe Forte's 1,055 career attempts had been included...

Junior Varsity

Junior Varsity...like Proust's madeleine, the words bring back memories. Mostly bad memories. Like having to guard Harry Beresford, who: a) was a varsity lineman on the football team; b) was determined to put the ball in the hoop without regard for maintaining an appropriate distance between one's elbow (or armpit) and the defender's face; and c) would sweat profusely (and malodorously). Or having to maintain a squat position while holding bricks above my head. But these are trivialities, with little consequence for my subsequent basketball career.

A lot of things happened between 1988 and 1989. Regan became an Ex-President. The Berlin Wall fell. Jack Nicholson terrorized us as the first artist to work in the medium of homicide. The world was introduced to the musical genius of Milli Vanilli, with the release of "Blame It On The Rain." Things were clearly changing for the better.

Yet basketball shorts lagged tragically behind the times, with dire consequences for my basketball career. During the 1988-1989 school year, I, due to a lifetime of maternal oppression in the realms of candy, sugar cereals, and miscellaneous junk food, made a habit of saving my lunch money and using it to purchase a Hostess apple pie (480 calories, 22 grams fat), a package of ding dongs (368 calories, 19 grams fat), and a box of Gobstoppers (400 calories). Instead of the corndog.

So, naturally or unnaturally, my thighs became Clintonesque. And, proud as I was to have made the JV squad (it should go without saying that this was based on my height alone), I was mortified about the prospect of my pasty, broad thighs being appraised by a female audience. I found that the best way to avoid exposure was to maintain a more or less seated position. My coach was happy to oblige me in this regard.

When the exigencies of the game (or, more likely, a democratic impulse) demanded my participation, I was forever tugging at my shorts instead of keeping my hands up on defense. I picked up a lot of offensive fouls and led the team (perhaps the league) in three second violations (to go along with my 0.5 ppg). All because of my shorts.

Eventually, I left the team, never to return to organized basketball. But then! Later that year, the hemline on the Fighting Illini final four uniforms made a noticeable advance toward the knee. There were subsequent (cough! Dook cough!) retreats waistward, but this territorial acquisition was finally solidified by Michigan's Fab 5 two years later.

Sadly, it was too late for me. I was the basketball version of the East Berliner who was caught attempting to escape days before the wall came down.

On the other hand, these guys are certain to come away with better memories of their JV experience.

But then, they don't have to wear nuthuggers, do they?


*Still, things might have been worse if the Edmonds Tigers had gone with what NC State was wearing at the time.

Girls ain't nothing but trouble, part 2

One of our first posts was about the effect of girlfriends and wives on (male) player performance. The Setshot community felt that, in general, the presence of female spectators caused guys to try too hard and impress too much--to the detriment of their overall play.

Lately I've had another girl problem. There's a 17 year-old girl who plays in one of my regular pick-up games and SHE IS A BALLER. She's only about 5'5" and maybe 110 pounds, but she is fast like the wind and never runs out of gas on the court. She literally goes full speed on every single possession. She's also got a sweet jumper that she does not hesitate to stick. I'm guessing that she is a star on her high school team but I've never actually asked. Now don't get me wrong, she's not better than me, but I'm twice her age, bigger and stronger, and have been playing ball for 20 years. While she's not a dominant player, she's smart and hardworking, so she gets her share of open looks and invariably drops a few points in every game.

Guys who play with talented women will be familiar with my dilemma. And as one of the quicker, smaller guards in the game, I am often called on to check her. In principle, I don't mind this, as she's a good player and I respect her game. She is not the problem. The other guys in the gym are the problem. If she scores or makes a nice play, a chorus of ignoramuses will let loose with something along the lines of "Oooooooh, she DID you. Ooooooooooh." And if I actually step up, play defense and steal the ball or block her shot, I get this: "You're a bully." Of course, when it's time to match up, none of those guys want to guard her. I think they rightly see the situation as no-win and act accordingly.

Anyone else recognize this Catch-22? It bothers the hell out of me. I mean, a good player is a good player, right? The girl I'm talking about is better than many of the male players in the gym, but if one of the less-talented male players schools me, it's not an issue. If the girl scores on me though, dudes act like my penis just fell off.

In my experience, this problem goes away after a talented female player becomes a regular in the game and the regular male players begin to ignore gender and focus on ability. It definitely helps if the talented woman has humiliated multiple male regulars, as this normalizes the general impression of her skill level. In other words, she becomes one of the guys. One of the best pick-up players at NYU was the star of the women's basketball team, a fantastic scoring forward who went on to play professionally in Europe. She was the quintessential normalized female pick-up player because she was so talented that no one could really be blamed when she did something great (which was often). But even in this case, where pretty much everyone knew about her killer game, I would often hear some snickering from the peanut gallery when she scored.

What's up with this?

This one cracks me up every time I see it

Team Unglaublich

From Sportsvite comes the documentary, "Intramural Glory" about Team Unglaublich ("simply the best" in German), "The Greatest Intramural Basketball Team of All-Time".

Better balling through chemistry: Glucosamine

I sometimes write about my frail-as-Kucinich ankles on this blog. Since a series of terrible injuries in my mid-20s, they've been really brittle and I've had to wear ankle braces to play. Earlier this year, I tore my achilles tendon, so things have been getting even messier down there.

A while back, a colleague of mine suggested taking glucosamine supplements. He also has brittle ankles and claimed that glucosamine had strengthened his joints and allowed him a greater range of athletic options. My mom also takes glucosamine for her arthritis and she swears by it.

So I decided to try it out and I have been taking two glucosamine pills every day for the past few months. I think it's working! My ankles have been feeling stronger and they don't "roll" as far as they used to. Unfortunately, age and lack of fitness have been taking their toll on my game and I'm still definitely on the decline, but my ankles are not getting as sore after games and I feel significantly more stable when I run and, um, "jump."

While it's a little weird to be discussing osteo-improvement with my mom, I'm really grateful that these little pills seem to be helping me prolong my playing days.

Setshotters, what are you taking to stay young(ish)? What about these steroids that everyone's always talking about? Can they help me?

What to do when injured: Homework!

I went on the DL in March with a torn achilles and since then, I've been looking for things to do to satisfy my hoops addiction. In a previous post, Cary suggested video games, and I've definitely had a little fun playing NBA2K7 on my rickety old Playstation2. I also spent a lot of time watching the NCAA tournament and the NBA playoffs.

Recently I read Mark Kriegel's biography of Pete Maravich, which was enjoyable to me in the same way that Us magazine is enjoyable to my wife. But the book discusses a series of instructional videos that Maravich made in the early 1980s called "Homework Basketball." I'd never heard of these before, so I decided to check youtube, which seems to have uploaded every video ever made by anyone.

What a revelation! Maravich is a great teacher of the game, which is not surprising considering his father's coaching prowess. (And he refers to his dad constantly in the clips.) The younger Maravich explains ideas clearly, and in describing various drills, rarely fails to note one or two little tricks that can dramatically improve performance. (Example: When throwing a behind-the-back pass, make sure your palm is "floppy" and pointing upwards.) With my busted wheel, I couldn't do a lot of the drills, but there were a number I could practice even while sitting on my couch in a cast, like:

This one on ball handling.

This one on shooting form.

I've actually adjusted the way I shoot based on one of the videos, rotating my hand clockwise about 10 degrees so my index finger sits in the center of the ball. (I've always shot with my middle finger in the center.) Wow. I thought I was too old to adjust my mechanics, but this minor change has really helped a lot. I've been going to the park and doing light shooting drills lately, and the Maravich method is definitely a lot more natural and smooth than my old way of shooting.

The funny thing is that the Homework Basketball videos were clearly made for kids learning to play ball, but I think that they can be useful for anyone who wants to get better. The youtube clips are all pretty short, but I learned something from every single one.

Do your homework!

Psychology: What does your game say about you as a person?

My last post was about a New York Times story describing Barack Obama's love of pickup basketball. The Times website also put up a great video interview with Craig Robinson, who is Obama's brother-in-law and coach of the Brown University men's basketball team. Robinson recalls how his sister Michelle, in considering Obama for husbandry, asked him to take Barack out to play basketball. Why? To find out what kind of person Obama really was.

Telling this story, Robinson reiterates a truth that almost all pickup ballers are aware of: "You can tell a lot about a guy by the way he plays basketball. You can tell if a guy is selfish. You can tell if a guy is phony. There's a lot of different ways on the court you can tell that."

Unsuprisingly, Robinson describes Obama as being humble, team-oriented and willing to admit mistakes, as evidenced by a readiness to call fouls on himself. (We'll see what the bro-in-law has to say after the campaign.)

Robinson's words really resonate with me. I feel that this principle is proven again and again on the asphalt and the hardwood. People who are jerks in real life act like jerks on the court (like this guy). People who are nice in real life are nice on the court. Self-centered people tend to ballhog, as they have trouble visualizing the game from other players' perspectives. The best point guards, I've found, are typically gregarious and thoughtful. And who plays dirty except people that live their lives dirty?

Of course, there are always exceptions. A guy that used to play regularly at the NYU gym was one of the most bitchy, complainy dudes I'd ever encountered, but when you saw him around campus, he was sweet as pie. Never could figure that one out.

But I'll stick to the position that there is an extremely high correlation between hoops personality and real-life personality. Anyone else want to weigh in on this?

Barack Obama is a baller

Today's New York Times has a story about Barack Obama's lifelong relationship with basketball. Not only is he a dedicated pickup basketball player, it also sounds like he's got some game:

"Before Rickey Green, a former NBA all-star, played with Mr. Obama in a 2004 Senate campaign fund-raiser, 'I didn’t think he could play at all, to be honest with you,' Mr. Green said. But 'he’s above average,' for a pickup player, Mr. Green said. 'He’s got a nice little left-hand shot and some knowledge of the game.' ”

He also has a penchant for talking trash:

“ 'If he would hit a couple buckets, he would let you know about it,' said Alexi Giannoulias, who played in the late 1990s with Mr. Obama at the East Bank Club, a luxurious spot in downtown Chicago."

Friends say that Obama doesn't have much time for the game these days, but they, uh, have a dream:

"The solution, Mr. Obama’s friends say, is for him to win the presidency, so they can all play together at the White House. 'I always tease him about that,' Mr. Nesbitt said. 'If you win, you gotta have a hoop.' "

Well, that cinches it. Setshot officially endorses Barack Obama for president.


**UPDATE**

Here's some old footage of Obama playing ball on his high school team. Not bad!

And here he is draining a three in shirtsleeves while on the campaign trail. <Swoon>

The Reckoning, or How My Body Betrayed Me

On March 2nd, I tore my achilles tendon playing ball. Short story shorter: loose ball, jump, land, POP. I was in the emergency room within an hour, where it took them about ten seconds to tell me that yep, I'd torn it. (The doctor-types call it a "rupture," which makes it sound like my leg had an earthquake.)

This is the worst injury I've ever had. I was in surgery six days after the injury, spent about four weeks in a cast and on crutches, and am now in the midst of a long recovery period. I won't run again until June, and can't play basketball until August-ish. When I tell people what happened to me, their initial reaction is typically something like, "Ouch. That must have really hurt." Well yeah, it did really hurt, but to be honest, the physical pain of the injury was much less severe than most ankle sprains. The psychological pain of it, both during and after, was the bigger issue for me.

More after the jump...

I knew what happened as soon as I felt the pop. When I grabbed my achilles, it felt like jelly. When I tried to stand up, it felt like I had a heel lift in my shoe--or like I was standing on tippy-toes. That messed me up. It's terrible to be fully aware of a such a serious bodily malfunction. I mean, one second I'm running and jumping, and the next I'm sitting on the floor, broken.

The period following surgery was really hard. Being on crutches sucks in so many ways. I had to think about everywhere I was going. Did I really need that banana from the kitchen? In addition, being on crutches makes it impossible to carry anything. If I needed a book from the study, I had to strap on my backpack, crutch to the study, put the book in the backpack, and crutch back to wherever I was. And don't even get me started about going up and down stairs.

Now, as I recover and can imagine a day when I'll play ball again, I'm having to seriously contemplate my future relationship with the game. I'm 32 right now, and my skills were already in decline before the injury, but this basically pushes me off the cliff of suckitude.

