Psychology: Self-interest versus collective good

My last post was about how normative practices (such as how players "get next") affect game conditions. I tried to make the point that local rules and norms in pickup basketball profoundly shape the experience of playing.

Thinking about this further, I realized that the specific issue of "next" actually signifies a larger tension—that between self-interest and collective good. Skilled players who advocate a system of next in which captains can cherry-pick their teammates are acting selfishly because under this system, these good players will tend to end up on strong teams and will get to play longer by winning more. Average and bad players, of course, suffer under this system.

There are many pickup scenarios that highlight this tension. Here's one. Have you ever played in a game where one player made a few ticky-tack foul calls? What tends to happen? That's right, everybody starts calling more fouls! So here, Sensitive Foul Guy's behavior shifts the culture of the game. If others don't react by lowering their foul calling tolerances, then Sensitive Foul Guy has created an unfair advantage for him and his team. Of course, this dynamic almost always leads to a series of "That was a foul! That was not a foul!" arguments that threaten to derail the entire run. Increasing foul sensitivity is a great example of the "tragedy of the commons," where everyone would benefit from playing with reasonable fouling standards, but individual players' self-interests undermine this collective goal and ruin it for everyone.

Here's another, less common example. Lately in my pickup run we've had an organizational problem. When the run is especially busy, players like to get two full games going, with winners playing winners and losers playing losers in a "second round." Sounds good, what's the problem? The problem is that this system cannot accommodate new players. So what happens is that the first round games end and teams switch courts to play the second round. But new players invariably show up during the first round and wait by one of the courts. When the second round games are supposed to start, there is almost always a fight between the new players and the players coming over from the other court to play their second round opponent. (This system is stupid but it sounds cool to a lot of people. They need to get their f*cking heads checked.)

The personal interests of the players are clear: everyone wants to play as soon as possible. But multiple teams, according to completely different logics, have the "right" to play. Who capitulates? I DO. As one of the oldest players (and the only professor) playing in a college gym, I feel a responsibility to set a good example, so when I am caught in this situation, I calmly explain why the tourney system makes no sense, and then offer to wait. My teammates are not always happy about this, but I give them my speech about self-interest and collective good and they generally seem to be somewhat sorta kinda ok with it. What strikes me is the reaction of other players, who are braced for an argument and surprised that someone would willingly sacrifice his own playing time. Last week I did this very thing and a player on the team that was jumping us looked at me with genuine puzzlement and said "Wow, you're so nice." I explained to him that I was not being nice, but rather acting in a way that set a positive example so that we would all eventually benefit. I asked that next time he was caught in a situation like the one we were in, he volunteer to sit and wait. He furrowed his brow and appeared to consider it before checking the ball in and starting play. Baby steps I guess.

Final example. The other day I was ahead of the entire defense on a break. My teammate threw me a great over-the-top pass and I had a clear path to the rim. But as I caught the ball my feet got mixed up and I shuffled slightly before taking two big steps and laying the ball in. I think it looked a little funny, but no one on the other team said anything because it was a marginal situation. I turned right to my opponents and said "I traveled. No basket." They were shocked. My teammates were shocked. In response I simply said "integrity of the game."

I hope that by setting a good example I will encourage others to think of the collective before thinking of themselves. I want to create a culture in which personal sacrifice is normalized, where players are willing to act against their own interests when they recognize that the collective good is at stake. I often talk to other respected regulars about this. I tell them that we all need to think of the good of the game before we think about ourselves. But this is difficult in pickup basketball—a loosely organized activity with an ever-changing roster of participants. The problem with asking players to attend to the collective is that the collective is amorphous and unbounded. Still, I feel that if the most respected players actively promote honorable behavior, others will be inclined to follow suit. The players I talk to seem to understand this in theory, but when there's a three game wait next Sunday afternoon, we'll see.

I'll close with some simple but powerful advice. When faced with a self/collective dilemma, we should always ask ourselves: What would Jesus Shuttlesworth do?

The science of next

Ok, let's get a little social sciency up in here. I want to discuss something I've thought about for a long time: How does the process of "getting next" affect the dynamics of a pickup game? I've played in a lot of different games with various ways of doing this, but I think that there are two main procedures in the U.S.

Through democratic selection. The next five players to show up get next game, regardless of who they are. In general, those who have been waiting the longest are the next to play. If there are fewer than five players waiting, losing players engage in a shooting contest to fill the available spots. This is the most common form of next.

