playing basketball

changing yr shot is irresistible, remember playing one on one with a guy who just lit me up hit every shot then after the game he started talking about how he wanted to change his shot lol

hahaha
other week I asked best shooter I play with what he thinks about when he gets in a slump and he goes "uh nothing...just know that I'm a good shooter and keep shooting". Thanks that doesn't help me!

Rules question: I was driving towards hoop, and to avoid help defender's swiping hand, I dribbled the ball way higher than normal (like eye level) but DIDN'T put my hand under the ball ever, then resumed a normal-height dribble and made a layup. Everyone immediately called me for carrying/travel, but I contended that it was legal because I never had my hand underneath the ball, while admitting it def looked sketchy. I gave up on pleading my case cause everyone was convinced it was illegal move and I wasn't positive it was legal.
I can't find anything in rulebook that would make it illegal though? Nothing about dribble height in itself being illegal...
What y'all think?

There is no restriction as to how high a player may bounce the ball, provided the ball does not come to rest in the player's hand (palming or carrying violation).

Look at Rondo's tip off dribbles for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=990YyO6WXAg

it's legal and long been an annoyance of mine that it's called in open gym and like city league games as a travel/carry. Trying to explain it always falls on deaf ears.

Esp 2:16

those clips aren't really what granny is referring to I don't think, but in either case it is legal as long as your palm isn't face up essentially

carry/travel/etc rules can mostly be boiled down to 'do nothing that looks weird'

Yes validation, thanks haha. Obv you can vary the height of your dribble, wasn't sure if there was a limit to that though. But realistically, if there was that'd be nearly impossible to enforce.
So the check on doing this doesn't come from the rulebook, but from the fact that defenders should be able to poach easily from a high dribble.
Pretty difficult to convince people you didn't palm it! Couple guys didn't even seem to understand what I was trying to argue. Like they thought palming=super high dribble.

Youngins should just let ol granny do it, given the "hop steps" they constantly get away with. I've given up on calling all but the most egregious ones of those. One guy would do an illegal hopstep EVERY PLAY & get away with it in pickup but then we were on a league team together and he got called for it a bunch. Bittersweet for me.

i have heard ppl say the most insane things re basketball rules on the pickup court, its something

I might've talked about it upthread, but the most mind boggling was dude who literally wanted to fight me because I would touch him when he came thru the lane (literally just a hand check) and because I would box him out. He would get irate, tell me both things had no place in basketball.

recall this one guy being adamant that you couldnt take steps after the gather to pass that was only for shooting

ha. and adamant about it. if I'm not 100% positive on the rule, I don't push the issue. Even then sometimes it's just not worth it to argue.

im always quick to propose a shoot for the ball solution pretty much works every time keeps things moving

yup

Some dude tried to call 3 seconds on me the other day

lmao

woww

call the cops on him imo
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--jAh5GeAK--/c_scale,f_auto,fl_progressive,q_80,w_800/oechpzisr6mrt3uyoxiq.jpg

I will say it's super annoying when big guys camp out in the paint in pickup games. I've never actually called them for it officially but I will say something to them as an aside if it's constant.

better than running all over the place with a crazy energy guy imo

guys who run everywhere and are good at shooting are the worst fn reggie millers, on the other hand i enjoy the challenge of guarding good drivers

unless theyre too good in which case welp

ive prob told u guys about this guy i used to play against sometimes in brooklyn who was so ridic, im short and kinda burly and this guy wasnt too much taller than me but his shoulders were like a foot wider and he cld dunk a lil, i wld try to foul him and hed just go through me like it didnt do anything

and hed hang out w this dude who was on the puerto rican national team and theyd just clown on everyone

running the pnr w the puerto rican guy was the easiest basket ball has ever been for me hed make this big perfect target and just catch the ball on the run and finish like nbd

guys who run everywhere and are good at shooting are the worst fn reggie millers, on the other hand i enjoy the challenge of guarding good drivers

✓

Getting frustrated w everyone coming up court, dribbling thru their legs for 20 secs, and then launching a Steph-range 3. Nobody makes a pass just for ball movement; if they can't get a sure assist, they hold onto the ball. Even still, I saw like 3 assists in 2 hours from guys who aren't me. Lot of these guys played in high school so they should have better habits. Although I think some of it is they felt confined by playing under a coach and open gym is their time to let loose.

ball movement is harder among guys that never play together

been getting a hankering to play again but my all lifting regimen and my age make me feel not quite in shape for it. Debating whether to change up my workout with the goal of being in shape to play in spring/summer.

I've prob mentioned it here before but there's a regular at our runs who is turning 80 soon! Granted he can only play half court games.

I'm shooting 100% in my league. 2 for 2 lol. Swished a 3, reverse flipped in a alley oop layup off an inbounds. Had a few nice passes too. But dropped a good dish from teammate and let a guy score too easily on breakaway even after I got in front of him.
Spent most of time watching our 19 yr old hot shot take 25 footers ugh.

i think olympic lifting is the best exercise ive ever done for staying in shape for basketball, i hadnt played in ages before yesterday and i felt pretty fine (except my shot being trash haha) and today my legs dont even feel that dead

makes sense explosive jumping movements and all

glad to hear that, given your advanced age!
bball purposes is the only reason I ever think "yeah I wanna be stronger". sucks getting beaten on a play by someone with less skills but more muscles.
we were supposed to have a league game last night but other team forfeited so they could watch the Finals lol

haa

bball purposes is the only reason I ever think "yeah I wanna be stronger".

just clean n jerk and ancillary lifts recently (front squats, rows, overhead press), its an explosive movement so applies better to basketball than powerlifts prob, also its so technical which is fascinating to me love to work on the form, u cn just do cleans too to get started prob easier than trying to learn both parts at once

one cool thing about the clean is the basic movement is jumping, and then youre transferring that energy into the bar, so a lot of the form u can figure out just based on whats the best way to jump

its a violent action tho so start out real light and concentrate on form not how much u cn yoink up otherwise its a pretty big injury vector

also try to find youtubes by actual olympic lifters not crossfit or powerlifters

check out this big boy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr-uEw05lUI

Nice I used to do cleans minus the jerk part so I could prob handle it. What I really need is to improve my footwork. I used to have post moves and now it’s just me pivoting and pump faking while my defender kind of slowly moves along with me

taking very long steps is something thats worked for me, whether in a euro configuration or just straight line drive, seems to throw defenders off

imo just work on sick crossovers

I’m just mastering the old man fade away

old men dont fade away, old men up and under

fake the fadeaway while posted up and then up n under is nearly impossible for avg pickup game defender to stop. you can cover so much ground even w/o having your dribble.

nothing better than hitting randoms at the gym with an up and under over and over.

Guy who played semi-pro ball (in the ABA. which I was initially super impressed by...but turns out it has no affiliation with the old ABA. uses the same red-white-blue ball though. It's a step below the G League) started coming to my open gym nights. We basically have to give him the 3 worst players in 4 on 4 games to have it be even. Even then, other team will be up by a bunch and he'll just go ok lemme swish 5 step back 3's from pro range with a hand in my face to get this W really quick.