If you know me, you know that I am addicted to basketball and I regularly need to do hoops-related stuff to stay sane. I was able to start shooting free throws and do some non-mobile dribbling drills this past weekend, which felt great, like getting together with an old friend. The big question is of course: How good can I ever be again? The initial evidence has been unsettling. At the court this weekend, I played HORSE with a sorta-developmentally disabled kid. He beat me one game out of three.

An old lady basketball league: HOT!

A recent story in the New York Times describes a "Granny Basketball League" that has been organized in Iowa. They play old-school rules: 6 on 6, no running or jumping, no physical contact, and a two dribble limit per possession. It seems like the participation requirements are pretty loose. Says a spokeswoman: “You don’t have to be a grandmother to play. You just have to be old.”

I'm having fantasies right now that are a cross between "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Juwanna Man."

The GBL players all wear blouses, bloomers and striped socks, and the funniest league rule is that the refs call "flesh fouls" if a player reveals any part of her upper arm or upper leg. I'm all for the old school rules, but please let these fine honeys flash some skin! (XGBL anyone?)

You may be aware of my attraction to female ballers. At the present moment, I tend to be attracted to, uh, younger players. But that doesn't mean that someday I won't want to get down with that grandma with the sweet sweet crossover. Please ma'am, break my ankles.

Fantasies: Could you score on an NBA player on your home court?

The most popular Setshot post of all time considered the question above. A second post provided a quasi-empirical test. Now for another stab. I had always imagined my faceoff with Paul Shirley on some NBA court--say the Garden. The lights would be dimmed in the house, other players would be shooting around after practice, and I'd be shitting bricks about just stepping on to such hallowed hardwood.

But I recently came across some photos of Steve Nash playing pickup with some regular joes in Tribeca (also see the story referencing this and accompanied by some cheesy boudoir photos of Nash).

Eureka! What if Shirley came to my court? Surely, this would give me an edge of some sort? I could force him to dribble over that annoying crack in the pavement or choose the backboard that tilts at a 75 degree angle.

Are you with me?

NBA: Your fave all time starting five

So, if all of you setshotters had to pick a starting five that you would love to watch play for an afternoon, (assuming all players are in the prime of their career), who would be on it? I would have to go with the following:

PG Muggsy Bogues
SG Earl Boykins
SF Michael Cooper (for the socks and the D)
PF Charles Barkley circa his days with the Sixers
C Manute Bol

Not much else to this post, but it'll be interesting to see who people come up with.

Psychology: cheap tricks in pickup games

Admittedly or not, each of us has some cheap tricks on the basketball court. A week ago I ran in a full court game where I had the misfortune of playing against this guy--more than likely some kind of triathlete--whose game was basically predicated on sprinting down the court after every made basket before the defense could get back, and cherry picking easy layups all evening. It was kind of legit, but pretty annoying all in all. Since the guy on my team assigned to guard him basically took the night off on D, I was left with the unenviable task of running wind sprints all night to prevent this.

As we advance in age, we need to make up for our lack of athleticism by doing whatever possible to get an edge. Jeff has devised an unstoppable move of simply turning around and around again until you finally bite on a head fake that allows him to shoot an easy layup. I like to grab jerseys and throw some 'bows every so often after grabbing rebounds, and sometimes my forearms do the talking when I get beat to the spot. So I ask fellow setshotters: What are the best (or worst) cheap gimmick moves you've seen people use to fight off the effects of diminishing athletic skills?

NBA: Save the Knickerbockers

Man, what's going on with the Knicks? It was only a few years ago that they were an intimidating defensive stalwart holding opponents to low scores and thugging their way to the top of the Atlantic Division. Last night their new vaunted backcourt of Marbury and Stevie Franchise gave up 46 points to Gilbert Arenas....in 3 quarters! Although I've never been a huge Knicks fan, I do pine for the days when they were a force in the east, and their rivalries with Miami and Indiana made the NBA fun to watch. That organization is a mess, and most people are pointing fingers at Isiah Thomas and the Knicks top brass. My question to my fellow Setshotters is if you were the GM of the Knicks, how would you start to clean up the mess...

...given that many of the squads draft picks have been mortgaged away, and high-rent, long-term contracts for players like Jerome James are keeping you at the salary cap limit. To make matters worse, New York fans and media are too impatient to rebuild, thus perpetuating the cycle of trading away your future players for overpriced aging talent. Where do you begin? And I wonder if somehow we can get Woody or Soon Yi to chime in on this one? Should the Knicks turn to the IMF for help?

NBA: New Ideas for All-Star Week

Let's face it. NBA All-Star weekend has gotten pretty boring. That skills thing is silly, and the dunk contest has basically become an excuse to show candid shots of P-Diddy, AI, and Dirk clowning around for an hour with Eva Longoria looking impressed on the sideline. It seems like it's time to gets some new, creative events out there for All-Star weekend.

Jeff suggested the excellent idea of a game of horse between NBA stars, although in his typical modesty he attributed the idea to someone else. I think maybe a 2-on-2 game featuring teammates might be fun to watch. I would like to see what our readers think would be some good new events to liven things up...

Careers: Playing for peace

UConn hoops fanatic and friend of Setshot Suzanne referred us to this organization. "Playing for Peace" is a non-profit agency that bridges social divides, develops future leaders, and educates kids through basketball. Their modus operandi appears to be getting kids from opposing social and political groups to play ball together: white kids and black kids in South Africa, Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, Israelis and Palestinians in the Middle East.

It looks like they're getting some good publicity. Steve Kerr is an advocate, and the Dalai Lama (pictured) is reported to have been breaking ankles and backboards at a recent exhibition, earning the streetball nicknames "Monky Business" and "Transcendental Conflagration." (Ok, I made those up.)

Playing for Peace has a bunch of interesting-looking job opportunities at its various sites. It could be a good way for the aging baller to prolong his involvement in the game while doing good in the world.

Psychology: Your greatest hoops moments

After several months of being on the shelf with plantar fascitis, I finally played some three on three pickup ball at USF's Koret Center. I don't know what happened. My team won several games in a row, despite our obvious physical shortcomings--both my teammates were well over 50, all of us were balding, and two of us were under 5'8. The guy guarding me, a bratty looking undergrad who saw me hobbling and wasn't taking me seriously at all, started talking smack and challenging me to shoot, which I did...

...I hit about 4 in a row, slicing through the lane like a slow, gimpy Steve Nash, later dishing to open shooters for treys or scoring on dribble penetrations and once on a hop-step move. I even knocked down some treys in the dude's face directly after he had been challenging me. I wanted to shout "whaaaaaaaat!!!!!!" but fortunately reason got the better of me. Maybe it was just the fun of playing for the first time in so long now that every game might be my last, but it was one my greatest pickup hoops moments of all time.

I now ask the good members of Setshot a simple question: What are some of your greatest moments playing pickup ball?

Video games: What to do when injured

The last several months I've been on the DL from playing basketball due to plantar's fascitis. Unfortunately the only way to get my hoops fix has been from offering up lousy trades in fantasy sports and more importantly, bball video games. It leads to the natural topic for my fellow setshotters: What are the best hoops video games of all time?

My vote would go to NBA Jams, which cemented the phrase "he's on fire" into NBA lexicon forever as players like Jeff Hornacek and Charles Oakley did 720 dunks after making several shots in a row. Justin and I once had a good season of NBA 2K3 where I was inexplicably able to score 23 a game with Celtics reserve Eric Williams. Double Dribble was the best game for the Nintendo, even though there were certain spots on the floor where players would shoot 100% from 3-point land.

There's a couple of games that were fantastic in their day that get slept on: Arch Rivals, the original Atari video game that featured two stick figures walking back and forth and shooting on a two dimensional straight line representing the "hoop", and of course the classic Jordan vs. Bird, where an irate Janitor would come clean the floor and admonish MJ or Larry after shattering the backboard with a ferocious dunk.

Fellow Setshotters, what are your favorite hoops video games, and why?

Race: "Such a natural team leader..."

The other day at the gym I overheard a conversation about lilly-white Duke guard J.J. Redick, where a Caucasian man remarked that "...even though Redick is slow and can't dribble, (blah blah college team) tried everything to stop his 3-point shot, and they even put an athletic black guard on him, nobody could stop him...". After cringing, it brought up a lot of questions in my mind about the language of sports fans and journalism.

Among fans, even among well-meaning fans and commentators who mean no harm, there are a lot of troublesome examples of coded language in sports coverage, especially with the rise of ESPN, 24 hour sports business coverage from white guys in Armani suits, stats sports tickers, and most notably, fantasy sports, where everyday people simulate ownership of sports players and act as a fantasy GM of a sports team managing a fantasy roster of mostly black players.



White players coming into the league are almost invariably compared to Bird, regardless of their game. Yahoo!’s fantasy sports page features "The Big Board"” ranking players from 1-50 based on their statistical performance, mostly African-American players reduced to pure commodities ranked and evaluated somewhat like slaves on an auction block. In some fantasy sports leagues, players are drafted by auction, where owners ‘bid’ for the right to own the statistical production of athletes. When most of these athletes are African-American, is this a modern-day virtual slave auction going on?

In a recent conversation with Jeff, I was particularly critical of Ron Artest, whose recent shenanigans seriously damaged what could have been a very dangerous Indiana Pacers team. Jeff pointed out rightly that out that while Artest's actions breaking team rules by publicly demanding a trade and betraying his team were deplorable, it is common to hear the silent but racist language that insists that African-American athletes like Artest should shut up and be grateful for the huge piece of the pie they are given, even though it pales in comparison to that enormous reserves of almost exclusively Caucasian team owners who profit enormously from the labor of these athletes.

NBA players like Rasheed Wallace and Jermaine O' Neal have made attempts to publicly compare their situation to the situation of very well paid slaves and commodities, and the NBA, led by David Stern, has put the clamps down quickly on the dialogue. The NBA's recent dress code certainly smacks of trying to “whiten up the league" a bit. Phil Jackson, in his book The Last Season also quipped about Wallace that someone being paid $17 million dollars a year to play basketball and stay in four-star hotels has little basis to complain about being treated like a slave.

What are some other examples of racist codes in sports? Are the actions of African-American athletes problematized more than their Caucasian team owners in media? Are fantasy sports lovers unwittingly corroborating in a virtual dialogue revolving around racist notions of ownership? Is the notion of team really deteriorating in sports? Or is that just another code to justify playa hating African-American NBA stars who can do what normal slobs in offices can't?

I welcome the feedback of those wiser than I...

Fashion: Posing for the team photo

The other day somebody ended up at Setshot after searching for "how to pose teams for a team photo". I'm sure they ended up disappointed. So I figured I might as well try to address their question.

After an unscientific image search on Google, I found that the most common pose was the front-facing two-row, though this also had its one-row, three-row, and four-row variants. The single-row could also be performed in profile.




More interesting poses (most from olden times) included "the indian-style" "the circle", "the semi-circle", the "I for Idaho", "the streetclothes", "the lunch line" and "the stairstep".







Finally, John Ibson in "Picturing Men" argues that displays of male affection in team photos have become more taboo over the course of the twentieth century. As examples, he provides "the bicep clutch" and "the pile" from the turn of the century.

Fundamentals: Old-timer basketball camps

One day I asked Jeff if he thought it was possible for somebody my age to improve his game. "Definitely", he said. But I'd hit a plateau. I was playing and shooting regularly, but nothing really changed.

I showed him my one move--catching the ball on the wing then looping around the man guarding the point and down the lane. He showed me a couple of variations on the move including one that involved going to my left. When I confessed I didn't have a very strong left hand (he feigned surprise, but was probably just being polite), he suggested that I dribble with two balls every day.

It sounded like a great idea, but I've never done it. I'm just not the type of person to do drills of my own volition. Which is why adult basketball camps have caught my eye. There are some crazy expensive fantasy ones--including those by Darryl Dawkins, Coach K, Rick Barry, and Michael Jordan ($15,000; see the story in Sports Illustrated), but perhaps, the more promising (and less expensive) one for me is Never Too Late Basketball (see the story in the NY Times). They have ten-week courses in Boston, San Francisco and New York for $175. They also do weekend camps around the country.

Courts: Can you feel the vibe?