Through conferred authority. The next player to arrive becomes team captain. The captain has the liberty to accept or reject other players who ask to play with him. If the captain wishes, he can even select players from the losing team to join his squad, despite the fact that they are "jumping over" players who have not yet played. This is a less common arrangement, and I've mostly seen it practiced on the east coast.

Now I'm going to argue that the conferred authority method is worse on all counts. For years in Boston and New York, I played in games that used the conferred authority method, and it never made sense to me. Why not?

1. It lacks consistent internal logic. This method causes massive confusion. Who has next? Can I play with you? Why not? If I can't play next, can I play with the team waiting second next? Third next? Where is my place in the queue of nexts? At its worst, the conferred authority approach can produce a long string of captains with no teammates, each waiting to cherry pick the best players from losing squads. When games get crowded, the system's vague logic and players' intense desires to play spark a conflagration of arguing.

2. It unfairly stacks teams. This method eventually creates extreme team inequalities. Next teams are invariably getting stronger and stronger because they are selecting the best available players. Weak players, meanwhile, are being sent to the back of the line. When these weaker teams finally make it onto the court, they are quickly dispatched by the high quality team that currently owns the run. Ultimately, the weak players leave because they keep losing and then they have to wait an hour to play again.

3. It changes the culture of the game. Winning becomes the primary goal of playing. This is because the conferred authority method essentially changes the game's supply and demand of players. Since some players are in more demand than others, the likelihood of playing after losing is variable across players. Those who do not expect to be picked up by a next team must win to keep playing, or they will be subject to the humiliation (and long wait) of finding a spot amongst the sea of nexts. The need to win is a direct reflection of self-interest, which runs rampant under this system. Average/bad players who do not advocate for themselves will not play very often. (Good players will get picked up again no matter what their personality.) Thus, all average players must seek above average teammates to increase the chances of victory, and at the same time, above average players seek to avoid playing with the average players.

4. It encourages shady behavior. For all the reasons described above, players (especially captains) must use deceptive tactics to keep their teams strong and avoid relegation to "last next." This usually involves dissuading or refusing subpar players who ask to play. The most common form of shady behavior is when a waiting captain targets a star player who is currently playing and holds a spot for that player, even though others are coming up and asking to play. Again, this is technically allowed, but it just seems unethical. Many times, I'd approach a waiting captain and ask to play, only to be told that "his friend was in the bathroom." Of course, when the next game started, the "friend" turned out to be a star player who just lost. When shady behavior is built into the norms of the game, the norms of the game should be questioned.

Overall, the conferred authority method produces more competitive games, but also more stress, conflict, and unhappiness among players. I also feel that it compromises the integrity of the pickup game because it is so profoundly undemocratic. The larger point here is that the structural conditions of play can exert significant effects on who plays, how the game is played, and how players relate to the experience of playing. The conferred authority approach leads to a competitive environment structured rigidly around a hierarchy of skill. On the other hand, the democratic method mitigates this hierarchy and fosters a fair-minded approach to the game where playing time is freely available, regardless of how good you are.

Psychology: Intraracial rivalries

"Is he better than me?"

That's the first thing I asked when I heard about a guy my old NYC running mates were calling "Jeff 2.0." Jeff 2.0—like me—was an undersized, pass-first point guard with good handles and a decent jumper. He was also Asian.

In December, I got together with my NYC basketball friends to play in their regular weekly game. Jeff 2.0 was there and it was the first time we had met each other. He seemed like a very nice guy and he definitely had some game. We ended up guarding each other for most of the night. I played my ass off against him and at the end, I felt that I had done respectably, especially since I had just come off major knee surgery. But it got me thinking about intraracial competition. Jeff 2.0 and Jeff 1.0 (me) were the only two Asians in the gym that night, and I felt that we were both subtly trying to capture the "Best Asian in the Game" award. Unfortunately, as we know, there is no such award.

I think that an easy hypothesis here would be: Players will play harder against same-race opponents.

But I don't think it's that simple.

The better hypothesis is actually: Players will play harder against same-race opponents when their race is relatively rare in the game.

