What's yours... as a player? In August of 1975, I strolled into the Alumni Gym at Guilford College for a little hoop action. Guess who I ended up guarding? World B. Free-- just back from signing his contract with Philadelphia. In a 15 point game, he dunked on me 6 times. The only good news is that there were only a few people watching and they were very sympathetic, although 4 of them refused to guard him! Or even help out very much.
Haven't had one of those yet, but I am sure it is coming. He dunked on you? Did you jump to try and block it or just watch him fly by?
Take the charge man...establish the lane as yours...or did he just go over you and give you leather shampoo?
The guy was just so strong. I'm a tad over 6'1". Free was maybe 6' 3" and strong as an ox. The guy had big shoulders and huge thighs. He had originally signed with Eddie Sutton at Arkansas but didn't have the grades to get into Arkansas. It didn't matter what I did; he was just so powerful. I think I rode him to the rim a couple of times. It was a pretty wide open full-court game. Later that same year, I came to Houston for Christmas and watched him play in the Rockets-Sixers game. Seems like he did some damage there, so I felt better. We had another guy at Guilford, Jeep Kelly, who either had failed to make the academic grade at UNLV or had gotten into some kind of trouble. I tried checking him too without much success. He was a nice guy. I think there's a kid playing at UNLV named Kelly; I wonder if that's his kid... Bob Kauffman had left Guilford the year before as a #1 pick of the Seattle SuperSonics. I never had a chance to check him. Thank God, he was about 6'8" and built like a truck. I have to ask: how did these guys who couldn't make the grades as athletes to gain entrance at mediocre state schools ever get into Guilford. It's not Harvard, but I found it plenty competitive.
Maybe try some pepper spray to the crotch? Just kidding my man. I've trid to get my kids to take a charge, and the only ones that do it are the ones that have accidentally done it before and found out that it doesn't hurt...that bad...
Well, I was never able to have the embarassment of guarding any future NBA players, but I have done some stupid things before. In one game one time, we were bringing the ball up the court, and I was helping (I was not the PG, but one of the wings and if there was pressure, it was my job to help the handler out). The opposing team started pressing, and the ball was passed to me. I tried to make a pass up court, but the ball was stolen. The guy that stole the ball proceeded to drive quickly up the court, and ended up hitting a layup over me. Being that I was really pissed at myself for being the cause of all that, I took the ball out of bounds to pass it in, but in a quick fit of rage, I just slammed the ball down in front of me with the intent to grab it as soon as it came back up. I missed. The ball bounced back up and hit the bottom of the backboard and caromed away from me. Now, I thought that I might get a delay of game or maybe even a technical for that display, but the refs decided to punish me even more. Because when I bounced the ball, it was actually inbounds (I was still standing out of bounds) and then it bounced off the backboard out of bounds again, the ref called it out of bounds off me, and the other team's ball. Boy did that suck.
Rio Hondo...I remember taking my team to play over at their place...I swear that gym we played in must have been built in the '50's. Who was your coach? Casanova?
When I was younger(HS sophomore), before responsibilty and all that other crap that robs you of free time set in, all I ever did was shoot around in my driveway. So one day I'm out there and this cute girl that I had known since first grade comes up jogging and asks if I want to play... So like any red-blooded, testosterone-filled pubert I take her up on her offer(afterall, maybe she'd try to "post me up" ). After I let her score a few times(at least I think I let her), she blows a layup and I get the rebound. I take it back, turn my back to her and do a mini-Dreamshake and try to fade away. I get the ball thrown back in my face. No foul. It wasn't embarassing because she was a girl but rather the fact that she was half a foot shorter than me. She gave me her number later and said to call her if I ever wanted to play again. Yeah, that sounded like fun.
I think you may have missed a golden opportunity my friend. Did she specifically say play "Basketball"? What if she was going to return the favor and let you "score"?
I've guarded future NBAers before in pickup games, and it wasn't too bad. Of course, it was Matt Maloney. *rimshot* All he did was go for steals and cherry-pick. This was while he was at Vanderbilt -- I made him look so bad that he had to transfer to Penn. :tongue-in-cheek: My most embarrassing moment needs a little setup in order for me not to look like a total ****. In 12th grade (1989), I tried out for my high school soccer team. I wasn't really in good shape then (or now). After a scrimmage and some laps around the school, we did suicides (I think that's what they're called) -- start at the basketball court baseline, run to the near FT line and back, run to halfcourt and back, run to the far FT line and back, run to the other baseline and back, all while touching each line with your hand. After about 8 of those, my legs started to go, and after touching the far FT line, I was exhausted -- I staggered to halfcourt, where my legs finally gave up. Thud. Needless to say, I didn't make the team. So, about 4 years later, it's about 1993. I'm in a pickup game with one semi-friend (we'll call him "Paul", because that was his name) and a few strangers. We had just won, and the next team looked just as bad. Paul said something to the effect of, "Let's play run and gun, Loyola Marymount style, full throttle." I thought of the incident mentioned above, and immediately replied, "And what, drop dead in the middle of the court?" Disclaimer: NO, I wasn't thinking of Hank Gathers at all. I think Paul eventually believed me when I explained it to him. I can only hope nobody else overheard me. I was a huge LMU fan -- huge enough to use one of their player's names as my standard username on the Net. (Although my game's a lot more like Per Stümer's.)
Suicides, liners, Jayhawks...A great tool to discipline a team and get them in basketball shape at the same time!!!
Man, I don't even know where he is anymore. Ususally coaches keep in touch. He must have left the area.
