Thursday, October 27, 2005

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.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like to talk some trash to guys with one pre-requisite - they have to be listening. If a guy who is equal to or better than I am starts talking trash then I just play hard and keep my mouth shut.

But if I know there is a guy on the other team who can be distracted, I will talk at him. I had a good friend actually get p.o.'d at me for talking at him, he says to me 'Why are you talking at me?'... I said 'because you're listening'!

Jeff said...

A really good point.

Anonymous said...

Im one of the biggest trash talkers on my team. I know im good and my opponet might be too so I break them down mentally. that way they never hit a shot. I did this in youth ball too championship game. I was trash talking this kidd! laughed my but off at him he was so pissed then i fouled out. and he just started talking stuff and laughing about 2 mins later he fouled out. and I stood up and claped and laughed I got technical foul. after he tried to jump me and I beat his ass!

Juancho said...

Thank God. A blog for real men. My best friend growing up, Dennis, was 200lb plus in high school and Asian. He had the greatest move on the court. He would take the ball and spin it down his hairless sweaty torso when he checked it. Not trash-talk per se, but trashy all the same.