playing basketball

Weirdly, manalivette does have a good fastbreak when she gets past her anxiety - I've seen her pull it off really well a few times, just grab the re and go coast to coast - she's both big and reasonably fast and handles pretty well so the few times she's done it she's hard to stop. In fact I haven't seen other players on her team just go straight down the middle the way she does, most of them tend to veer off to the side.

The coach is like way overcoaching them though I think. And also they, and especially she, tend to take stuff a little too literally and try a little too hard to do exactly what they're supposed to do. Like today she told me the coach told her her main job is to get rebounds, not shoot. And I was like I'm pretty sure the coach doesn't want you to not try to shoot if you have an open shot.

i agree that 5th grade probably a little early for plays, PNRs and what have you

boxing out, layups and basic spacing probably better to nail first

my 14 yo son is on a very good team that plays against other very good teams and they have plays they run but more often it’s just improvisation and reads. he’s actually a little annoyed at his coach who wants them to do way more structured plays and it’s very tough to pull off and the coach yells at them when they fuck it up and in general they are not playing with “joy”

my 11 yo is in i guess a comparable situation to yours man alive and they do have the concept of picks but they never actually execute them in games.. it’ll come eventually i guess. for now what i’m struck by is how slow offenses are at making decisions, how badly they telegraph their passes. everyone just gets stuck, like triple teamed, lobs a pass, gets it stolen, rinse and repeat. spacing still a big issue.

lol yeah, that's a pretty perfect description of their team for the most part. Their spacing isn't bad actually bc the coach constantly reminds them about it, but they don't really know what to do with the spacing. In the game I watched yesterday, every back court player kept driving around the outside to the right when they had the ball instead of driving toward the hoop.

Manalivette also clearly has a lot of anxiety about messing up in the game and maybe a little of an attitude of "it's better if I don't get the ball" to shake off. Not really sure what, if anything, I can do about that - whatever approach I take to talking with her about it seems to fail, soft, firm, positive, constructive criticism, doesn't matter much. I want her to make the connection that she has a team to help and every time she's on the court she should be trying to help the team, whether it's spacing, rebounding, shooting, passing, whatever the team needs. I guess practice and experience mean more than anything else.

kids just need to learn to shoot threes, then after that dunking

Watching the pickup game at my gym while working out, think I’ve seen 15 missed threes in a row. Steph really ruined pickup ball.

I don't think I saw a single three sink. And a skilled and athletic bunch of ballers too.

a couple years ago all those guys would have been bricking from 20 feet

nah threes have been popular in pickup since they painted the line

also a 20fter is a three on most courts

ah true good point

sometimes over lunch i walk past this court outside a junior high, and sometimes the kids are out playing pickup -- except all they do is heave threes that most of them can't even get to the basket

steph curry is hurting america's children

― mookieproof, Tuesday, January 15, 2019 10:24 PM (four years ago)

Everyone chucks cos 1) they are lazy and/or not in good shape 2) even if you make like one out of four it’s a good shot cos in most pickup games it’s worth twice as many points as any other shot

It's funny because when I was a kid everyone just wanted to do reverse windmill layups and no one cared about long ball.

high school line aka the top of the key line was added in the late 80s and thats around when they started painting them on every court everywhere, since then its been a three party baby, you cant see the line and not want to shoot from it

Everyone chucks cos 1) they are lazy and/or not in good shape 2) even if you make like one out of four it’s a good shot cos in most pickup games it’s worth twice as many points as any other shot

― four square ups... no punches thrown (Spottie), Sunday, February 12, 2023 5:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

exactly, it’s super valuable in pickup

2x zero. I'm sure that on at least a few of those plays someone could have driven and made a layup

playing by ones and twos is lame imo

no its good it encourages hoisting

https://i.imgur.com/KCEm704.jpg

My kid has got into it in a big way. He's 12, and at 5'9" is not afraid to play with adults. He's made me remember how much I enjoy playing, even though I've never been that good.

I broke my wrist last night, fell back and used it to save my head from a concussion, but it paid the price. Displaced fracture, lucky it didn’t break skin. Bummed, this might be it for me.

fuuuuuck sorry to hear that man

oh no sorry! you can bounce back tho, i broke my wrist, got a steel plate, all that stuff and it's been fine for 20+ years.

noooo spottie I’m sorry

I recently had to go to two ankle braces from just one, father time is undefeated

oh no sorry! you can bounce back tho, i broke my wrist, got a steel plate, all that stuff and it's been fine for 20+ years.

yeah i followed the same path (and injured myself basically the same way breaking a fall)--set in the ER, give it a few days and then assess with the orthopedist. mine wasn't going to heal right. surgery is obviously not pleasant but you get a more certain outcome i think.