Lately, the outdoor basketball scene in Berkeley has been really crappy. Since I'm a total hoops addict, I'll go out searching for a game and basically settle for anything. Which has got me thinking about courts' different vibes.

I went to Live Oak the other night with Pete and the Ivory Tower. We ended up playing three-on-three with a group of Live Oak regulars. There wasn't anyone there who could match the Ivory Tower's height (6'6"), so we won a whole bunch of games in a row. That's not the point. I just wanted it to be noted for the record. The point: Before one of the games, this dude looks right at me and says "Were you talking shit about me?"

I was not.

I say, "Um, no." He says, "Don't be talking shit about me" -- still glaring. Now I'm freaking out. He's there with about ten of his friends, and I am certain that they wouldn't think twice about beating my ass, or at least threatening to, which for me is worse.

So I decided to go and smooth things over. I sat right next to him, looked him straight in the eye and said "I swear to God, we were not saying anything about you. Your boys know me (they did), and they know I just come here to play ball and I don't start any trouble." After the longest second of my life, he goes "Ok man, cool." Needless to say, I was really really relieved.

But what the hell? Why did I have to deal with that? I feel like I'm always having trouble there -- see "A bully made me feel bad." That court has a BAD VIBE. I'm saying it. It's true. Guys play high and drunk. Guys are always griping and posturing, trying to one-up each other. Now this isn't true all the time. I've played in some really fun games there. But too often, something dumb happens and I end up feeling crummy. I was glad that I could defuse the situation with Stop Talking Shit About Me Guy, but it was embarassing to have to go over to him in front of all his friends, including some girls.

Conversely, Pete and I had a really nice run over at Ohlone last night. We played competitive games with friendly guys, and we all talked to one another between games. We didn't bicker about the score and there were barely any fouls called or committed. (Plus, Pete and I went undefeated.) I rarely have a bad time at Ohlone, except when no one is there. There was even one time when I was shooting by myself at 11PM and a cop pulled up beside the court and told me I had to go home. But I didn't mind because he was so nice about it, almost apologetic. Now that's a court with a good vibe!

Am I just too much of a wuss about this? When I bring this stuff up with other pickup players I meet, I often get blank stares in return, or vague uh-huhs. Guys always want to talk about how good the skills are, how tough the run is. I just want to talk about how much fun I had or didn't have and if I liked the other players. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe I'm finally becoming a woman.

Friends of Setshot: Tell me that you think about these things too.

Could you score on an NBA player? A quasi-empirical test

A few months ago I wrote a post wondering whether an ordinary pickup basketball player could score against an NBA player if the pro was playing his absolute hardest. This post generated a fair amount of conversation, with most respondents thinking that they could not score.

Cary and I decided to explore this issue using the latest in basketball simulation technology: NBA2K6 for Playstation 2. We created a character called Joe Setshot -- a 5'8" small forward with knee pads, Stockton shorts and male pattern baldness. Setshot was given the lowest possible rating in every skill category (50), so as to best approximate the abilities of an average player.

Cary and I then conducted a totally unscientific test of the "Could you score?" hypothesis. We made Joe Setshot play one-on-one against three NBA players: Wang ZhiZhi, Paul Shirley, and Kobe Bryant, alternating users in an attempt to control for video gaming skill. Would our man be able to get a bucket? Results after the jump.

The first match was Setshot versus Wang ZhiZhi, whose player rating of 63 is among the lowest in NBA2K6. We played winners' outs. Results, with user in parentheses:

Wang (Jeff) 15, Setshot (Cary) 0

Wang (Cary) 15, Setshot (Jeff) 1

It was impossible for our man to stop Wang. The pro was too strong and too fast. As soon as Wang got the ball and started moving toward the hoop, Setshot would be bumped backwards until he was forced out of position, and the towering Chinaman would lay it in. I did manage to score one point during my turn as Setshot, but this happened because Cary/Wang turned his back on defense and I was able to get an open layup. It's important to note here that I have owned this game for about a month, and while Cary is an experienced video hoops player, it was his first time playing this particular game on this particular system. Even with this skill disparity, the match was obviously quite lopsided.

Our second series put Setshot against Paul Shirley, who is the lowest rated player in the game (53). Results:

Shirley (Jeff) 15, Setshot (Cary) 0

Shirley (Cary) 15, Setshot (Jeff) 4

Again, Setshot was completely unable to stop Shirley, with the pro hitting a variety of layups and short jumpers to control the game. However, Cary got distracted for a minute and I was able to score four points in succession during my turn as Setshot. As soon as Cary pulled it together though, Setshot was shut down and Shirley cruised to victory. Remember again that this was Cary's first time playing the game.

Finally, just for fun, we made Setshot play against an NBA star, choosing Kobe Bryant. Results:

Bryant (Jeff) 15, Setshot (Cary) 0

Bryant (Cary) 15, Setshot (Jeff) 4

As Bryant, Cary went into a Non-Persistent Vegetative State and allowed me to score four times in a row, but basically, it was all Kobe. He threw down an array of awesome dunks -- their sheer force often knocking our man clear off the court. Bryant also hit a variety of difficult jumpers and fadeaways, taking great pleasure in toying with his lesser opponent. Hilariously, the game's AI made Setshot talk trash throughout the contest, even asking "Is that all you got?" as Bryant flushed the game-winning dunk in his face.

So what can we conclude from this? I think the experiment was slightly corrupted by a discrepancy in user skill that allowed me to score a few times as Setshot. However, in general, it seemed clear that with the pro user defending competently, it was impossible for Setshot to get a clean shot off. And as soon as the pro got possession, the game was over. Furthermore, the Joe Setshot character was probably significantly better than the average pickup player. We set his skill level at the bare minimum, but my impression was that the average player would still be much worse. (Note to video game companies: Let the skill ratings go down to zero.)

I'll stand by my assertion that the typical pickup baller could not score on a pro if the pro was playing his hardest. However, I invite others to improve on our methodological design and contribute to this important area of scholarship.

Culture: Hoops Hits

The other day I was hooked up to my ipod and doing the elliptical trainer dance at the local Y when endorphins caused me to wonder what the best basketball songs are. The only songs that came to mind were the Michigan State fight song and Spearhead's "Why O Why" from Chocolate Supa Highway. I always liked that song because one line made me imagine that it was about Bergen St. in downtown Brooklyn where a bunch of us used to play--"all day to be more specific, east to west from Atlantic to Pacific". I just found out that Michael Franti (who is 6'6") played for the University of San Francisco Dons. I'd like to see him take on Prince. Other favorite songs?


Why O Why
I say my prayers every morning just like orange juice
I crack the crinkles out my body till I'm feeling loose
I strap my sneakers on my feet like they was combat boots
they fit my feet like Cinderella when I'm shooting hoops
Why oh why do memories keep chasing me
sometimes it makes me wanna grab my shit and flee
sometimes I wanna blow my brains to put my life at ease
but I ain't clocking out I gotta see the seven seas
please seven's a very lucky number for me
that was the age when I discovered how good balling could be
up every morning with the birdies doing little drills go to my
left go
to my right developing mad skills
how could a love for this game bring so much sadness
I played with brothas with so much badness
but now they gone I sing a song
pop a three from the top of the key in they memory

(Chorus)
Why oh Why do memories be chasing me
sometimes it makes me wanna grab my shit and flee
even in seasons when it's another color sport
I still be memorizing lines out on the basketball court
singing Why oh Why do memories be chasing me
sometimes it makes me wanna grab my shit and flee
even in seasons when it's another color sport
I be remembering my partners on the basketball court

Do you remember runnin' the court in September
me and my homies be down for whoever
would come along and try to send us to the showers
from the game that we'd been dominating' there for hours
all day to be more specific
east to west from Atlantic to Pacific
fools would come round to get down
and try to take our crown
but we would hold our ground and we would never back down
old timers new timers would get in line there
and take a seat there and try to prepare
but oh no! there was no chance when we was in the zone
we was alone at the top we had hops we got props
and when we needed to we busted chops
wipe the court with your game like we was using mops
whatever happened to the super hoopers
in the park I reminisce while shootin' solitary after dark

(Chorus)

Brother C came fresh from out of town and
he had handles and like McDonald's he could clown ya
dribbling baby bounces between drinking forty ounces
knock ya on your heels and do circles like he was Curly Neal
but oh no, the liquor got quicker to his head and he said
"I think I musta placed some stupid bets"
he hit me up for some cash there was a car crash
a splash and then the brother made a mad dash
Rob oh Rob his whole life was like a roller coaster
but on the court he looked like a Dr. J poster
flying high with an Afro blowing in the wind
wiping Windex, index finger rolls
off the glass then swish through the net
jump a Corvette with a triple pirouette
but off the court he had a few temptations
copulations no moderations by 24 he had 3 pregnations
last check crack intoxications
so many other brothers gone from this dimension
and none of those who got hurt receive a pension
give a Bup! Bup! to those locked up in detention
memories too many dimension
and we say, one more time...one more time

(Chorus)

New contributors!

Well, Old School and I have been pretty bad about posting lately. I think that this has in part been due to life responsibilities (our jobs, Old School's baby boy, my upcoming nuptuals), and also due to injuries that have been keeping us off the court (Old School: knee, me: ankle).

So we've invited some of our most devoted commenters to write posts for the site. Please welcome Cary, Juice and Mothy to our editorial ranks. Ben has also been added, though he is not sure if he will post. Let's hope he does!

Cary (aka DJ Cary aka the Kuma) grew up on the mean streets of St. Louis Park Minnesota, where he spent nights perfecting his behind the back pass, slow crossover dribble, and left-handed fade away jumpshot on the hallowed grounds of the Minneapolis JCC and his neighbor Barry Miller’s slightly bent garage door hoop. Rumor has it that his vertical exceeded 23 centimeters on occasion, and that he could school anyone in the ‘hood in Double Dribble. Taking his game to the streets of New York City, he quickly became a playground legend at storied courts like Bergen St. in Brooklyn, the low-ceilinged and high-flying Hamilton Madison House in Chinatown, Cardinal Spellman High School, and the 2nd Avenue courts on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he dominated the B-court filled with hung-over hipsters wearing knee high tube socks and vintage T-shirts for years. In 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially renamed the bench on the east side of the 2nd Avenue courts the “DJ Cary Honorary Bench” to pay tribute to his many hours spent hacking playground greats like Jeff, Juice and Ben.

Juice began playing basketball regularly at the ripe old age of 18, on the hallowed concrete courts of the University of Wisconsin's southeast dorms. He became known as "Whiplash," thanks to the frequent snapping back of his neck as he watched his two-handed, from-the-chest jump shots get swatted into the next ZIP code. This indignity led him to develop a one-handed jump shot ranked between Shawn Marion's and Patrick Ewing's in Slam magazine's annual "100 Ugliest Jump Shots" poll. Juice now resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he silently watches teens on the local courts fly through the air with grace and skill while a lone tear descends his cheek, pauses at his chin, and plummets, like his hoops-playing dreams, to the ground below.

Mothy (aka Vanilla Blur aka Vanilla Blob) grew up a Hoosier by birth, but a Wildcat Fan by the Grace of God. Embarrassed by his self-perceived boney knees in early childhood, he tried to conceal them behind thigh-high tube socks kept up with flooring-installer knee-pads through his 21st birthday. His dry wit rubbed his high school coaches the wrong way, and his hoops handle did not flower until his matriculation at UCONN where his intramural claim-to-fame was hanging on the rim at any and every opportunity. Just prior to his marriage to a track jock(tress)
in 1997, Mothy breakaway dunked twice in a game on a [springy] second-storey Methodist church court in Fort Worth, Texas. Post-marriage, he is 0-for-397 on breakaway dunks, but his wily game and deceptive, flat-footed defensive posture was a staple at the University of Texas and on Austin's Pease Park and Fire Station Courts through 2001, before he relocated his Church of the Hardwood to NC State University. After adding another $65K in education debt to his kitty in North Carolina, Mothy recently moved his Hoops Congregation to Manchester, New Hampshire, where the jury is still out on how well hoops can be played with parkas, moon boots, and lumbering meese (?).

