I joined an intramural basketball team. Here is an account of our first game.
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According to this 2017 article, Michael Jordan signed a contract for $100 million to sell his brand of basketball shoes. After playing basketball tonight, I realize why: Shoes are everything in basketball. This realization comes within two minutes of stepping foot on the court. My normal shoes function just fine on concrete; on the court, they have the coefficient of friction of a well-lubricated Slip 'n' Slide. I drop the ball -- literally -- multiple times due to this bad choice in footwear.
My pre-game prep does not help my chances; if anything, it hurts them. My legs are sore from a workout the day prior. The duct-taped numbers on my makeshift jersey fall apart on-contact with sweat. I have no other pre-game prep. But these thoughts are for people who lose, and I came here for the opposite purpose. Winning is everything in basketball.
Our team has a couple of Star Players. I aspire to be like them. They are aggressive, running through people on the court, fouling opponents, getting fouled themselves. Maybe aggression is everything in basketball? I remember learning in middle school PE that you should never stick too close to the player you're covering, because it's really easy for them to get past you. I'm starting to wonder if this advice is actually good, because our Star Players are right up in our opponent's faces, experiencing more skin-on-skin contact than I did with my last girlfriend. The referees seem lenient to me, only calling fouls on rare occasion. Then again, I don't know much about basketball.
Unfortunately, there are people on our team who know even less about basketball than I do. One of them doesn't actually know the rules of the game, so right before it starts, another teammate has to hurriedly explain what dribbling, traveling, and double-dribbling are to them before running out of time and not being able to explain anything else. This is when I realize: Knowing the rules is everything in basketball. We're lucky our referees are so lenient.
The opposing team is much taller than us, with much bigger muscles, and with a much higher percentage of males. (They are all males.) This is when I realize: Height is everything in basketball. The guy I'm supposed to cover is so much taller than me, he can ignore me completely. When I raise a hand to block his shot, my fingertips come up to his chin; when he's blocking me, I can barely see past his thigh. I'm not sure what our rebound percentage was that game, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it in single-digits. Turns out it's pretty hard to get the ball when the other team can just pluck it from the air above you.
We start out strong, mostly because the opposing team starts out weak. Their basket attempts outnumber our attempts four to one at least (in one play, a single opposing player successfully rebounded his own missed shot, reshot, missed, rebounded his own missed shot, reshot, missed, rebounded again, and repeated this cycle six times while the other nine people on the court idly watched) -- but their shooting percentages are abysmal. Halfway through the first half, we are up 9-6, due solely to our Star Players and the opposing team's incompetence. Consistency is everything in basketball.
Our team has some slim advantages. A coach is one of them. She is a total badass, giving deep strategy advice about baseline runners to us during halftime from her sweet wheelchair. I love it and do my best to absorb everything she's saying. Strategy is everything in basketball. It immediately falls apart on the court, though. As soon as the clock resumes, my brain snaps back into the sort of beginner-level logic flowchart they teach on the first day of an Intro to Programming course: If I don't have the ball > get in position to get the ball. If I do have the ball > pass it to a Star Player. The latter half of this flowchart is not often successful.
Another advantage of our team is our deep bench. We have four players ready to sub in at any time, and we need them, because running at full sprint back and forth across a basketball court for five minutes is not something our team is cardiovascularly prepared for. I start struggling sometime during the first half, but I want to stay on the court. This is a bad decision; my performance gets increasingly worse, and soon I'm spending less time racing the opposing players to the basket and more time racing my own breath out of my mouth. My game impact during this time period is essentially zero. Finally, I sub out. From the bench, I am surprised to see that our opponents also seem to be tired. By the end of the first half, these big guys are all panting for breath, sweat rolling down their faces in heavy waves. This is when I realize: Running is everything in basketball. If we can outrun our opponents, we can go for uncontested layups, and they won't be able to catch up. It's a nice thought.
After halftime, the opposing team looks warmed up. This is when I realize: Being warmed up is everything in basketball. The people who are warmed up start making a lot more shots, and we start making a lot less. Their endurance outpaces ours by a wide margin; what I thought I saw during my time on the bench is revealed to be total illusion. These guys outrun us with ease, grab rebounds, fire off no-look passes, sink baskets. They are clearly superior on the court, and their noises grow increasingly celebratory as the game draws to a close.
Though we lost badly in the end, our team still has great heart, a strong emotional core. This is when I realize: Attitude means absolutely nothing in basketball. Not even a damn thing. Our words of encouragement, team bonding, and sportsmanship did not stop us from getting utterly obliterated on the court. But I only care a medium amount about that. Overall, I loved the experience. Being part of a team is a wonderful feeling; everyone is there to uplift and support each other. Competition pushes me to excel. And excelling is everything -- not just in basketball.
Part Two
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