Confessions of a Korean-American Man in New York City

I haven't played an extended period of basketball in a long time. In the league I'm currently playing in, it's no more then 30 minutes of running. A friend invited me to play ball at the Reebok Club on the Upper West Side this morning. It's a high end gym known not only for the facilities, but also for the many celeb sightings where you can play pickup ball. Dave was telling me that he recently played against Taye Diggs. Anyway, it was an intense 2.5 hours of running up and down the court, mostly nonstop. What was surprising was the two ladies who played the early games were really good. The taller one having played at Stanford, happened to block my friend's layup who stands 6'4". Thank goodness I didn't play in that game, otw, I would've been embarrassed. I played my usual game: a couple of points, a few turnovers, heavy defense and hard fouls. I have never been good at team sports and basketball is no exception. If you could quantify hustle points in the box scores, I'd be Michael Jordan. Unfortunately, my bball skill level is inverse to my hustle.

What I found surprising was that the early AM games were filled with really good players, some that played college ball. The first game we got annihilated and schooled, losing 15-2. Not only were they good, they were tall and you can't teach height. The shortest guy on their team was 5'10", and he had both a height and skill advantage. Usually pick up games are chaotic with bad head fakes, slow Iverson-like crossovers and air balls. Not in this game. I kept slamming into picks left and right. Hitting the floor would been softer, because floors don't have elbows. Once the NCAA team left the floor, the skill level came down as an older crowd showed up to play. It was still a workout because there were so many turnovers that you kept running up and down the floor. You know people are getting tired when people start shooting 3s instead of driving to the basket. It was fun, but this body ain't 24 anymore.