What Are We Talkin’ About? Practice…
I shot around with Eric this morning at the court at the end of our block. The court hosts boys and girls tournaments on the weekend, but today we had it to ourself. Unless you count the guy who was even older, even whiter, maybe even crazier than I am, who sat on the sideline bench watching us for a while, then took his vintage rubber basketball and threw it against the wall in the adjacent handball court, repeating that drill several times…
We played H-O-R-S-E, the John Wooden free throw game I learned from E’burg Gamer, John, Around The World, and a version of 21 - the kind where you don’t guard each other, and nobody calls it other names like “Utah” or “Rough”. It was kind of like the shooting around I was doing with Rick from the E’burg Game, except not in a small town wellness center. We always complained a out how dirty the wellness center court got, but we could always get a broom. Not so at the Washington Ave. courts. It was so dirty that you had to adjust your shot to the dirt on the ball. But most importantly, after too many years, Eric and I were back on the NYC courts…
Eric was one of the founders of the Regular Game, at least by my chronology, and we played together from the 80s to the 00s. But he stopped playing a while back, for the same reasons everyone quits playing, which are the exact opposite reasons to quit playing. But, whatever. He’s back, for now, for the main reason - love of the game.
He looked pretty good after not being on the court for so long. Even though he wants to lose a lot of weight, he was much more mobile than I thought he’d be. I also forgot that he has a shot; he can score. He even rushed in to shoot hook shots against me in H-O-R-S-E, where most players fear to tread. I did get a victory in H-O-R-S-E, and a couple of other games, but I had to pull out the Kareem - a running hook shot from behind the 3-point line on the right baseline(1) - to do it. Few players recover from the Kareem…
There’s more to tell in my hoops life, of course. Like, I don’t feel that I’m done with the tale of the Death of the Regular Game. I’d also like to compare Dream Teams. And there’s always accessories. But that’s our play for today. The Professors Game is tomorrow morning, as are the Olympics Men’s Finals. Maybe me and Eric will get to shoot around again.
After all tomorrow’s another hoops day…
1 - Kareem actually hit that shot in an NBA Finals Game…
