U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a baller!

I finally got around to watching the 2011 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, which had been buried deep in my DVR. I know it's pathetic, but I'll watch anything with basketball in it. I saw Space Jam in the theater.

I was pleasantly surprised at how competitive the game was this year. The requisite former NBA-ers like Scottie Pippen, Jalen Rose, Mitch Richmond, and Chris Mullin did their thing. Other standouts included Romeo Miller aka Lil Romeo, Common, and yes, Justin Bieber, who took home the MVP award (based on fan voting) and showed decent skills along with an annoying, self-absorbed personality.

But let me tell you, I was most impressed with 46-year-old U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Before dedicating his life to public service, Duncan was schooling overgrown blue bloods as captain of the Harvard basketball team, and then took a 4-year walkabout in the Australian pro league. So the dude can obviously play. But in the Celebrity Game, Duncan played with a particular poise that should make all of us aging ballers proud. He didn't try to do too much like the boy-idiot Bieber. He wasn't trying to be a star. He played within the flow of the game, setting solid screens, making nice crisp passes, and never forcing shots.

Duncan clearly had some serious game as a younger man, and while he doesn't have much speed or hops left, he has become a cerebral, efficient old-timer. Check out this nasty behind-the-back dime. No cutter left behind!

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?

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.

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.

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: 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>