Growing up in upstate New York in the 80s, I didn't know any other Asian ballers. In most games I played in, I was the only one. Going to college in Boston, I met a few other Asian players, and I definitely played harder against them—wanting very much to be the best Asian around. I mean, there was no way I was going to be the best player on the scene, but I had a really good shot at being the top Asian (and I think I was). I moved to NYC for grad school in the late 90s, and found myself in a tough situation. I played with quite a few Asians at the gym and in the parks, where there was no guarantee that I'd be anywhere near the best. There were definitely some Asian ballers at NYU who could easily bust my ass back up to Poughkeepsie. I would play SO HARD against them, but they were just better than me. I remember one of the "kings of the gym" (a black guy) coming up to me one day and saying something like "You're the second best Asian brother here. You've got a good game, but [the other Asian] is the best." I couldn't disagree, but I was stung by the truth of what he had said. I hated that anyone else knew what I knew—that I wasn't the best of my kind.

But then I moved to Berkeley—aka the Land of Asians. I started balling at the UC Berkeley gym and at various parks around town. Now, instead of being one of a few Asians, I was one of many. In fact, some of the games I played in were all Asian. Suddenly, being the top Asian player didn't seem so important anymore. For one, there was no way that this was going to happen. There were too many Asians playing in my games now, and too many of them were clearly better than me. But more importantly, the social structural conditions of the game had changed my perceptions. I found that with so many Asians to compare myself to (and to be compared amongst themselves), I didn't feel that same intraracial rivalry.

So I believe that racial uniqueness plays a critical role in this dynamic. When there are only a couple of you, you see an opportunity to gain status in the eyes of the local hoops community. As I have mentioned elsewhere on this blog, I like it when good players give me a racist nickname ("Yao," "Ichiro," "Duck Soup"), as it means that I am noteworthy, despite the general disadvantage of my race. But when your racial category reaches a certain tipping point, this status competition becomes more or less moot. You'll never get a cool racist nickname if there are fourteen of you.

Thinking about this suggests a further complication, which is that overall racial category statuses also matter. For example, if two relatively skilled black players are playing with eight white guys, do they feel the same pressure to be the best of their race? Maybe, but maybe not, as black players tend to have higher status generally in pickup basketball culture. For those with high hoops status, being the best of their kind may take a backseat to being the best, period.

Thus, I think that the best hypothesis of all is: Players will play harder against same-race opponents when their race is relatively rare in the game, and they are in a relatively low-status racial category.

And of course, here's the question we really want answered. Does intraracial rivalry affect the highest levels of play? Do Kirk Hinrich and J.J. Redick get insanely pumped up to guard each other?

First day in the brace: Outclassed

I couldn't wait until this weekend. Yesterday I went to the gym in my new knee brace to "shoot around and do drills." So I shot around and did drills--for about an hour. Then players started showing up. The first time I was asked to play I politely declined. But the second time I was asked I eagerly accepted. How many times can you put drugs in front of an addict and expect him to refuse?

The main reason I decided to play was that the game looked soft. Most of the players were undergrads and they were not particularly good. If there was any game I was going to be able to play in, this was the one.

My stat line from that game: 0 points (0 for 0 shooting), 0 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 turnover. I assisted on every one of our team's baskets in a losing effort. One of the assists was a sweet behind the back pass through two defenders. I take responsibility for the turnover, although a better big man would have caught it and laid it in.

This game was both encouraging and frustrating. I was encouraged to realize that I could still defend, handle the ball, and pass. But I was frustrated to realize that I was not able to get any decent looks because of reduced mobility and psychological issues related to my knee. I decided to try playing in another game.

But the game suddenly changed. All the mediocre undergrads left and better players took over. This happens a lot at our school gym. The goofy games run from 4:00-5:30, but then all the grown-ass men get out of work and show up. Between 5:30 and 8:00, the games are very competitive. Still, I wanted to see what I could do against better players. The answer: basically nothing.

My stat line from the second game: 0 points (0 for 0 shooting), 0 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turnovers. It wasn't that I was tired. The game just got too good for me. My defender was significantly better than the kid who had guarded me the first game. My teammates were also much better this time around, pushing me far down the offensive hierarchy. Everyone was much better this time around. I was simply outclassed.

I am ok with this. I'm just coming back after a two month layoff. I have spent a lot of time learning to accept age and infirmity. I play because I love to play. Despite feeling limited and old yesterday, I had so much fun. And last night, for the first time in a long time, I dreamed about playing basketball.

