Street Ball

23 days ago

Last weekend @mrsbozz and I went down to Flint, MI to watch our nephew play basketball. Obviously, the photo above is not from that trip. In fact, I didn't take any photos from that trip down to watch him play and I am not quite sure why that might be. It's actually kind of interesting, the team he plays on is what I would consider and inner city team. He is the only Caucasian on the team and he is probably the biggest kid on the team as well.

Not that any of that matters, but this is definitely a different class of competition than what he has faced in the past. The game is just played differently and officiated differently. It's more like a park style game where you are allowed to get away with a whole lot more than you might in a traditional game. Which I would expect can be pretty frustrating for the kids sometimes.

I'd also imagine a lot of it has to do with what you are used to. Until a couple years ago when he was asked to play in this league, I don't think the game was quite so physical for him. He still played hard and scored some points. He had quite a few assists and I am very proud of him.

Inner city ball is just different from regular ball, no matter what kids are playing it.

The coaches are different too. There was a point where I thought the two coaches were going to get into it on the sideline. Honestly, I think they do more trash talking to each other than the players do. If you can imagine that. It's a whole different world.

I think back to the game we saw earlier this year where his older brother was playing for his school team and the official ended the game early because the coach from the other team was getting a bit to animated and verbal. Likely behavior that would pass just fine in his rec league, but not so much in a school league.

It's also kind of interesting because I think many of the other players on the other team underestimate him and think that he can't play as well as them. If he can get a consistent outside shot down, there were plenty of times he was left wide open and I think they could open a lot of eyes.

Sadly, they lost the game we stayed to watch on Saturday, but they had three more that day, so I would imagine they had a bit more luck later in the day.

Speaking of basketball, apparently the Pistons are in the playoffs. I wouldn't really know. I haven't watched NBA basketball in forever. I find it comical to watch compared to the basketball I grew up watching, and after the huge official scandal a decade or so ago, I lost interest.

Good luck to them though, it sounds like they are going to have some tough competition if they make it to the final.