NBA writers hoop it up, sweat, labor

It's an annual thing. I injure myself playing pick-up basketball in February or so, then I decide I'm done playing. I get over the injury. Basketball season's over by then so I get back into the routine of lifting and running, get in good shape.

Then basketball season comes again. I go out to the arena, watch some 19- and 20-year-olds hit some jump shots and throw down a few dunks, and decide this is the year I'm going to re-invent my game from being an undersized, 6-2 power forward who can no longer get his toes off the ground to being a catch-and-shoot two. I replace treadmill time with jump shot time. I start checking for when/where the pick-up games.

I pursue that goal until I get hurt again and go back into retirement until next year...

Proud to say I haven't taken a jump shot yet this year. But the team I cover has only played three games ...

 

There's nothing I love more about my job than covering basketball in the winter. I look forward to it every single year.

 

This is my 21st season covering the NBA, and I would never consider playing in a pickup game with other media members. I just think that is totally inapp... no, wait. Wrong discussion. I don't play because I'm the worst basketball player on Earth.

 

I loved playing, but I remember the day I decided to retire.
I read an article in a newspaper about a guy going through an ACL rehab and all the time it took, etc. And I realized that could be me. He'd blown his knee playing pickup hoops. It dawned on me that I did not have the time to be rehabbing an injury like that. My job would not allow all that crap. Last pickup game I ever played was at the Knoxville Y during the 1994 NCAA South Regional.
Now, all my excercise is treadmill, elliptical, etc. I realize I'm not completely immune from injury doing that, but it feels safer to know I'm always moving in a straight line.