Careers: A love affair, interrupted

In March, five days after my intramural team won the league title, I was playing pickup ball. I drove the lane, jumped, landed, and felt my left knee come apart. The pain was incredible and I knew that I was in serious trouble. My ACL was blown. I had surgery, followed by months of physical therapy.

I thought about retiring from basketball. I figured that I had had a good run of it, and I had reached the age (35) when most professionals begin practicing their color commentary. Now obviously I'm no professional, but I was left wondering whether I had reached hoops menopause.

Unsurprisingly (if you know me), I dismissed the possibility of retirement pretty quickly. I love basketball too much, and the months off just underscored how important the game is to my life. Retirement felt like an unwanted divorce. ("Baby please! We can work this out!") Within weeks I was doing dribbling drills in my garage. I couldn't wait to start physical therapy, rehabilitate my knee, and get back to playing. I would ride my bike to the park, sit in the grass near the basketball courts, and pretend to read a book while ogling the pickup games. The only thought in my head: "I need to get back out there."

Well, I'm back out there. I started playing a few weeks ago and told myself I'd take it slow, which I have, but not by choice. I'm taking it slow because I am slow. Amazingly, I'm ok with this. I'm just so happy to be playing again that I don't care about how good I am. My stamina is poor and my shooting can best be described as erratic, but my ballhandling is solid (drills in the garage) and my court vision is undiminished. Instead of trying to be mid-career Jason Kidd, I'm happy to be late-career Mark Jackson. I don't need to be an alpha dog anymore.

Priorities matter. Younger players often don't have fun unless they win. I have fun no matter what. Winning is important to me, but not at the expense of camaraderie, honor, and the sheer animal joy of playing. Winning is not what I have been missing. Glory is not what I have been missing. Basketball is what I have been missing. And here's the actual bottom line: you don't end a 20-year affair because your lover inadvertently gave you a boo-boo.

The emotional complexity of an intramural championship

So my team has won the intramural championship. Overall, it's great. We worked really hard, came together as a team, beat some excellent opponents, and truly had a blast during the season. The playoffs were challenging and exhilarating. As the number two seed, we cruised through the first couple of rounds, then faced an extremely tough team in the semifinal with one extraordinarily skilled player—a former D1 shooting guard. Luckily, they had just played an exhausting quarterfinal, while we won ours with ease. (The semifinal was the second of two games on the same night.) Because they were tired and we were not, we pulled away in the second half and won by 20.

We had expected to play the number one seed in the final, but incredibly, they lost their semifinal game because they could only field five guys and basically ran out of gas. So we faced the twelve seed, the defending intramural champion and a team that was much better than their seeding would suggest. (Also, a team with a ridiculous name: "O U NO FO SHO.") The game was close throughout—both teams playing with real passion—but our best players went into high gear at the end and iced it. Afterwards, we got our championship t-shirts and had our picture taken for the website and a banner that will hang in the gym's fieldhouse. I should have been elated, and part of me was, but it was more complicated than that.

I had sat on the bench during the most crucial stretches of the final game so that our best five could play more minutes. This was the right thing to do, but after the game, I wondered if I should have felt bad about not contributing more. I definitely thought that I had done my part during the season, but at the same time, I think that the team could have won without me. Even though I was technically the captain (because I had filled out the registration form), I was also a replaceable part.

I've played on league teams where I was the best player, which I did not really like, but I've never played on a team where I was one of the worst. Intellectually, I was able to accept my reduced role, but when the buzzer sounded in the championship game, my animal ego stung more than I thought it would. As our team picture was being taken, I had a couple of dispiriting thoughts. First, how much longer can I play at this level? This season was tough on me, as I was constantly matching up with quicker, stronger players. Second, will I continue to be ok with being a role player? Will my role get smaller and smaller? How small will it have to get before I am not ok with it?

I have some time to think about these things, but next year, when I look up at our championship banner, I wonder if I will feel pride, guilt, or both.

Glory: Too old to celebrate?

Last night we were having a great pickup session at the university gym. I was on a team with some good players and we had won two games in a row. A couple of guys I had never seen before assembled a team to play next. They were both wearing shirts indicating that they had played college football, and they both looked like college football players—thick, strong, athletic. They also seemed kinda mean. They didn't interact with other players in the gym and exuded an air of ruthless, cutthroat competitiveness. Now I know that in America, we celebrate this attitude. "Kobe is an assassin." "MJ will rip your heart out and eat it." But the culture of pickup at our gym is one of intense but friendly competition. Most everyone plays to win, but it's a fairly close-knit group and there is a lot of mutual respect and admiration.

