playing basketball

k3v k. you are a goddamn warrior on the court!

^^^^

ha ty ty, sucks too cuz i was on a really good team and had my A game last night

waaaaaaaaaait you played ball with cherokee parks???

couple times. he was/is huge, which is one thing. but i played against bobby hurley once -- who is a couple inches shorter than me -- which was a truly humbling experience.

i kind think its sweet that people who arent 'into' sports are getting to play them via 'irony' but they shouldnt be displacing actual sports

― ice cr?m, Saturday, February 12, 2011 2:44 PM Bookmark

truth bomb

waaaaaaaaaait you played ball with cherokee parks???

couple times. he was/is huge, which is one thing. but i played against bobby hurley once -- who is a couple inches shorter than me -- which was a truly humbling experience.

― mookieproof, Sunday, February 13, 2011 7:19 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i really cant imagine what itd be like for me to play against former nba guys -prob something like playing against five year olds - except you know from the other perpective

well they weren't in the nba at that point just yet

the thing that remains amazing to me is that okay, cherokee parks is huge and there's nothing you can do. but hurley was this pasty white kid from new jersey. and it wasn't like he was raining 30-footers on me. i was backing off like seven feet off him and he went around me like fuc. and however much you love the game and however much you shoot, i don't know how you get *quick* like that

under what circumstances did u play against these dudes, were they at duke together

i recall some coach saying hurley was the best ball handler like ever, prob has a lot to do w/quickness in a basketball sense

yah hurley was my year, parks two years younger

ah so

Bobby hurley is such a great white bball player name

bobby hurley, a coaches son

So I hate to be all liveblogging my basketball attempts, but I'm noticing significant progress. It's kind of amazing what you can accomplish with a little bit of obsessively-focused practice. I've been focusing on short shots just to get my form down -- maybe 10-20 feet. I'm starting to pretty consistently hit the shorter shots and with less effort. I've also been feeling a difference in my ball-handling. Working a lot on just basic repetitive crossover dribbles, precision dribbles, extra focus on the left hand, etc. I actually find a lot of drum practice ideas remarkably adaptable to bball (various permutations of left-right combinations, rhythm dribbling, etc.)

Also the Y only has open court at certain times, largely in the morning, so bball has been a great workout motivator generally since I want to get there to shoot around and then I just lift or do other stuff after. In the best shape I've been in in a long time.

Anyone want to recommend me a low/mid xtrain type shoe? I've been playing in running shoes, which is probably a bad idea, but I don't want a big bulky hitop bball shoe.

playing in running shoes is a terrible idea - no lateral support at all. the first time I sprained my ankle was because I was playing in a running shoe.

you can find bball lows or mids - I usually go to modell's or w/e equivalent sporting goods store you have and just look for the $40-50 specials. I find Converse to be the best 'fitted' to my foot but that's cause I have wide feet. adidas pinches...

otm, get basketball shoes, new running shoes have a lot more lateral support than the older designs but yeah not a good idea

Yeah I just want something that I won't feel retarded in if I also want to do a short run on the treadmill while at the gym

thats why i play in my asics sometimes tbh, dodged ankle problems and such but they give me these lower back spasms if i play too long. no recs, i don't know from shoes unfortunatlely

i've been playing in kobes for the past 14 months or so - not recommended if you have ankle issues but i've got good ankles and they're real lightweight

well not the same kobes for 14 straight months

yeah my ankles are good, sounds good

would like to hear you say that after you come play me

;)

lol

btw the air max turnaround los look fucking beautiful. Although I probably can't justify spending $70 on a secondary pair of athletic shoes right now.

http://a0.twimg.com/profile_images/1230423234/rondooo.jpg

too much time on twitter: last night i made a pass almost just like this (i'm not good enough to be pulling these off in my sleep or anything but it was an ill pass) and one of the first things i thought of was "yo that's like what my twitter picture is!"

So I've been practicing pretty consistently several times a week, in addition to regular workouts, and I'm feeling a lot of improvement in my shot and handling. I feel like I'm ready to give a pickup game a shot, even if just to get my ass kicked a little. I really don't know much about how these things work though. I have all these stupid questions, e.g., if you're playing one point per basket, is a 3-pointer still one point? What kinds of fouls do people typically call/not call, and do you have to be as careful on defense as NBA style (assuming it's not a playground-style game)? Are people going to expect me to roughly play a position?

3-pointer is still one point
fouls are called when a shooter is hacked and maybe if a dribbler is really hacked
offensive fouls and over the back fouls are not called
you will be expected to play man-to-man defense on someone roughly your size
offensively, bigger dudes with no shot will get low. that's about all for positioning

shots from behind the three point line are generally counted as 2 tho its not uncommon to just ignore the line and count everything as ones, the particular rules youre playing by are generally negotiated before hand and can include what score youre playing to, if you have to win by 2, if youre playing half court what shots you have to clear (everything, only shots that hit the rim, the rim and backboard) what the clearing line is (foul line or 2pt line) and various other minutia

fouls are called less than the nba, generally only if someone strongly affects your shot or like knocks you over if youre dribbling, guys will complain abt other things like moving picks or w/e but in more of a hey watch that way than an actual game stopping foul call - two of the things that ruin a pick up game fastest are dudes who call too many fouls and dudes who foul too much - so its a delicate balance as far as just how physical to play / what to call

lol 3pt line cultural discrepancies

id recommend 3 on 3 as the best beginner game, its more controlled than full court 5s and you have more space to do your thing, while at the same time you have two other guys team so the situation wont be as reliant on you personally as it would be in 2s

cool ty

concur w/ all that

been playing rondoball the last week or so - messed up a nerve in my arm playing water polo intramurals a week ago and bizarrely have lost some of the strength in my wrist - i can still dribble fine and shoot relatively normally within 15 ft but outside of that is pushing it and 3balls have been airball city in warmups. it's beginning to get better - i shot around just now & i'm able to shoot foul shots almost completely normally now and can hit rim consistently (lol) on 3s if i really get my legs into it. v strange. something v similar happened last year also right after water polo but was way more severe, lost grip strength in my right hand, couldn't palm a ball or play tennis for a few weeks

dude stop playing water polo wtf!

i kind think its sweet that people who arent 'into' sports are getting to play them via 'irony' but they shouldnt be displacing actual sports

― ice cr?m, Saturday, February 12, 2011 2:44 PM Bookmark

tho i admire yr sporting multifariousness xp

i'm def not playing next year lol this is too weird, plus we won the league this year so i won't want to as badly next year

lol hurting i am a straight up jock at heart - i play lots of sports & am good at lots of weird ones - check it:

http://web2.uconn.edu/recreation/intramurals/fall2010/Badminton_Singles/index.php

lol niice

lol 3pt line cultural discrepancies

once played with this kid from detroit long ago who put the ball between his knees and insisted this was like an in-game timeout. i don't even remember why he wanted to do that. no one there had ever heard of this and i have never encountered it anywhere else

"oh the international sign for in-game timeout sure"

where im from we usually just said time out

weird, i know

I averaged a double double on the streets

About 10 turnovers and 11 missed rebounds per game

on the playground this girl we didn't like used to shoehorn herself into the games during elementary school and she insisted that when you got the ball, if you shouted "SPOT", you could take an uncontested jump shot, and that she knew this was true cuz her dad played basketball.

she ruined sports

I learned to shoot from Curly Neal instructional home videos. so I actually have decent form. just can't do much else

fucked around an got atriple double

hurting you just gotta ~feel~ the game

to paraphrase cracked magazine, who the fuck keeps track of their rebounds and assists in a street game?