Psychology: The Like That Dare Not Speak Its Name

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to confess that I am not a fan of the Duke Blue Devils. I suppose it is a natural byproduct of having a father who graduated from the University of Kentucky, and of my own matriculation at UCONN, Texas, and, most recently, NC State. My background surely helped to foster a deep dislike of Durham, North Carolina's most famous collegiate sports denizens, that and Dick Vitale's incessant shilling for the Blue Devils, to be sure.

One thing that I've noticed about Duke basketball players through the years (apart from their maddening youth-be-damned confidence, and the way they normally cream teams they're supposed to cream), is the way they seem to cling to each other during lulls in the action.

While you may assume I'm looking to shock readers with allusions of a "Brokeback Basketball" bent, I assure you I'm not. I'm just wondering if all the hugging, the hands resting on necks and shoulders, the fanny slapping, and other signs of physical intimacy during basketball games among teammates (especially Duke teammates, it seems) are nothing more than indicators of players' absolute acceptance of each other on the hardwood. I watch my beloved Kentucky Wildcats play and it seems like they're playing by strictly Victorian rules of physical contact. Could the answer to their current hoops woes be settled by some simple Magic-on-Isiah Thomas lip-to-cheek action? Is there something to this close-contact among teammates that signals total buy-in to the team concept?

Race: CBA KKK

Devoted reader, former roommate, and all around smart dude Ben sent us an interesting article about Gonzaga basketball phenom Adam Morrison. For those out of the loop, Morrison is a 6-8 white guy who idolizes Larry Bird. The thrust of this article, found in Slate, is that almost every promising white player is compared to Larry Bird at some point, which is both unfair to them and to Bird. A great quote:

"Want proof that getting compared to Bird is a one-way ticket to the Caucasian basketball graveyard? A list of players who've been identified as Bird-like reads like the roster of a CBA team sponsored by the KKK."

When we started Setshot, Old School and I talked a lot about taking on the issue of race -- particularly as it pertained to pickup hoops. But we could never figure out a way to address it concisely and originally. The issue is just too big, too complicated, too scary -- and many writers have already produced intelligent, cogent commentaries (for example, Frey, Shields, Wideman; see "Best Hoops Reading").

I think that our only hope here is to address race in little tiny stabs. I'll devote a future post to my experiences as an Asian pickup player, but for now, let's talk about Morrison, Bird, and the World of Whites. I think that the Slate article is provocative, but the argument's not water-tight. Yes, white guys have traditionally been compared to Bird, but this is changing fast as new and different forms of whiteness have emerged in basketball (Nash, Ginobili, D.I.R.K.) Also, because Morrison himself claims to idolize Bird, saying that it's unfair to compare the two is itself a bit unfair. That said, race is race, and there will probably always be an "apples to apples" temptation among sports commentators and pundits. When the NBA is full of Asians, will they all be compared to Yao? "You know Bill, that Chang reminds me a lot of Yao Ming. And only eleven inches shorter! The resemblence . . . is . . . remarkable."

The Slate article talks about the Gonzaga-Oklahoma State game in which Morrison hit a bank three at the buzzer to win it, focusing on the announcers' incessant Morrison-Bird comparisons, but it fails to mention another interesting exchange that I caught between CBS commentators Bill Raftery and Gus Johnson. Early in the game, they were discussing the Bird-Morrison thing, and Raftery said something to the effect of: "Morrison actually reminds me of another player: Kiki Vandeweghe." Johnson, clearly aware (at least to me) that they had only compared Morrison to white players, hastily added "Or Reggie Miller! Or Rip Hamilton!"

So I don't even know what the point of all this is. I guess only that the issue of race in sports is sensitive, but also complicated. Setshotters: Help me understand white people.

basketball

Careers: When to retire? Part II

For the last month or so, I haven’t been in the mood to post on Setshot. I’ve been too worried about my knee. In mid-October, I played in the most intense game since my return from ACL surgery three years ago. Not only was the game tough, but I was overmatched, and to make matters worse, my wife happened along--compelling me to exert myself well beyond my capacities. It turns out she wasn’t even watching. It seems they never are (see Girls Ain't Nothin' But Trouble).

After the game, my knee hurt differently than it ever had before and was a little numb. The pain didn’t go away for weeks. I made an appointment with the doctor and joined the injured list. Retirement seemed imminent.

Every other night, I sat down at the computer to write a new post, but I couldn’t do it. Jeff wrote posts about trash talking and scoring on an NBA player and old man moves, but I just couldn’t match him. I wrote a few posts about stuff I found on the web, but I couldn’t bring myself to write anything personal. Jeff suggested I write about being injured, but I just couldn’t face it. Part of it was that I wasn’t having many hoops experiences in my street clothes. But most of it was that it just made me too damn depressed. Could it really be over?

Earlier, I had hoped that Setshot might be a place that both current players and retirees could enjoy, but if I was typical, retirees would avoid the site like the plague.

This week, I finally got to the doctor. He told me it wasn’t my ACL, but probably just a meniscus problem. He advised against surgery because the meniscus is serving a purpose. Instead, I should just play with the pain (which really is quite minor) and keep building up my quads.

I could have kissed him. He saw how happy I was and said “Keep on playing. Keep on playing. It’s good for you. We’ll work through this.”

"I play too,” he said with a grin. I immediately told him all about Setshot.

“I’m 58”, he said. “I’m always the old man of the court. But I can shoot a hook with either hand and nobody can stop me.”

If you’re reading, Dr. Old Man of the Court, thank you very much. Jeff just e-mailed about a regular run at Strawberry Creek Park. The guys are at our skill level (me, moderate-to-bad; Jeff, awesome) and “more importantly, they seem like polite and considerate young men.” I’m so ready.

Psychology: What's the worst that can happen?

In addition to increasing physical discomfort, we aging ballers must deal with another type of pain: shame. We are ashamed that we're not as good as we used to be. We are ashamed that our shorts are too short. We are ashamed of our 1987-model Reebok Pumps. We are ashamed to leave the court and go back to our "jobs." Most of all, we are ashamed that youngsters break our ankles, dunk on us and block our shots and then cheer wildly about it. Don't they know that if they played us when we were in our prime, we'd be the ones breaking ankles, dunking (ok, slapping the backboard) and blocking (ok, contesting)?

I read somewhere (Reader's Digest?) that the best way to deal with shame is to bring it out into the open. So let's share our most shameful moments. It'll be fun -- promise!

The worst one for me was missing a two-foot layup at the buzzer to lose a league game in New York. We were down one with a few seconds to go. The final play was not called for me, but our guy missed the shot, and by pure dumb luck, the rebound fell right into my hands directly under the basket. I didn't know how much time we had, panicked, and BRICKED it from point blank range. We actually won the league championship that season, but the game I choked was the only one we lost. I don't remember too many details from the season, but that moment is forever burned into my memory. Oh, did I mention that my girlfriend was at the game?

Another shameful moment was getting alley-oop dunked on to lose a pickup game. I think that it was game point both ways (i.e., next basket wins). I was guarding someone much bigger than me. All I remember is losing my man for literally a second, turning around and seeing him way up in the air, and then hearing the awful sound of a game-winning dunk. I was basically under the basket, which meant that I had gotten posterized in the final, climactic moment.

Alright, that was less fun than I thought. But since I wrote it, I''ll post it. What are you ashamed of?

Style: Best hoops haircuts

We tend to take our hair for granted when we're young. We can do whatever we want with it. Grow it long. Shave it off. Shave some of it off. But aging takes its toll on our coiffability. Many of us start losing our hair. We go gray. Our fine, gleaming locks become bristly and stiff.

So while we still have some left, let's talk about the coolest hoops hairstyles. My favorite ever was on an asian kid I used to play with in Boston. His hair was cut marine-short all over, except for his bangs, which grew down to his chin. This wouldn't have been that remarkable except that he always rebounded one-handed, which made his bangs fly all over the place in a really neat way. I attempted this hairstyle myself for a while, but my head is too oval and I looked stupid. Plus, I rebound with two hands.

There was another white guy I knew who had a big curly afro. Again, no big deal, except that he always came to the gym in a full 1970s-style Lakers uniform, complete with short shorts and striped socks. This dude looked like he'd been time-warped straight from Walt Frazier's corporate basketball camp. He even played like he was from the 70s, with a straight up-and-down dribble and a two-handed quasi-set shot. And, he was awesome!

Setshotters: Share your favorite hairstyles here.

Tips: What would Jesus do?

The crazy kids of Global Mission Church in Silver Spring, Maryland suggest another way of improving your vertical jump.

Click "more" for comments only.

Tips: The ultimate trick shot

Check out the "ultimate trick shot". Pretty tricky!

Equipment: Jeff's ankle brace review

My name is Jeff. I'm 31 years old. I look like I'm 16. I have the ankles of an 80-year-old.

My ankles have been brittle for as long as I can remember. I started rolling and spraining them as a teenager, and experienced a series of horrific injuries in my twenties. In 2003, I had a really bad one that put me on crutches for six weeks and kept me off the court for months. My doctor made me get an MRI. When we looked at it, he pointed out that one of the ligaments in my ankle had been completely torn away. My poor ligament won't ever grow back, and at some point, I will have to have surgery.

I had to start wearing ankle braces to play basketball about eight years ago. Over time, I've experimented with a few different styles and brands, and I will share my thoughts here.

1. Ace bandage. This is what the doctor/trainer wraps your ankle in immediately after a minor injury. It provides minimal support and will not prevent most ankle rolls. Don't try playing in this.

2. Standard neoprene ankle brace. If you have a very minor injury, this could do. However, for someone with ankles as bad as mine, this might as well be wax paper. When my ankles see one of these, they laugh and laugh.

3. Aircast. This is a serious piece of equipment, but it's not really for playing in. It's for walking around while your ankle is healing. If you try to play in one of these, your ankle will be protected from injury, but you will only be able to run at half speed, and turning will not really be an option. It should be called "The Mutombo."

4. Basic lace-up ankle brace. This is a good, affordable option. The brace has laces in the front, which can be tightened and loosened as needed, and there is usually some sort of lightweight wiring embedded in the side for additional support. It takes a while to get used to wearing this type of brace, but once you are accustomed to it, it feels like an old (but smelly) friend. Lace-ups will prevent most injuries, but not all. My ligament-shredding ankleplosion happened in one of these.

5. Lace-up brace with inserts. This is one step up from the lace-up brace, and what I currently play in. I actually remove the inserts because they are uncomfortable, but these braces are still tougher than the standard lace-ups. I've never had a serious injury in one of these. McDavid and Tru Fit are good brands.

Setshotters: Share your experiences with ankle support here. Also feel free to contribute reviews of knee, shoulder, elbow, wrist and face supports. We'll start another thread for "best steroids," so hold off on that for now.

NBA: Paul Shirley on retirement

Former NBA benchwarmer Paul Shirley writes a fantastic blog about the life of an ordinary NBA basketball player. He is articulate, funny and honest. Today's entry is particularly relevant to Setshot, as it's about the prospect of retirement. He says that he idolizes Mark Pope, who retired this year without apparent regret, and plans to enter medical school.

Shirley got some attention last year with his "Road Ramblings" blog -- in which he wrote about being bored in practice, being bored on the bench, being bored on the road, and liking girls a lot. He tagged himself as an "embedded journalist," and was recently rewarded with a book deal from Random House.

Players: A 52-year-old college basketball player!

Here's a recent story from the Detroit Free Press to inspire us all. Maybe this guy can be Setshot's official spokesman.

Aging rookie gives college players run for their money

IRONWOOD, Mich. (AP) -- Gogebic Community College basketball players have a new incentive not to break team rules or skip practices: They might get benched in favor of a 52-year-old man.

Russ Maki, who is studying criminal justice at the Western Upper Peninsula school, has earned a spot on the roster as a walk-on.

"It's been a great experience, bonding with these younger guys," Maki told the Daily Globe for a story this week. He made a brief appearance in the Samsons' opening game Tuesday night but didn't score.

A long-ago member of the Wakefield High School squad, Maki played last year on a city league team with the Gogebic assistant coach, who encouraged him to try out. The head coach, Deke Routheaux, gave the OK.

"I was a little surprised he was willing to do this," Routheaux said Wednesday, adding that Maki was in "great shape."

There was one problem: Maki, who runs an insurance company, didn't attend Gogebic. So he enrolled as a full-time criminal justice major.

"Well, if the insurance business goes bad, I guess I can be a cop," he joked.