As we started to play, I immediately found myself hating the football players. They were really surly and griped about everything—fouls, traveling, out of bounds—I think you know this type. They didn't appear to be having any fun. Unfortunately, I was guarding the "smaller" of the two and he was killing me. Three pointer in my eye. Surreal, hanging layup in traffic . . . and one. Ankle-breaking crossover leaving me in the dust. At one point, I fouled him and offered him possession. He grabbed the ball, shot me a nasty look, and walked away without saying a word. I was feeling really bad about myself (and absolutely despising him), but at the same time, my competitive instincts were kicking in. I did not want to lose to these guys. I knew that if we lost, I'd spend the whole night thinking about it, simmering in my frustration.

We play games to nine straight by ones and twos. I know that this is stupid, but it's part of the culture. I'd like to change the scoring system to twos and threes, but I think that math education has gotten so bad in this country that many people are incapable of counting in such large increments.

The score was 8-7 them (i.e., they could hit any basket to win but we needed a three-pointer). My man had scored five of their eight. I had only scored once, although I had assisted on three or four other baskets. The ball was inbounded to me and I started racing up the court ahead of my teammates. Often I will do this to draw the attention of the defense, allowing a trailing teammate an open cut to the hoop, whereupon I will drop an easy dime. But this time I was intent on shooting. Not only did I want our team to win, I wanted my man to feel the sting of the loss most acutely. As I came across halfcourt the entire defense sagged back. Without hesitation, I pulled the trigger on a long three and drained it, winning the game.

I freaked out—in both triumph and relief. I turned and ran down the court, arms raised, yelling "WHAT?! WHAT?!" as if in disbelief. It felt amazing. I saw the guy I was guarding flop against the bleachers and throw a towel over his head. My teammates and I exchanged hi-fives as we strolled to the water fountain. At that moment, I felt that my night had been made, that I would sleep soundly replaying the sweet swish of that last shot in my dreams.

But soon after I started to feel bad. Had I acted in an unsportsmanlike manner? If the football players had won, I bet they would have walked off in smug silence, without explicitly rubbing our faces in it. The knowledge that they had beaten us would have been enough. Why did I feel the need to twist the knife? And aren't I too old to be hooting like a teenager? As the only faculty member who plays regularly, I should be trying to set a good example. To make it worse, two players on the other team were people that I really like—including the best female player in the gym. Do they think less of me because of my outburst? Clearly, it wasn't about them, but they had also endured the loss.

I think that one reason I felt so guilty about my actions is that they were deeply reflective of my insecurities about aging. As much as I have worked to accept the deterioration of my game, I still find it hard to lose to young, arrogant players. I guess I want them to know that they, too, will get old and that one day, there will be even younger players seeking to humiliate them. But with my friends, I'm frequently talking about those who play honorably and those who do not, and even though the initial adrenaline rush of that game-winner was awesome, in retrospect my post-shot behavior did not seem particularly honorable.

Last chance for glory?

I've decided to play intramural basketball this year and I've assembled a team of nice, talented players. It wasn't an easy decision for me. I'm an untenured professor who should be spending his evenings slogging away at journal articles and class lectures. I'm also an aging baller with cottage cheese ankles and an ever-growing list of bodily creaks and cracks.

So why did I do it? Well, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don't have many chances left to play competitive basketball. The other day I was telling a younger player about a shot I am developing this year (a fading turnaround jumper from the low post). He asked me why I was bothering. I told him that at my age, you lose something every year, so you have to add something to make up for it. He laughed, but I was dead serious. Every year I lose more and more: quickness, hops, strength, willingness to absorb contact, mental acuity. Eventually I won't be able to add enough each year to compensate. Next year I'll be worse than I am now. The year after that, worse still. So, I thought that if I am going to captain a team to a "title," I've only got a few shots left.

We'll see how it goes. We're playing in the competitive league, so our opponents will probably be pretty good. I've got some ringers on my team though, including a guy that played for our university (i.e., D1 skillz). My teammates, to a man, are unselfish, skilled, physically strong, and hardworking. We're called the Manhandlers for a reason.

First game is this coming Monday. If this is my last shot at glory, I'm ready for it.

"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.

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.

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.

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".

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>

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?

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?

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.