The Crazy World of Pickup Basketball

I found this article on pickup basketball player archetypes last summer. Here's me:

Mr. Intensity:

Every game is played like it's his last. He’s big on boxing out with his elbows and setting moving picks, the only problem being he usually doesn't know how to play and ends up putting someone in the hospital. (Making it their last).

AKA The Guy Who Gets People Hurt

...except I don't box out with my elbows, I merely extend my arm slightly to make myself wider because those rebounds aren't going to get themselves. It is certainly not my fault that my elbows tend to be about the same height as other people's noses. Moving picks... it might've happened once or twice. Also, there is an inordinate number of cocky pricks who play pickup basketball, and playing them at an organized sport is the only acceptable way in polite society to hurt and humiliate these people.

Here's another good one:

The Girl:

There's always that one girl who tries to play. She desperately wants to prove something to one of the guys. What, we don’t really know. She has a washboard stomach (which she shows off with a sports bra), and is incredibly intense and humorless. With a very, very few exceptions, the women are always horrible and you should be ashamed of yourself if she schools you. Don’t give her an inch. Give her some elbows like you're Charles Oakley, and fuck being gallant.

Here's one I would add:

The Wife Beater:

There's always a guy who shows up to play in a wife beater. He usually shows up with his best friend or brother, also in a wife beater. The wife beater measures his worth as a man by how many points he can score and thus will never pass to anyone. He takes the same running midrange jumper every time he touches the ball, and when it's not falling, he gets frustrated and tries even harder. The problem is that he's putting the shot up too hard already, and so the harder he tries, the worse he gets. When he does not have the ball, he spends every second at the top of the key calling for the ball, and asserts "I was open!" anytime someone else takes a shot.

He's a gas gas gas.

I got a cat. His name is JJ. He's black and white, but the goofiest looking black and white cat I've ever seen. His chin, nose, and one eye is black, with the rest of his face being white. The back of his head is black, and he has a couple black spots on his back, but mostly he's white. The most awesome thing is that his two hind legs are both completely black, so he resembles a cat wearing black trousers.

Anyway, he's a friendly enough guy, comes over and lets me pet him, but then walks away to do his thing. He is nocturnal, and stays up most of the night pacing up and down my hallway. This is cool, because I usually end up spending most of my nights pacing up and down my hallway. Now he walks beside me, and I talk to him, which is less frowned upon than talking to myself.

Also, as soon as I got in the car after I got him, Jumping Jack Flash by the Rolling Stones came on the radio, and as such I've decided that his name can be JJ for short, but it's really Jumping Jack Flash.

He has not yet accepted that this is his new home, and spends a lot of time looking at the door crying.

***

Also, I have a question of sports and gender ethics. Yesterday, I played some pickup basketball. One of the players was a 19 year old female who stands about 5'5" and possesses a decent 3 point shot that you at least have to respect. The problem is that she can't play defense whatsoever, and instead of trying, she deliberately tries to hurt the person with the ball by throwing elbows, grabbing and pulling back as they run past her, or just pushing them over when they go to shoot without any effort toward making a play on the ball. Usually this sort of bush-league play is performed only by completely untalented people who can't compete in any other way or 14 year old boys with crazy hormones who haven't figured out that it's not acceptable. These types are easy to deal with: you just charge at them for a couple plays, put them on the ground, and eventually they lighten up a bit. However, no one was really comfortable with doing that, since she was much smaller than us and considerably more female.

Her partner began making up for her by calling all of his own fouls, but she still didn't take a hint and started calling us a variety of names designed to degrade our masculinity, and said the rule should be "no blood, no foul" which is not something that someone who is actively trying to hurt people is allowed to call. Her teammate basically told her that he was the one calling the fouls, since he was the one committing them. Then I started guarding her, which was not a favorable matchup for her since I have about 11" of height on her and can effectively lock her down. She complained.

So I'm not sure what the socially acceptable solution to this conundrum is. We just left shortly after that, as avoiding people I don't like is my default solution to all of my social problems.