I love basketball. I really do. I played every sport available while growing up. But, my favorite was always basketball. It's the perfect sport. It's not complicated at all. That's one of the things I've loved about it, even when I was a youngster. It's so simple.
Perhaps that's because I didn't have a coach making decisions for me when I first started playing. We'd just get in the backyard and play ball. The kids would mix it up with the adults, who relished in using all of their old tricks on us.
That's how we learned.
An old dude named Clarence use to pick my pocket every time I would use a spin move to get past him. We used to call him the Mad Butcher because of his vicious fouls. But, he was a crafty defensive player. Nobody wanted him guarding them.
One day the Mad Butcher matched up against me during a game of four-on-four in my uncle's backyard. I was never super quick. So, I was surprised how easily I was able to use my spin move to get past the butcher. But, each time I made my move and was headed toward the basket, he would flick the ball away from behind.
At first I thought the old man was just lucky with a desperation move after knowing he was beaten. But, it happened again. And, again.
After the third time, I figured it out. He was letting me beat him so he could steal the ball from behind. I was leaving the ball too high on my spin move.
The next time I used the move, I quickly shifted the ball to my left hand. There was no way he could get a paw on it. I went in for my uncontested lefty lay-up, only to get shoved from behind all the way out of bounds and into the trees behind the court.
As I got up and knocked the dirt off my clothes, the Mad Butcher glared at me and sort of snarled. “You think you're slick, don't you?”
Believe it or not, it was a show of respect from him that I figured out what he was doing. That was the only time he knocked me down that day. He actually muttered something to my uncle about me being smarter than I looked.
I guess that was a compliment.
Anyway, that's how we learned the game. To me, that was the fun part. Figuring things out. Understanding what my opponent was trying to do to me and countering it.
Remember when a new player stepped on the court? The first thing you did was figure out if he was right-handed or left-handed. Then, you'd give him the outside shot to see if he'd take it. If you backed off and he still tried to drive, that told you he didn't want to shoot from the perimeter. If he took the shot and missed, you'd dare him to keep shooting until he proved he could make it. If he made his first couple of shots, you knew you had to pick him up and guard. If you went and guarded him and he drove around you and finished at the basket, I'd try to find someone to switch with.
Perhaps I'm revealing too much about myself as a player.
But, that was the fun part. The game was so simple but still was sort of a thinking person's game filled with read and reaction, anticipation. We could play 20 games in a day and each game would have different situations or dilemmas that you had to solve.
And, you had to do it on your own.
I feel a little sorry for a lot of today's young basketball players. You can tell the ones who rely on the coach to make every decision for them – tell them where to go, what to do when they get there, when to shoot, when to pass, when to foul.
They're the players who had a coach telling them what to do from Day 1. They never had to figure out on their own how to defend an opponent one-on-one. They don't understand mismatches and how to exploit them, like when a teammate has a six-inch height advantage on their opponent and is standing under the basket. Do you really need a coach to tell you to pass them the ball?
Unfortunately, yes.
I love watching high school basketball. It's been my pleasure to write about it for the past 20-plus years. But, yeah, the game has changed and not necessarily for the better.
There's no flow, no rhythm. It's over-coached and under-played.
I'd like to blame someone but … I guess it's just evolution. We grew up playing sports because we didn't have anything better to do. Today's youth have so many options to do with their time. We'd spend an entire Sunday afternoon playing on a dirt court in 90-degree heat, taking breaks only to drink water from a filthy hose.
That was fun for us.
Of course, we also ate dirt, had rock fights and family members often used each other's bath water.
Kind of embarrassed to admit that last one.
The point is, with technology and evolution, we're introduced to so many wonderful things. Some old favorites are bound to fall by the wayside. Perhaps basketball is too simple for the sophisticated minds of today's youth.
So, when you see me in the stands, cringing, shaking my head and, often, weeping while watching a game, you'll understand I'm just an out-of-touch old man, who loves the game of basketball.
And, misses it.
(Tony Burns is sports editor for the News-Times. Write to him at [email protected]).