I’ll say this… ketamine is a helluva drug

hell yeah

Damn spottie I’m bummed for you. I was just asking my dad how old he was when he tore his achilles which shut him down for life and he was just 5 years older than I am now. On the other hand some dude that must be in his 70s balls with us now and then so who knows

I said I’d never play again after I tore my achilles but the hoops spirits are persuasive and I was lured back after a few years.

Wow, Spottie good luck on the recovery.

Ty friends

damn man heres to healing up as fast and good as possible

Here’s my X-ray for a jump scare
https://imgur.com/a/qz9LUOx

https://imgur.com/a/qz9LUOx

o shit thats gnarly

now, im not a doctor, but if i had to guess u probably got a diagnosis of "fucked up bones syndrome" right there

(get well soon spottie)

the er doc did mention FUBS as a diagnosis.

I snapped the very tip of my pinkie back 90 degrees playing hoops 22 years ago. Can't even imagine the entire wrist - getting shivers right now thinking about it.

Are you rehabbing with Iggy?

I wish

my weekly monday night game now features a dude who played 3 years in the NFL and another who was an all-american cornerback for Maryland but blew his knee out on pro day. they are both prob 10 years younger than me. it's a blast

When I hear Jones say this phrase, I imagine that I'm playing basketball on a Sunday morning on the good courts at Roosevelt Park in Sacramento. It is not yet 9 a.m., but the June sun has already begun to bake the asphalt, trees, and detritus, an ominous sensation you smell more than feel. I have already played two games to 15 and am sapped to exhaustion when a new player joins the run, someone whose presence instantly heightens the game's tension. On every possession, they talk to themselves and their opponents. They hit beautiful swishes with an ugly jumper, and they staunchly refuse to call a foul even when they're thumped. They are making a really stupid ball fake work. They score the last bucket. Nobody sees them arrive; nobody sees them leave. They are wearing black Air Force 1s.

i was taking my child to the playground today and we have to walk by some basketball courts to get there. there was a one-on-one game happening between a couple of teens, one very lithe and muscular but small and one who was just enormous, not in shape at all but with an offensive lineman's body. i watched the bigger kid mercilessly back down the smaller kid and make an ugly layup adjacent to the rim, and a third kid who was watching yelled at the smaller kid about the quality of his defense. the smaller kid looked at the spectator with complete disgust and anger and said "he's 6'5", what do you want me to do?"

lol

played tonight for the first time in a couple of months — have really only been playing a few times a year since the pandemic, which is sad to think about. I play a good amount of reasonably high level pickleball, which is a solid workout, and I walk a lot, but it’s nothing like full court pickup. you get reminded pretty quickly that it’s a different beast when you’re out of playing shape. and pushing 35 and playing with college kids

anyway, I’m on the faculty at BU, so I decided to check out the rec center. (I’m trying to take better advantage of these faculty perks, like free museum passes etc, before I move to LA this summer.) got into a game pretty quickly, and overall think I played fine especially considering how rusty I am. played 2 games to 15, had 4-5 buckets each game including a couple of really tough finishes, and some nice dimes. but man was I gassed about halfway through that first game, and I had some sloppy turnovers in traffic just because I didn’t have the burst my brain thought I had. or maybe I’ll never get that burst back because I’m old now, idk.

anyway, legitimately nothing like pickup culture, man, I really miss it. always say I should get back into playing regularly, but never actually follow through. maybe the better weather in LA will make it easier

the only thing i ever found that kept me in basketball shape at all was olympic lifting which makes sense cause theyre both about explosive actions, not that i was trying to stay in ball shape just i had been doing a bunch of cleans and i played after a long layoff and was like what im not totally gassed, but i was still kind of gassed

just read this whole thread btw getting very wistful about my long gone youth and athleticism, getting old
is sad

nice moves, u rly shook ur defender, how is casper irl btw (or ird in his case)

― rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Tuesday, December 31, 2013 5:03 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

the defender was ur mom but she was too tired after the first video we made, if u know what i mean

― k3vin k., Tuesday, December 31, 2013 5:09 PM (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

fucking wrecked m bise here tho lmao