After working out with the team for a week, he decided he could keep up with the other guys and stuck with it, scoring nine points in a recent scrimmage.

Maki's life is hectic nowadays. Classes start at 8 a.m. He works at the insurance agency from noon until basketball practice, which ends at 5 p.m. Then he does homework and lifts weights for an hour.

He also squeezes in time for his wife and two daughters.

"It'd be nice to have 36 hours a day," he said.

Routheaux is noncommittal about playing time for Maki, but says he's a valuable addition to the team.

"He's an inspiration for the other players to work hard and be on time," Routheaux said. "They respect what he's doing and he fits in well with these guys, doing the little things right, playing hard. If he can get up at 6:30 in the morning, they shouldn't whine about it."

Maki said he shows up 30 to 45 minutes early for practice and tries to hustle during all the drills.

"I do it to show I can do it, and it seems like the players kind of follow suit," he said.

Psychology: Who do you think you are?

With the NBA season underway, I thought that it would be a good time to raise a topic that Cary had recently suggested. The question is: Do you ever imagine yourself as a pro basketball player, and if so, who do you imagine yourself as?

Nowadays, I don't really ever imagine myself as anyone else, but I often imagine that I am a better version of myself. The weather has been getting "bad" here in Berkeley of late, so there have been quite a few nights of lonely foul shooting at Ohlone Park. The imagination runs wild. Jeff can dunk! Jeff is breaking ankles! Jeff pins that weak shit against the glass!

When I was a teenager, there were two pro basketball players that I liked to think of myself as. The first was John Stockton. Being small, I had to learn to play PG, and soon fell in love with passing. Stockton was an obvious role model at that time. NBA highlight shows would play reel after reel of "STOCKTON TO MALONE!" and I liked to think of myself finding all those tiny passing lanes and fooling all the big guys with my lookaways.

However, PG is not my natural position. My natural position is center. When I first started playing, I had no handle and no range, but I could jump really high and had good timing, so I got lots of rebounds and blocked a ton of shots for someone my size. In pickup games, I'd go down low and pretend that I was Patrick Ewing. I remember seeing tape of that Georgetown game where Ewing goaltended all those shots and thinking that it was so cool, so intimidating, that blocking shots became my favorite thing in basketball. And believe me, when a little skinny asian kid blocks your shot, you're gonna hear about it.

I even taught my baby sister a bunch of big man trash talk. I'd take her to the park when I had to babysit, and she became a sort of mascot there. During shootarounds, I'd bring her onto the court and hold the ball in front of her. I taught her to slap the ball out of my hands and say "Get outta my house!" or simply "Ewing!" in her squeaky little voice. So cute. Actually, the cutest thing was when she would say "money" as she shot the ball, it went about two feet in the air, and rolled to the sideline.

Ok Setshotters, who are your NBA role models? Anyone who says Kobe Bryant gets a free trip to Guantanamo Bay.

Tips: Best hoops reading

As we get older and less able to play, we have to find different ways to stay engaged with the game. I'm always looking for good basketball books, so I thought I'd start a thread where folks can post up their favorites. Here are some of mine.

1. My favorite basketball book ever is Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam, which is about Michael Jordan. Halberstam is a big-time historian, and he provides a fantastic level of detail. The running theme of Playing for Keeps is that the cause, and price, of Jordan's success was basically a pathological need to win. This is not news, but there are some great stories around this theme, like when Jordan cheats at a game of Old Maid with his college roommate and his roommate's grandma. ("Did you just cheat my grandma in Old Maid?") The sections about Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas are also really fun to read.

2. Another good one is The Last Shot by Darcy Frey. This one follows the Lincoln High (Coney Island) basketball team around in the early 1990s, and focuses on the twisted process of college recruiting. A bratty 14-year old Stephon Marbury makes some extended cameo appearances, the first of which has him rolling into Coney Island's famous "Garden" basketball court on a Big Wheel.

3. I also loved The Last Season by Phil Jackson, mostly for the Kobe-Shaq gossip. Jackson does his best to handle the Bryant sex scandal delicately, but in reading between the lines, it looks to me like Jackson's saying: "I think Kobe raped her."

4. I'm right in the middle of The Jump by Ian O'Connor -- the new one about Sebastian Telfair. Telfair gets treated pretty gently (this is the price of total access), but the high school/NCAA/NBA exploitation machine does not. Some good Marbury-bashing in this one as well. I find it riveting.

Ok Setshotters, share and review your favorite books here!

Tips: How to shoot a set shot

We named this site "setshot" to reflect the repertoire of the player that's just too old and broken down to jump or drive the lane anymore. For me, the name also conjures up my dad and his old-fashioned moves. And that conjures up an era when the set shot dominated basketball. Jeff and I don't go back that far, of course, (we're aging, not old) but the game has changed in many ways since our childhood. So, to celebrate our diminishing abilities and our years of hoops love, I offer you a mini-clinic on the set shot.

In seventh grade, I felt honored when my coach chose me to read an article on the set shot by Pistol Pete Maravich and then teach my fellow players how to do it. I only realized later that this was his subtle way of correcting my unorthodox elbow-akimbo shooting style.
An inspiration to aging hoopsters, Maravich died on the court at age 40. After, a pick up game with Focus on the Family's James Dobson, he said, "Let's do this again, I feel great." He then collapsed and died of a heart attack.


Back to the set shot, first, don't shoot like the old-timer at the top of the page--his form looks terrible--he's shooting with both hands and leaning forward crazily as he takes the shot. Second, you could try the BEEF method. Jason Rogers suggests that the coach should have some beef on hand for the lesson "or something that looks like beef (a large picture of a cow would be a good prop!)". After showing the prop, the coach should initiate a discussion about beef. "Ask students if they think that "beef" has anything to do with basketball? Anything to do with shooting a set shot? (The answer should be "no")." The coach then asks the students to list all the elements of a good set shot on the bulletin board. The coach then singles out the four responses that spell BEEF--Balance, Eyes, Elbow, and Follow-through. If only my coach had brought some beef to the gym--my stomach wouldn't have grumbled so much during wind sprints and I'd hold the NBA three-point title--though three-pointers didn't exist back then.

Coaches Clipboard has a very good page on the set shot. I especially like the Form Shooting drill that they show in the video clip.

Start with shots directly in front of the basket, just a few feet away, to develop correct technique. Shooting further away does not allow the shooter to focus on this repeatable form. Do this drill for just 5 minutes every day. Even experienced good shooters who are going through a "shooting slump" find this drill helpful in restoring their shooting mechanics and confidence.

Finally, 81-year-old Ken Lindsay's excellent Guide to Coaching Basketball also has a good page on shots of all types (and many other things), including the two-handed set shot--"This shot is hardly used by modern-day players; however, Bob McDermott, the best shooter I ever saw used it with great success. Therefore, it is described here because I feel it is the most accurate shot from long range." McDermott, who played in the 1930s and 1940s with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons, could hit reliably from anywhere inside half court--a skill he used to spread the zone offenses of his time. The one-handed set shot and the running one-handed shot were invented around the same time by Hank Luisetti of Stanford and then the Phillips 66ers and St. Mary’s Pre-Flight of the AAU (the ubiquity of the set shot evidently prevented them from calling themselves "Air" anything). Luisetti was named the second best player of the first half century behind George Mikan.

Players: This cat can ball!

Check out Charlie Murphy (Eddie Murphy's brother) on the Dave Chappelle Show recounting the time that he played hoops with Prince--"How about you and your friends vs. me and the Revolution".

I laughed so hard I woke up my baby! Apparently, Prince played for Central High School in Minneapolis. Below is is an MTV interview with Prince that mentions the game with Murphy:


Sway: I wanted to tell you this story first: I was watching the Dave Chappelle show, and Eddie Murphy's brother Charlie Murphy does this thing on it called "True Life Hollywood Stories," and he told this story that he was hanging out with you at your house, and you guys were listening to music, and then you came up with the idea to all go play basketball. He said they didn't have any clothes, so you got them shorts and T-shirts, but he said that your crew showed up to the basketball court with the same wardrobe [as you wear onstage]. High heels, suited and booted. Is that true?

Prince: That part's not true. But the whupping's true.

Sway: The whupping's true. So you've got basketball skills?

Prince: A little bit.

Sway: Yeah? What you got? A crossover dribble? Or a jump shot?

Prince: We didn't call it crossover back then.

Sway: What'd you call it?

Prince: Just speed.

Sway: Just speed? So you played when you were younger? And you still play?

Prince: Sometimes. Not so much anymore.

Drills: Hand-eye coordination

If you're jonesing for some buckets but you're stuck at work you're in luck--Slime Dunk Basketball.

This is your chance to settle the score between Argentina and Belgium (Manu Ginobili vs. Tony Parker).

The game is a little confusing. You lose a point every time that you get "pinged for goal tending"--but this actually appears to be something like a three-second violation. You can't be in the marked area under the basket for more than the allowed time.

I don't think I'm coordinated enough or patient enough to play it, but I think I would be willing to learn if Jeff challenged me. Maybe I'd have a chance in Slimeland--though I doubt it. Or maybe my wife will play me. It will give her a break from kicking my ass in foosball.

NBA: Chauncey's Back

I've been hearing a lot of good things about NBA blog Chauncey Billups (Fall Back Shaq...I'm Starting Now) which has been on some sort of hiatus. Well it's back and I'm glad of it. Here's what Chauncey had to say about negotiations between Pistons GM Joe Dumars and forward Tayshaun Prince:

Dumars held court on the subject of Mike Dunleavy Jr., a small forward with similar time served as Prince, who is on the verge of getting 50 million from the Warriors. When asked if Dunleavy's huge contract could impact his negotiations with Prince, Dumars replied:

"Yo, Chris Mullin can give Opie whatever he wants. Chris Mullin got a fucking Angel Dust problem too. That mean I gotta get me one of them? I saw Baron Davis hobbling down the ave. in Oakland talking 'bout ain't no half steppin'. That dude has 8 power forwards and J-Rich. Come see me when you're playing in May, Cock-Knocker."

We should probably move this to the trash talk section!

Tips: How to suck at basketball

Charles Rempel at Van Gogh Goghs provides a detailed guide on "how to suck at basketball" in either "athletic" or "spaz" mode (Robin demonstrates the latter above). Rempel offers tips on wardrobe, running, catching, dribbling, shooting and etiquette. For catching tips--athletic mode, follow the jump.

Hold out your hands to your teammate, giving him or her a target. Then, when your teammate passes the ball, do one of three actions:

1. Turn your head right before the ball gets to you and try to catch it without looking. This gives the impression that you are trying to catch the ball, but also trying to attack the basketball before you control the ball. It looks like hustle. When you runback down the court on defense, point to yourself and say, "My bad."

2. Run away from the spot. This looks like you're trying to get open again, and makes the passer look like he missed his opportunity. Glare at the passer and point to your temple, signaling him to think next time.

3. Put your hands down to your sides immediately, then throw one hand up and try to scoop it to you. Now everyone thinks the passer was a little late passing to you. Glare at him or her and pointedly ask them why they didn't throw the ball earlier, when you were open.

Etiquette: When should I call fouls?

When I was coming up in the not-so-mean streets of South City, Wichita, KS, my friends and I called or didn't call fouls based on the situation. When we played among ourselves, we almost never called them. Fouls were for punks. If you went up strong enough you should score whether you get fouled or not. It was like a form of training for all the three-point plays in our future. One of our favorite games was hustle (21) with no fouls, no out-of-bounds, no backcourt, and tip-ins worth three. If you added beer, it got pretty brutal.

But when we took our daily two-mile hike to Lynwood rec center, things were a little different. We rarely called fouls there either unless they were hard ones that really altered our shot and the game was close. But we rarely needed to call them, because usually the guy who fouled you would call it himself. And if we fouled someone, we would do the same. Not only that, but people generally tried to play clean. I know it sounds like a church picnic, but that wasn't it. Lynwood was a place that people came to from all over the city--from four different high schools--East, West, South and Bishop Carroll. And Lynwood, like basketball courts in most cities, was one of the few places where whites and blacks interacted in public. There were even lesbians. People had to get along and wanted to get along. Basketball was a common language and people with skills and the right ethic had each other's respect. Calling the fouls you committed was a way of showing that respect.

