NBA writers hoop it up, sweat, labor

New York Magazine's sports blog had an amusing slideshow about a game of pickup basketball a bunch of NBA writers played at Chelsea Piers. Jack McCallum looks like he was the senior citizen of the group.

http://nymag.com/daily/sports/2009/11/basketball_writers.html

Looks like SI's Chris Ballard might have been the best of the bunch.

Liked this line, about si.com's Chris Mannix:

 

Looks like fun.

I bought Ballard's book last week and haven't started yet. (Still getting through Simmons' book and McCallum's 'Unfinished Busines').

Can't wait.

 

Reminds me of a Telander column that ran in the Sun Times in the middle of one of the Bulls' Finals appearances. The entire thing was background on and scouting thumbnails of the sportswriters' skills in their little pick-up games that week. Still ranks as the worst thing I've ever read in a major sports section. Not one person outside of the basketball writers involved possibly could have given a shit.

 

Den, how is Simmons' book so far?

 

I remember playing in a "media game" at the Metro Conference tournament in Louisville in the 90s. Got to play at Freedom Hall, scoreboards lit up and everything. I sucked, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

 

We play pickup from time to time on the main floor at the Petersen Events Center, where Pitt plays.
The lungs buuuuuuurn there a lot quicker than in the regular pickup games I play at the rec center in my neighborhood.
If you don't play on those big floors all the time, they seriously seem like 10 miles from hoop to hoop.

 

Nets beat writers used to play a lot of pickup games at the trucking company gym where the team practiced in the late '80s/'90s. No one stopped them, probably because they looked like truck drivers playing basketball.
The writers quietly scheduled their championship game at then-Byrne Arena after a Nets gameday shootaround.
Halfway through the game, a Meadowlands security guard showed up with a that'll-be-enough-I-ought-to-arrest-you-for-trespassing message.
But Bill Fitch emerged from a tunnel.
"They're with me," Fitch said, then folded his arms and monitored what had to be the worst 20 minutes of basketball he saw in his life.

 

Quite awhile back, Lakers writers always played after practice at the Forum. It was especially interesting when the team's general manager frequently joined in ... uh, Jerry West.

 

It's not bad at all. I like it.

Basketball junkies will love it. It's clear Simmons did his research and he says he watched a lot of tape from the game's past and it shows. It's pretty entertaining and very interesting, because he makes a lot of good points that are reasonable given the supporting evidence.

 

I used to play with some news reporters and production guys in Newport when I was an intern. Now though, it seems like nobody plays pick-up basketball; I have to travel half an hour, and since it's no longer summer, I either have to crack and buy a Y membership, or wait 10 years until I'm 35.

 

Um, no, considering he coached Nets teams which won 17 games one year and 26 the next and coached the Clippers four years and coached a 15-win team in Cleveland - I'm sure that was nowhere near the worst 20 minutes of basketball he saw in his life......