The Anatomy of a Run
A good run makes you feel like the world is right, the birds are singing, your knees feel good, people are a source of infinite and intriguing unique joy. A bad run makes you feel like that puppy is giving you the side eye.
A rule of pickup, if there are guys waiting and the first game is a knockdown drag out brawl, no layup rule for game point 45 minute game, the rest of the day will mirror it. If you have 3 or more no layup, call everything, no easy bucket people out there for the first game, its gonna be a long day. You’re gonna leave unhappy. On the other hand if the first game has good shooters, the ball moves, back door passes and screens are flying. Guys are high fiving and smiling, you are in for a great day. It’s a great reminder about how the tone with which you start an endeavor is the tone with which you live in. Attitude is 90% of result (or some other nonsense like statement). Really though a great attitude run is way more fun than the best angry run.
Nothing makes me happier than an organically great day of pickup, it’s one of the easiest highs I’ve ever found. Win or lose, if you walk out of the gym or off the blacktop, you made good plays, you got the stop, made the sweet bounce pass, hit the baseline fade for game, life is good. If however you spent the whole day arguing, some dude or a series of dudes thought they were playing game seven of the pistons cavs series fouling on every play, someone cheats on the score the whole day etc., even if you win it’s like getting a tooth drilled. There’s some grim satisfaction in winning, a deep bitterness in losing and very little desire to get back at it.
Here are the seven deadly sins.
Cheating on the score, it’s one thing to confuse it, I’ve never been the guy keeping super close track but this happens occasionally . There are some people who do it all the time. It’s a violation of the community trust. WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE.
Litigating every call. Look, we get it, you don’t want to sit, you want to win. Calls are on the honor system, sometimes we genuinely don’t know who it went off of, if there was a foul before the travel, whatever. Sub note, carries, and travels cannot be called often, if you call it twice in a single game or run people will freak out. Bottom line if the argument goes on for more than 5 seconds, shoot for it, nobody cares that you feel like you were wronged, shoot for it, keep it moving. Nobody wants to be there for your therapy session.
Speaking of which, pickup is not your chance to work through your problems. Basketball is a communal sport. We’re playing under a general set of rules and norms. If you’re having a bad day, I get it, we’ve all been there, but don’t take it out on a bunch of people who have work and families to go back to. I used to play with a guy, Kevin Zimmer (I told you I’d name names), we’d get to the end of the day and he’d say “I come here as opposed to therapy”. He’d have spent the entire time fouling the shit out of people, calling bullshit, yelling at everyone, saying personal shit to people. DO NOT BE THAT GUY. I’m not your therapist, I’m here for a couple of laughs and hopefully to win some games.
Ball hogging. Self explanatory, if you’re good people will pass you the ball back because we want to win, you’re not kobe bro.
Fake hustle. Respect the game, if you can get a steal or a loose ball great, getting back on defense and just being in front of somebody is way more important for the group than you making one highlight play. We see you off the ball clapping for the ball then turning and taking two steps to get back as everyone else hustles back. Sub note, bucket hanging or cherry picking. It’s the epitome of caring more about yourself than the people you play with. You screw everyone else just so you can get a score. Nothing worse. (Vern Hampton, somewhere hanging back on offense).
Personal pet peeve, clapping guards. Dude, I got it, coach told you that big guys shouldn’t dribble. I worked my ass off for this rebound, get to where I can outlet you the ball, or god forbid fill the lane, I want to pass it to you, I don’t need a fucking ball sherpa. Sub note, Coaching, it’s one thing to communicate. I’m a big guy, I’m on the back line of the defense, I try to let guys know where I’m going to be defensively to help, but nobody needs the guy who watched Scal and Big Perk break it down telling the 40 year old with two knee braces to do a dive cut on the reverse swing. Don’t coach, communicate. I’ve been guilty of this, I’ve had it done to me. I’ve seen it done. Don’t do it. If you see something talk to the guy. Never coach.
Intentionally fouling the bigger or better players.
Runs have an ebb and flow. A really good run has a bunch of tier 1 guys who can matchup with each other, they make the game more fun for everyone. My new Monday run has a bunch of these guys and it’s great. If you’re really good you’re usually friends with guys who are really good from teams you play on. You bring those guys with you. If a new really good guy shows up and gets hacked the whole time he doesn’t really want to come back.
Runs are sort of self perpetuating. You have a group of people who can make a certain day or time. They have access to a gym, it becomes a bit of a community. Those are your core players. The better they are the higher the ceiling is for the run. For every one of those guys that’s not as good they have to have someone to matchup with. That’s your floor. How the core guys treat the best players determines how long the run stays great. Fouling guys you can’t stay in front of as opposed to guarding them is the easiest way to lose those guys.
Karma is a bitch and so is time. I remember being young and good and yelling and screaming at the guys who guarded me because they had to hold and foul me to stay with me. Now I hold everyone. I do try to make the distinction, I won’t whack a guy if he beats me. I always go for the ball when I reach. If a guy beats me I don’t take a windup to keep him from making a basket.
Story time.
In college I played every day, it was great, I thought my body was old and cranky, it wasn’t it was amazing, enjoy being young.
The UCR rec center had 4 courts including an upstairs, those had the sort of typical good college runs, lots of young guys who played in HS.
The old gym was from the 60’s, the school teams practiced there, it had great old soft floor sticky floors. The kind that gleam. Anytime I could play there I did. It didn’t have the big enclosed AC units that the modern rec center had. I stumbled into the professors game. It was Tuesday, Thursday at lunch. Guys up to 75 would play. I got to play under several conditions. First, it was their game not mine, I was there at sufferance and to give the younger 30’s 40’s professors and grad school guys someone to matchup with. I thought of it as my rehab game, if I didn’t force drives it was a zero contact game. I like to pass, so it was fun to set older guys up. Women would play in the game because lots of the machismo of the rec center wasn’t there. It taught me the most valuable lessons about how to keep playing as you get older. You change the spaces and the paces you play in. Mostly it was just great to get a low stakes place to be around more mature people. There were very few times they’d give me a little side talk about how I should play. When some young guy would come in and try to turn them up and talk shit I’d get a “kick his ass gene”, and I’d go at whoever it was.
If I had never found that gym, I never would’ve seen the future till I was living it. For young people there are very few things left that allow them to get that in-life mentorship. They have coaches, they have teams, but all those activities are fed to them. A community is something different. Every run is it’s own little or big community. We take care of our own in our runs. Have fun out there.