On an anonymous court in Berkeley, I recently encountered a different foul-calling code of ethics. You call everything because winning depends on it. And in fact, not calling fouls means you're a punk because you're not standing up for yourself and your team. And if you don't call fouls, the other guy will simply foul you again, but more brutally, because you've allowed him to do it. Not only must every foul be called, but every foul must be disputed. And only punks back down from confrontation. For me, it's not a lot of fun. I think this ethic is accentuated because there is only one court and a lot of people are waiting to play, but it also seems to be a particular form of machismo. It's interesting that machismo can be expressed by either being too tough to call a foul or so tough that you call all fouls without fear of a beatdown. Needless to say, I don't play there anymore.

Other foul-calling codes?

Strategy: Talking trash

I've never been a good trash talker on the court, but I do appreciate its artistry. The best trash talker I've ever known was the 3rd string PG for Northeastern U. His name was Lawrence, but everyone called him "Uzi" because of his prolific shooting. Uzi was only about 5'7" -- but an amazing player. He would play regularly in the pickup games at the gym and dominate. No one could stop him from scoring, as he had unlimited range and could finish in a variety of ways inside, including posting dudes up. He also controlled the glass because of his athleticism, awesome court intelligence and surprisingly long arms. And Uzi could just break a guy with his incessant trash talk.

He loved to tell the big doofy guys that they were "wastes of height" and then count off his rebound total, and theirs, over the course of a game. "I just got my fifth rebound. You're 6'4" and you got two. Oh, there's my sixth. You still at two by the way." If you ever talked back to him and his team beat yours, you'd never hear the end of it. He'd spend the entire break between games picking on every single flaw in your game, personality and appearance. ("Hey, Great White Dope, Tragic Johnson, where'd you get them shoes? Those shoes are too nice for you. People might look at 'em and think that you can play.")

I loved Uzi. We were basketball friends, so we never got into it with each other. Plus, he was about 100 times better than me and would have crushed me if I ever displayed any impertinence. The truth is that he was actually kind of a role model to me and the other gymrat guards, and whenever I heard him talking smack to someone, I liked to imagine that it was me with all that confidence and bravado, getting into some big doofy guy's head.

Share your own tales of trash talk below.

Psychology: Corrections, mental illness, and the aging hoopster

A number of Setshotters have forwarded this along to us. It's been floating around the internet for a few days now. Here is text from the Arizona Daily Star (10/21/05):

"A 27-year-old man demanded extra prison time because he wanted to honor his basketball hero, Larry Bird.

A lawyer for Eric James Torpy reached a plea agreement with Oklahoma City prosecutors for a 30-year jail term on two charges of shooting with intent to kill and one count of a weapons violation, District Court Judge Ray Elliott said in a telephone interview.

Torpy then insisted on getting 33 years to match the uniform number Bird wore when he led the Boston Celtics to three NBA championships during the 1980s, Elliott said. The judge on Oct. 18 accommodated his request.

"He told his attorney that Larry Bird was his longtime hero, and that if he was going to go to prison he wanted to go down with that number," Elliott said.

Under Oklahoma law, prisoners must serve 85 percent of their sentence before being eligible for parole, Elliott said. Torpy understood that and told his lawyer that it didn't matter, the judge said.

"In 26 years, I've never seen an individual request more time," Elliott said. "They're generally begging and pleading for less time. But he was as happy as he could be."

Bird, a three-time NBA MVP who is now an executive with the Indiana Pacers, did not immediately return a message left at his office.

"Maybe Bird will autograph a jersey for him," Elliott said."

Fantasies: Could you score on an NBA player?

Cary and I have this conversation all the time, so he suggested that I post about it and solicit opinions. Basically, the question is whether or not you could score if you played one-on-one against an NBA basketball player who was playing his absolute hardest. And since it can be anyone from the league, from the best player to the worst, the question is really: Could you score on the worst player in the league? (Relatedly, who is the worst player in the league?)

Obviously, if you played D1 ball or something, you might say yes and you might be right. But personally, I don't think that I'd score one single point against an NBA player. I think he'd steal the ball or block my shot on every possession. These guys are world class athletes. And remember that he'd be playing as hard as he could. Maybe we tell him that if his opponent scores even once, we'll make him wear Stockton-shorts for the rest of the season.

Cary sees my point of view, but he thinks that one might be able to get off some insane hook shot that would go in 1 out of 20 times. I say that if Kwame Brown or Rick Brunson or Bostjan Nachbar wanted to, he could reject every one of those hook shots into the press box.

Ok, feel free to weigh in on this topic. Some related questions for discussion:

1. Could you score on a WNBA player? Could you beat her one-on-one? Would it make a difference if she was cute?

2. Same question for baseball. Cary thinks he could hit .020 to .030 in the major leagues. I'm not sure. The issue is how many hits you could get by randomly sticking your bat out there. Maybe bunting a lot would help.

Relationships: Where do you fit in?

No one wants to be the worst player on their team. That's no fun at all. But which do you prefer: to be the best player on your pickup team, or to be a role player? I think that there are arguments to be made for (and against) both.

Because Old School and I play at parks where the level of competition varies widely from game to game, there are times when I am the best player on my team, and other times when I am not nearly the best. I'm not sure which I prefer. Being the main offensive threat and de facto leader of my team definitely makes my ego feel good, but it also bestows a sense of responsibility that I do not always want. When we win, it feels great. When we lose, I am filled with doubt and self-criticism. Also, if I'm the best player on the team, it means that our team is not all that good.

On the other hand, being the fourth option isn't so hot either, especially on a selfish team where I'm not going to get a lot of touches. When I feel neglected by my teammates, I am less inclined to work hard and do things that will ultimately go unnoticed and unappreciated. The other night I was playing in this exact situation. I was the fourth or fifth option on my team, which was full of ballhogs. I barely touched the ball, and scored maybe twice in three games. To make it worse, every time I touched it, my teammates would start screaming "Jeff! Jeff!! Jeffrey! Here! Right here! JEEEEEFFFFFFRRREEEEEY!" This rattled me and made me insecure, and I played well below my abilities. Our team won over and over again, but I felt no satisfaction.

I guess that my ideal situation is to be the second scoring option and the first ballhandling option on a team of unselfish players. But this does not happen often, and I need to find ways to better deal with the more common situations mentioned above.

Setshot would love to hear your thoughts on this issue.

Careers: Has age changed your game?

I thought I'd follow up Old School's retirement post with another perspective on handling the ravages of time. I think that anyone who plays ball beyond their prime has got to consider changing the way they play.

This issue is beginning to loom large for me, as I am a guard, and get by primarily on speed and quickness. At 31, I'm not getting any faster or any quicker, and my vertical is approaching Cherokee Parks-like patheticness. Luckily, I am still agile enough to hold my own in most pickup games, but the time has obviously come to think about adaptation. Ain't no intelligent design bullshit on the court; you either gotta evolve or go the way of the dinosaur.

Here are some things I've done to compensate for the effects of age:

1. Play without ego. Think about the whole game, and every single thing I can do to benefit the team. This includes a lot of unglamorous stuff like setting screens off the ball and making "the pass that leads to the assist." Also, play better defense.

2. Think harder about team selection. I realize now that playing with unselfish, hardworking players is better than playing with talented self-centered players. When I put together Yellow Fever -- my 2004 NYU intramural squad -- I mainly looked for players I knew who were nice, unselfish, and diligent. While we didn't win the championship, we advanced fairly deep into the playoffs, and we had a great time the whole season because we all got along and respected each other on the court.

3. Shoot better and with range. I can't get to the hoop like I used to, and am unwilling to absorb the degree of contact that I could in my early twenties. So I have become more selective about when I drive, and what will happen when I get into the lane. Jump-shooting opens up my options a lot. I need to keep my defender off balance by convincing him that I can hit 18-20 footers with consistency. This is a mental game, and when it is successful, it becomes easier to drive, and I find a lot more ways to force awkward defensive rotations without getting whaled on.

4. Misdirection and chicanery. No-look passes are not enough. Now, I try to use my entire body and soul to convince the defender that I'm passing left before dishing right. I've developed a bunch of ballhandling tricks which are not always effective, but when they are, they can be demoralizing. I also have some off-the-ball fakes, like pretending to follow the trajectory of a shot with my eyes. When the defender turns to look at the (nonexistent) shot, I run away from him. Here's another one: when my opponent has tipped the ball and it is going out of bounds, but he still has a shot at it, I run towards the ball and pretend I'm going to save it. I get close, but instead of saving it, I just let it go. It's still out off him, but he will have instinctively backed away from the action, or hesitated too long to get the ball.

5. "Clean-dirty" play. I never try to hurt anyone, but am not too proud to hold someone's shirt for a second to disrupt a fast break, move a little on screens, or give a gentle poke in the belly-button when I arrive late on a shooter (this really works).

Add your own strategies for dealing with the effects of age below.

Tips: How can I stop Jeff from schooling me?

From an anonymous reader (no, it's not me) comes the following question: "How do I stop Jeff's seemingly unstoppable "keep on head faking and twirling around until you finally give up and jump" maneuver he's been using against me for the last four years or so?"

I'll try to solve the Jeff problem below. Meanwhile, you can post your own questions here and we'll try to answer them.


Here's what I try to do. I watch his hips instead of his head or arms so I know where his body is going. When he finally leaves his feet I jump and try to block his shot. I almost never do--he's too quick, but I hope to alter it somewhat. Still, he frequently kills me with a ridiculous reverse layup. Come to think of it, this really isn't working so well for me. Any other ideas out there?

Careers: When should I retire?

In my late twenties, I witnessed a graybeard with a potbelly, a hunchback and a bad knee lurching after a rebound at the NYU gym. I was appalled. I'd already been having back problems of my own. I didn't want to end up like that. I resolved that I would quit at 30 and switch to something less taxing like swimming or tennis. But 30 came and went and I didn't retire. One evening at 33, I blew by my man, blew out my knee and sprawled into the lane. I'd never been in so much pain.

The doctor told me that I could either have ACL surgery or avoid sports with lateral movement. I chose surgery mainly because the doctor asked if I might want to play ball with my kid some day. I never intended to return to pickup ball, but the surgery and the recovery were so painful and laborious that I needed something to inspire me--and basketball became that thing. After several years of exercise and tentative forays onto the court, I'm finally playing a couple of times a week again.

But my friend Mike, who has retired, is always in the back of my mind. He just had his surgery for his third torn ACL--all from basketball. He misses the game, but not enough to risk another surgery.

The roster of the Sunday Morning Hoops Site at UT-Austin is full of knee injuries and Jason Jimerson, Professor of Pickup Basketball in Indiana, has now retired after knee surgery.

And yet I'm out there. I tell myself that it won't happen to me. I've been diligent about my rehab. I'm still doing all those leg exercises at the gym. I'm cross-training.

But after a few full-court games on Sunday, I had the worst knee pain since my surgery. I was worried at first, but it appears to be a temporary setback. Still, I should probably retire at some point. My body won't hold up forever and my game's definitely not improving (even with the addition of old man moves). But when? I still love the game. I love the movement, the complexity, the court-sense, the characters, the high-fives. I love blowing by my man. So when?

Here is you where you can post your own struggles with retirement (or non-retirement).

Players: Park prodigies

You ever see a little kid at the park who is just totally awesome? You know, the six year old who can dribble with both hands and hit threes better that you can? How does that make you feel?
I've seen a bunch of these prodigies over the years, but I have one interesting personal experience. About five years ago, I spent four months in Prague. This was pre-Jiri Welsch, so basically, no one played ball there. I was always going to this crappy park near my apartment to shoot and do dribbling drills. The rims were literally eleven feet high, and the only people that played basketball were a bunch of little kids from the neighborhood. I made friends with them, and would conduct basketball lessons in exchange for conversations in Czech. (I spoke Czech on a pre-school level, but was trying to improve.)

There was this one kid who totally stood out. Denisa was an eight year old girl -- small and quiet, but she had some of the best raw hoops talent I've seen. I would show her dribbling drills, and she would pick them up IMMEDIATELY. Not easy stuff either, but difficult drills with both hands. And she would hit with consistency on the eleven foot rim. Almost every time I went to the park she was there practicing, with her grandparents watching her from a nearby bench.

There was a critical moment that really showed me that Denisa was a baller. I was running a goofy 5-on-5 with nine kids, including her. Another kid accidentally hit her hard in the face and she went sprawling. It was a serious shot. Everyone froze. Without a word, Denisa got up and leaned her head against the fence. We all went up to her to see if she was ok, but she waved us off. Then she turned around, wiped some tears out of her eyes, and resumed play. I was like, "Damn! Is this kid built to hoop or what?"

She'd be about thirteen now. I wonder if she's currently ripping up the eastern bloc middle school leagues, and whether I'll spot her in the WNBA in a few years.

Do you know any prodigies? Tell us about them!

Careers: The decision to go pro

Did you know that anybody can register for the NBA draft? It's free, and very easy.

I did this in 2000. A friend told me that I would have to write a letter to David Stern stating that I was giving up my remaining college eligibility (I had four years left) and declaring myself available for drafting. The NBA sent me back an application and a form letter saying that I would be entered into the draft upon the application's return. Some highlights from my application:

Height: 5'8"
Weight: 135 (my skinny days!)
Number of years played high school basketball: 0
Number of years played college basketball: 0
Other relevant information or special skills: Excellent sense of color. The ability to love unconditionally.

On draft night 2000, I was in a bar in NYC, and very drunk. I had no idea that the draft was taking place that night, until I looked up on the big screen TV and saw my competition lumbering around in horrible suits and poorly-fitting caps: K-Mart, Stromile Swift, Joel Przybilla. Unbelievable! Przybilla becomes an instant millionaire and I'm drunk in a dive bar! Joel Przybilla certainly does not have the capacity for unconditional love. And what, may I ask you, does the NBA need more? Another big clumsy benchwarmer, or someone who can finally love professional hoopsters the way they deserve to be loved?

I was too traumatized to try for the CBA, and became a sociologist instead.

Players: Playground taxonomies

It appears that one of the biggest cliches in pick-up basketball writing is the taxonomy of playground ballers. In fact, I remember writing one for Sister Eustacia's English class in ninth grade. An earlier post mentioned the The Spaz, The Fat Kid Who Stands at the Three-Point Line All Game, and The Guy Who Calls a Foul No Matter What. There have also been posts and comments on the Ballhog, the Coach, and the Big Mean Guy.

The following links offer detailed taxonomies. None are great, but they give a sense of the genre.

For profiles of the Shit Shot Artist, the Quick Whistle and the Labrador Retriever click here.

For the Rocket Arm and the Kung Fu Master, click here.

And for a discussion of which NBA players fit which types, including Reggie Miller as the Guy Who Calls Too Many Fouls, and Jon Barry as the Guy Who Just Bought an And 1 Mixtape, click here.

Add your own types below.

Equipment: Old baller aids

Sometimes aging hoopsters have no choice but to resort to artificial means.

Having trouble with your set shot? Integrate fifteen minutes of shooting practice into your morning with Rub-a-Dub Hoops. Or into your commute with pickup hoops. Need help with your dribbling? The Rock Handle. Not quite as tall as you used to be? Inserts, man!

Relationships: Can we just not be friends?

Basketball relationships are funny. You can play with someone all the time and have absolutely no idea what they do for a job, where they are from, or even their real name.Every week, you cruise into the gym, slap the same hands, and say the same thing: "Yo, Johnny, Stretch, White Shaq, what's up? You got the next one? Can I get on?" Meanwhile, Johnny just came from his shift at the soda factory, Stretch spent the morning grading astrophysics exams, and Shaq had to get up early to do a porno shoot. You don't know any of this, and have little desire to find out. Then, the next time you're watching amputee dwarf porn on pay-per-view, there's that dude from the gym plowing some screaming, armless midget.

Don't get me wrong. I've made a lot of real friends over the years through basketball. But there are countless others that have come and gone. I think this is true for most of us. You play with a person all the time, and then one day they've just disappeared. Other times, you're the one who leaves. What do you do? Go to the gym in street clothes and say goodbye to everyone? But on any given day, only some of your hoops buddies will be playing. How many times do you have to go? And do you even pretend that you're gonna stay in touch? No offense, but if you think that I'm gonna be friends with some creepy fetish porn actor, you've got another thing coming.

Setshotters: Any wisdom to share here? Similar experiences? Exit strategies?

Players: Aging Hoosiers

Jason B. Jimerson, Professor of Pickup Basketball, and his crew have made a half-hour documentary, "Shirts and Skins: The Sociology of Basketball" about the gym scene at Indiana University. There are some excellent clips on their website. Don't miss "fouls" which demonstrates a brutal moving pick and "female acceptance" which shows that cross-cultural understanding is still possible. The stars of these clips are pictured here.

Jimerson, who according to his blog has retired due to a knee injury, also has a nice list of pickup basketball books at Amazon

Moves: Tricks of the trade

Getting old sucks. Especially for ballers. The legs slow. The eyes get weak. Injuries accumulate. But Setshot is here to bring you hope! Many aging ballers have developed a specialty move. These moves are often rooted in chicanery and misdirection, as opposed to athleticism, and are a way for us to counter the superior quickness and hops of younger players.

I've developed a few such moves over the years. My favorite is getting the ball near the basket, tucking it between my legs, and throwing a fake pass around my defender. If he bites, he will turn to see where the ball has gone, whereupon I retrieve the rock from between my legs and lay it in. In addition to utilizing the strengths of the older player (the mind!), this move has a certain streetball appeal that the young folks like. Whenever I pull this off, kids on the sidelines will invariably ooh and ahh.

Thanks to Cary and Mothy for suggesting this topic. Here is a space where we can share our secret moves with each other.

Strategy: What should I do when my team is misusing its talent?

Tonight, I had a good 4 on 4 full court run. The only problem was that my team lost back to back games by close margins because, in my humble opinion, we weren't using our assets appropriately. We had two big tall guys who tried to play guard all game. One of these was the most talented player on the team, but it didn't do us much good. Meanwhile, the short guy, an excellent ball handler who could have easily played point, was at forward. All game our big guys shot jumpers with nobody underneath to rebound, plodded up the court--killing our transition opportunities, or penetrated (which was fine with me, if they would also distribute a little). First, I asked the short guy if he could take over the point. He agreed, but didn't actually do it. Then I tried to take point myself. Unfortunately, the big tall guys (who may have been friends) wouldn't give it up. They wouldn't throw me the ball on the inbounds or the outlet (and as they were the tallest, they got most of our team's rebounds). I finally gestured to the self-appointed point guard to give me the ball at the top of the key, but he wouldn't. "Aren't you a forward?" I said. He just smiled and kept doing what he was doing. We lost another game. I see this all the time, we have plenty of talent, but misuse it. And typically, I have trouble convincing people to listen to me--I think because I'm not the most talented player on the court and my moves are a tad old school. Why do people insist on playing the wrong position for their team's needs? Why won't anybody listen to Old School? Maybe I should just let go. But I like to win.

Relationships: Best chemistry

Sometimes, you play with a person that you just absolutely click with. Stockton and Malone. Jordan and Pippen. Nash and Stoudamire.

When I was a teenager playing at Temple Field in the Wapp Diggity, I had a buddy named Rusty that I had awesome chemistry with. For about two years straight, we were an unbeatable 2-on-2 tandem. Rusty had barely played any basketball before he was about 14. When he started playing, he found that he had an uncanny talent for long-range shooting. With a weird (and very quick) Tim Hardaway kind of release, Rusty would just KILL you from the outside if you left him open. He had NBA-three range by the time he was 16. Rusty was a perfect complement to me, as I was a poor shooter, but very good at getting to the basket and finishing. We ran two plays. One: I drove to the basket and kicked to Rusty, who knocked down the trey. Two: A give-and-go that ended with me receiving the ball in the lane. If the defense doubled, I'd kick it back out. If not, I'd try and find a good shot near the hoop.

Our top rivals were Tony and Gooch - two other local kids. Tony and Gooch would give us good games, but we were a touch better and they rarely won. One reason for this was that they would always end up fighting when they started to lose, while Rusty and I would take a time out and try to figure out what was going wrong. Chemistry almost always won in the end, and after the games, Rusty and I would guzzle a cold two-liter bottle of Crystal Pepsi in celebration, then retire to my house to watch 21 Jump Street.

Your turn. Tell us your best chemistry stories here.

Players: Aging Longhorns

A friend referred me to this site, which chronicles a regular pickup game at UT Austin (now apparently defunct). The player profiles are great, and a bunch of the nicknames made me laugh out loud. A few favorites: "Vanilla Smoothie," "Schayes," and 'The Accomodator."

Anyone else know of other aging ballers online?

Psychology: Dogs should stick to poker

Do your sagging skills threaten your manhood? It could be worse as Ira Berkow writes in To the Hoop: The Seasons of a Basketball Life:

And that night I had a dream: a rottweiler was biting my ear. He and the owner were on the sidelines of a game at Sullivan High School in Chicago, where I had played as a teenager. I was without sneakers and in stocking feet. The owner said, "My dog will stop biting your ear if you promise not to play anymore....

Isaac Herschkopf, a Manhattan psychiatrist and fellow pickup basketball player, interpreted the dream for me:

"Your ears represent your testicles," Ike began. "You felt very emasculated on the basketball court. It was something you've been good at, and proud of, and you were playing with younger guys, and yet on this day were not able to compete to your satisfaction.

"Rottweilers and Doberman pinschers are known to go for the balls. The dream expresses your anxiety, but it does so in a such a manner that it doesn't wake you up because it disguises it.

"The only two pairs of organs that dangle from your body are your earlobes and your balls. The earlobes are wonderful symbolic representations of your testicles."

Players: Famous people you've hooped with

One thing that aging ballers love to do is tell stories about famous players they've played with or against. When I was in college at Northeastern U. in Boston, there was a lot of reminiscing from the older players about Reggie Lewis, who allegedly used to dominate the pickup games at the gym. The best player I ever played with at NU was Wayne Turner (from Kentucky, and briefly, the NBA). He was a native Bostonian who would occasionally come to the gym and crush everyone. It's good to play with guys on that level once in a while, as it really puts you in your place basketball-wise. Turner was not just an amazing player; he actually seemed like a different species of human from the rest of us, able to do things that our bodies could not even conceive of, and capable of exploiting impossibly small gaps in the defense.

But my favorite famous-person-that-I've-played-with is Ira Glasser - the long-time director of the ACLU, now retired. Glasser was well known for playing in the pickup games at NYU, and I would see him at the gym all the time when I was procrastinating grad school work. He was friendly with everyone, and could always be found playing 3-on-3. He was/is actually a pretty good player, with a reliable set shot and keen passing skills. A truly dignified aging baller, he seemed to have adapted to the limitations of age and made full use of his remaining abilities. Seeing Glasser play, I always thought that I would want to be playing his kind of cerebral game when I reach my sixties.

Here is where you share your stories about famous people you've played with. You must say whether they were good or sucky.

Courts: Katrina evacuees ball in the Astrodome parking lot

The New York Times reports that New Orleans' fabled pickup basketball scene has found a temporary home in the parking lot of the Houston Astrodome. Fifteen hoops have been set up. Previously, kids were shooting into trash cans.

Here is where you tell of the strangest, best or worst places that you've played.

History: The Greatest Pick-up Games

What is your greatest game? Mark Bazer offers a riveting account of his, featuring--Ball Hog, The Spaz, The Fat Kid Who Stands at the Three-Point Line All Game, The Guy Who Calls a Foul No Matter What, and The Girlfriend in Tight Jeans On the Sidelines.

Relationships: A bully made me feel bad

I'm taking a break from playing at Live Oak. Because of a fight. Not a physical fight, a verbal one.

I was playing there a few weeks back, and ended up on the same team as the notorious Big Mean Guy (BMG), who is actually fairly well known around Berkeley for being big, mean, and insane. He's also an aging baller, but he is not handling it well. He talks CONSTANTLY, and feels compelled to coach on every play. It's not so bad playing against him, but playing on his team is a nightmare. If you make a mistake, he'll criticize you instantly and vociferously. If you do something good, he takes the credit ("THAT'S what I'm talkin' about. That's what I've been telling you to do.") No one likes playing with Big Mean Guy.

Anyway, back to the game. Again, me and BMG are teammates. He's talking/coaching to me on every play, because our other teammate was a Live Oak "old head" and friends with BMG. BMG always picks on who he perceives as the psychologically weakest player. That would be me. I took it for one game, which we won, and which I played well in. Foolishly, I thought that he would let up in the 2nd game because we won the 1st and I carried a lot of the defensive load (BMG made me cover the best player on the other team). Wrong. It gets even worse.

Now I'm near the breaking point. I don't want to fight with BMG because he does not listen and it is impossible to reason with him. At the same time, I'm having some racial guilt, because BMG is a black dude and I'm wondering: "If this guy was asian or white, wouldn't I have spoken up by now?" So I decide, against my best instincts, to start making snide comments to him about his coaching. BAD IDEA. He freaks out, gets right in my face, and starts yelling. I try to be calm and reasonable. No dice. He keeps yelling. He wants me to back down and admit that he's right. He's saying, "if you can't play in our system, we'll get another player." Now I'm torn. I don't want to play anymore, but pride won't let me walk off. I decide to just check the ball in and try to resume play, but I can't resist making another snide comment. BAD IDEA. Now he won't let the game continue, and actually kicks me off the team. I leave the court, ashamed and fuming, vowing never to return.

I actually did go back to Live Oak a couple weeks later. BMG was there, but we did not speak. I heard him bragging loudly about another argument he had been in the day before, and realized that he had probably had so many fights since ours that he didn't remember our fight. This made me even angrier, as I had been all torn up about it for days and he probably only thought about it for about 10 seconds. I am too sensitive.

Coaching tip: The classic six-on-four break!

For eight points!

Nicknames: Asian Nash vs. White Shaq

I wanted to start a thread where people could post the best nicknames they've heard on the court. Over the last few years, a lot of people have called me "Asian Steve Nash." It's totally nice, and I'm happy for the comparison, but it's a lot to live up to! ("Asian Zoran Plananic" is probably more accurate.) One consequence of this is that I've become infatuated with calling certain white players the White This or the White That. I particularly like calling big white guys "White Shaq" or, even better, "White Yao."

I used to call one of my NYU hoops buddies White Yao, until he got an even better nickname. My buddy is a thin 6'6" math professor who got his degree from UC Berkeley, so some kids at NYU started calling him "the Ivory Tower," which was so funny it made my genitals fall off.

There's this guy who plays at Ohlone Park who's got a great lean physique and always plays with his shirt off. A couple of weeks ago, we started calling him "Bowflex." Love that one.

And of course, there's Old School, which is classic!

What are your favorites?

Relationships: Girl's Ain't Nothin' But Trouble

Interesting situation at Ohlone Park the other day. My team is playing against a team with a couple of young (17-19yo), but very talented, players. The girlfriend of one of the young guys is watching the game. I'm guarding the other young guy.

From the start, it's clear that the guy with the girlfriend is gonna be playing mainly to impress her. He barely plays defense, and shoots every time he touches the ball. His teammates are getting irritated. His girlfriend, meanwhile, is completely oblivious and text messages the whole time. Every time Boyfriend scores, he runs by Girlfriend with his chest puffed out; she could care less. In the end, they lose despite being the more talented squad. I think that they would have won if Boyfriend had been playing it straight. A telling moment: Boyfriend has a fast break opportunity (he never came back on defense), gets overexcited and botches a dunk. I turn to his buddy and say, "if his girl wasn't here, that woulda be a layup." His friend nods and frowns.

So what of this? It's tricky, but I feel that these situations can be manipulated. For example, you could funnel the ball to Boyfriend and force him into tough shots. But you don't want to go too far with this strategy because he might legitimately go off and score all the points. And the last thing an aging baller needs is to be near a young punk who's all smiles because he just won the game in front of his sweetheart. Your thoughts? Other strategies? Similar experiences?

Players: How will Judge Roberts fare on the "Highest Court in the Land"?

Not so well, say fellow Supreme Court clerks in the New York Times. "The Rehnquist clerks were a force to be reckoned with ''on that horrific cement court above the library,'' recalled James J. Brudney, a law professor at Ohio State who clerked for Justice Blackmun. But Mr. Roberts brought more enthusiasm than skill to the game. ''He played an aggressive style of basketball that left other co-clerks with the bruises to show for it,'' Mr. Knauss[a fellow Rehnquist clerk] said of Mr. Roberts. Professor Brudney recalled that Mr. Colson [another Rehnquist clerk] was the best athlete in the group and so was not shy about shouting commands. When one of Mr. Roberts's shots went awry one afternoon, Professor Brudney said, ''Dean Colson screamed 'way off!' to tell people where to position themselves.'' That did not sit well with Mr. Roberts. ''You heard this somewhat meek but still assertive voice,'' Professor Brudney said, recalling Mr. Roberts's words: '''Just ''off'' would have been sufficient."

The Rep: What if I object to the term "aging hoopster"?

According to SportsCliche.com there are quite a few alternatives. "He's a wily veteran. He's their elder statesman. He has great durability. He's lost a step or two. He won't retire until he gets that ring. He wants to go out on top. He's the only player left from their championship days. The fans still love him. He's a great role model. He's an ambassador of the sport. He's done so much for the game. It's only a matter of time until he's enshrined in the Hall-of-Fame. He gives a lot back to the community. He's an icon in this town. He's only played sparingly this season. What has he done for you lately? He's got a bad wheel. He must regain his past form. He's been the subject of trade rumors. He's being shopped around. He's past his prime. The game has passed him by. He's washed up as a player. When it stops being fun, it's time to quit. He'll keep playing as long as he can contribute. He'll know when it's time. It's time to start working on the golf game."

SportsCliche.Com

Strategy: What do I do about the ballhog on my team?

This question comes from myself and was the inspiration for this blog. I occasionally play in a noontime game that is filled with teens who only want to shoot. After another crappy outing, I decided to google "What should I do about ballhogs?" I didn't turn up anything and this site was born. I'll give the question my best shot, but I'm hoping our readers can help out some more.

Ballhogs are buzz kills. It's just no fun to play with them. My first instinct when I'm stuck with one is to hog the ball myself. But this is probably not the right approach. A team with two ball hogs will soon have five and you'll all be sitting out the next game.

The first thing I would suggest is to make sure the ballhog doesn't bring the ball up the court. Don't throw outlet or out-of-bounds passes to him and try to get some of the other players to do the same. If you're not playing guard, become a third guard, so that that you can work to keep the ball out of his hands. Ballhogs are often loudmouths. He'll complain. Tell him you are planning to throw him the ball. And then do. Just make sure that you only give it to him when he's in a decent position to score, not ten feet behind the three point line. If you've kept the ballhog from bringing up the ball and from running the point, it seems like you should have a good chance of distributing the ball to the whole team, including him--but only when it's appropriate. Other thoughts? And what to do when everyone on the team is a ballhog?

About your hosts

Your hosts are Old School, Jeff, Cary, Juice and Mothy. Old School and Jeff can be found at the playgrounds and parks of Berkeley, CA--especially Ohlone and Live Oak. Cary also plays in the San Francisco bay area when he's not on his couch doing an uncanny Todd MacCulloch impression. Juice plays in Brooklyn and Manhattan, NYC. Mothy can usually be found hanging on 9-foot rims in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Old School, 38, is a 5-11 forward/two guard from Milwaukee, WI. He wears black Adidas Concords and a knee brace (ACL reconstruction). His shorts climb further up his thigh with each washing. Being white and having an affection for floaters, other players sometimes call him "Larry Bird" (much to his dismay--see influences below). His last organized ball was in eighth grade with the St. Margaret Mary Tigers. His last pseudo-organized ball was in ninth grade with the Spurs of Wichita's Salvation Army League. His influences include Earvin Johnson, Gregory Kelser, Arvydas Sabonis, Manu Ginobli and his dad (with the mean hookshot). His greatest moment was scoring a career-high eight points for the St. Thomas Tartans Sixth Grade Team and being selected for the Twinkie award by his teammates. His worst moment was getting called for a moving pick (something he'd never heard of before) during overtime of that season's playoffs. Some favorite courts include: Avenue M and 19th Street, Midwood, Brooklyn; Bergen Street, Downtown, Brooklyn; James Madison Park, Madison, WI; Lynwood Recreation Center, Wichita, KS; and Griffenstein School, Wichita, KS.

Jeff, 33, is a 5-8 point guard from Poughkeepsie, NY. Being Asian, he is often called “Yao” and was once nicknamed “Ichiro” by a bunch of Ecuadorian guys. He wears black Reeboks and industrial-strength McDavid ankle braces. Unselected in the 2000 NBA draft, he has nevertheless had a mediocre career on several intramural and community league teams in Boston and New York City. In 2004, his final year of graduate school, he captained a team called Yellow Fever to the round of eight in the NYU intramural playoffs, where they were cruelly eliminated by a bunch of white dudes who were probably in a fraternity or something. Over the years, his favorite places to play have included Temple Field (the park across the street from where he grew up), Northeastern University’s old Cabot Gym, NYU’s Coles Sports Center, Bergen Street in Brooklyn, and Houston St. @ 2nd Ave. in New York City.

Cary (aka DJ Cary aka the Kuma) grew up on the mean streets of St. Louis Park Minnesota, where he spent nights perfecting his behind the back pass, slow crossover dribble, and left-handed fade away jumpshot on the hallowed grounds of the Minneapolis JCC and his neighbor Barry Miller’s slightly bent garage door hoop. Rumor has it that his vertical exceeded 23 centimeters on occasion, and that he could school anyone in the ‘hood in Double Dribble. Taking his game to the streets of New York City, he quickly became a playground legend at storied courts like Bergen St. in Brooklyn, the low-ceilinged and high-flying Hamilton Madison House in Chinatown, Cardinal Spellman High School, and the 2nd Avenue courts on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where he dominated the B-court filled with hung-over hipsters wearing knee high tube socks and vintage T-shirts for years. In 2004, Mayor Michael Bloomberg officially renamed the bench on the east side of the 2nd Avenue courts the “DJ Cary Honorary Bench” to pay tribute to his many hours spent hacking playground greats like Jeff, Juice and Ben.

Juice began playing basketball regularly at the ripe old age of 18, on the hallowed concrete courts of the University of Wisconsin's southeast dorms. He became known as "Whiplash," thanks to the frequent snapping back of his neck as he watched his two-handed, from-the-chest jump shots get swatted into the next ZIP code. This indignity led him to develop a one-handed jump shot ranked between Shawn Marion's and Patrick Ewing's in Slam magazine's annual "100 Ugliest Jump Shots" poll. Juice now resides in Brooklyn, New York, where he silently watches teens on the local courts fly through the air with grace and skill while a lone tear descends his cheek, pauses at his chin, and plummets, like his hoops-playing dreams, to the ground below.

Mothy (aka Vanilla Blur aka Vanilla Blob) grew up a Hoosier by birth, but a Wildcat Fan by the Grace of God. Embarrassed by his self-perceived boney knees in early childhood, he tried to conceal them behind thigh-high tube socks kept up with flooring-installer knee-pads through his 21st birthday. His dry wit rubbed his high school coaches the wrong way, and his hoops handle did not flower until his matriculation at UCONN where his intramural claim-to-fame was hanging on the rim at any and every opportunity. Just prior to his marriage to a track jock(tress) in 1997, Mothy breakaway dunked twice in a game on a [springy] second-storey Methodist church court in Fort Worth, Texas. Post-marriage, he is 0-for-397 on breakaway dunks, but his wily game and deceptive, flat-footed defensive posture was a staple at the University of Texas and on Austin's Pease Park and Fire Station Courts through 2001, before he relocated his Church of the Hardwood to NC State University. After adding another $65K in education debt to his kitty in North Carolina, Mothy recently moved his Hoops Congregation to Manchester, New Hampshire, where the jury is still out on how well hoops can be played with parkas, moon boots, and lumbering meese (?).

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How can I get my hoops questions answered?

Each week we will answer your questions about coping with and compensating for such issues as wobbly knees and ankles, a slow first step, "ups" deficiency and thigh-level shorts. Please post your questions (along with your brief B-ball bio) in the comments section of this post and let Old School, Jeff and our avid, though elderly, readers help you.