Do you have any highlights to share of discord on the court that involved you? I have three: 1. 1978, Ventnor, New Jersey: A friend and I were looking for a game at a park. We saw a couple of guys shooting, so we asked them if they wanted to play 2-on-2. They said sure and so the game commenced. We were pretty good but so were they. There was one problem though. You could smell the Ripple as they sweated. After I blocked my guys shot three times back2back2back, he took a roundhouse swing and clobbered me (with his forearm) from behind. He was frustrated. End of game. 2. 1994, Greensboro, NC: Playing in a mixed student/adult game at a college-based Y, there was this one guy (Nate) who showed up pretty regularly to play. He was very "unsophisticated" shall we say in the nuances of competitive basketball. On one occasion, he and I were defending a 3-2 fast break. He had the defensive point. He did slow the ball down, but the ballhandler never picked up his dribble, so my defensive point-man took off to pick up the wingman who was his actual defensive assignment. There was no more defensive help that had arrived. The point takes up the slack and shoots a little unguarded 15 foot jumpshot. As Nate and I meet under the goal to take the ball out I gently suggest (truly) that he not just leave the guy open like that.... Nate goes off. He confronts me and says "Who do you think you are... f___in' Pat Riley?" Then he gets right up in my face and even sticks his toes under my shoes to make it look like I'm standing on his toes. We stare at each other for a few seconds. We could have grappled for a bit but it would have meant a six-month suspension from the Y. Instead I just stood there staring him down until some guys intervened. Nate stormed out of the gym and didn't come back for a couple of weeks. 3. 1998, Charlotte, NC: I'm playing with my same friend in scenario #1. This time we are at the Jewish Community Center in Charlotte. He's got a regular game he plays in there. We arrive and are shooting around. He introduced me around (One of the guys was Dancing Barry who used to be a regular at Bullet or Laker games-- I forget which-- if anybody remembers him). Anyway, we get teams picked. I'm the second biggest guy on the floor, so I end up guarding the biggest guy on the floor. This is no kidding. The game is not 10 seconds old and I'm fronting the guy I'm guarding. He grabs me by the shoulder with both hands and pulls me to the ground... and acts like he did nothing. There was no pass into the post. He didn't call a foul. He didn't complain about anything. He just grabbed me unprovoked and pulled me down and acted like nothing had happened. I guess he was looking for an intimidation factor.
lol...yea thats never a good thing....I'll let my quote do the talking....But there have been many other times....Shots fired on a couple of occasions....No fights involving me from what i remember, it's usually a punk or two who is all talk and like to do a little heavier talking with guns on their side.
Played down at UH gym. Physical game the whole game. Lots of smack talking. Blocked 1 guy really bad and talked some smack. Walking to mid-court when his two buds grabbed my arm and he pummeled me. Guy I came with stood there and yelled, 'hey guys... stop it'. Needless to say I never saw that basketball court or that 'friend' again.
Oh yea, i saw that.....justkidding....well, i guess i might have...The only fighting at the rec ive seen up there that i remember was in an intramural game. Frat vs us (us equals one guy on our team that i didnt know.)
So you played at the Hammerly courts as well? Or was it that court up in Spring? I have way way too many stories about this subject. I played on basketball courts all over the city of Houston from 1978 till 1988.
I crossed this guy over several times.. he gets mad at me then start making racial jokes... doing ching chang chong.. yao ming ding.. chink chink.. So i started making african noises with a jungle sound. He gets pissed off started swinging at me. His friends stopped him from kicking my ass and laughed at my jokes.. He gets pissed at his friends calling them sell outs then leaves the court. He gets back stoned .. smiling... .. all good now..
Ha ha....no crap. We played a bunch at the Hammerly courts growing up. It wasn't shocking at all to hear stories of people pulling guns all the time over there. We ran into some shady folks, but never the gun-toting type, luckily....
What years did you play on the Hammerly courts? I was a regular over there until shots were fired. Basketball is not worth dying over, but then to some people, I guess it is
A few come to mind.. -Little korean guy barrels into me on purpose on a fastbreak after I rejected him last possession.. he put his knee RIGHT into my gut.. missed the layup.. an obvious freaking foul on him. I bounced right back up, grab the ball and take it out. He screams some incoherent curse words, I tell him that was a charge, our ball, he yells "shoot for it then, b****!". I tell him no, he quips something about me not having any skill, then walks off the court. -I normally play the middle because I'm usually the largest guy on the court, but one time there was another guy on the court who wasn't taller than me, but he was ridiculously ripped, prolly roiding. Anyway, he gets tired of me boxing him out (probably what I do best) so he grabs me around my shoulders and throws me down to the floor, hard. I get up, run down court and put an elbow in his back to knock him out of position for a rebound. He turns around and we stare each other down. -Last play of the game basically, next point wins. Our point loses the ball and the other team is on a fast break, I'm running to catch up but it looks like the game is over. I don't know how, but i caught the guy from behind and stuffed his layup into the backboard and we got the ball and put in an easy bucket for the win (think Hakeem's epic block of KJ.. only not so epic). The entire other team wanted to KILL me over it, saying I had fouled their guy (it quickly became a nasty situation.. it was essentially a whites vs. blacks game.. so apparently a bunch of racial tension boiled to the surface quickly) Anyway, we didn't stick around for a rematch.
Man, some of you guys really played ball in the "mean streets". Worse thing for me was in college this thug deliberately elbowed me in my mouth on a rebound. One of my front two teeth has been slightly loose every since.
you too? we got in a ruckus with one of dems frats also when i was there. it was a close game to the end, one of them purposely through the ball at my teammates face, all hell almost broke loose and the frat guy was just talking **** b/c he had 8 other rushees with him who all thought they were tough **** too.
I knocked out one Mr. Meowgi's roomate's teeth playing b-ball utterly wasted late in the evening. Unintentional elbow trying to grab a rebound. That same tooth (fake) fell out of his mouth and into his lap one day years later while he was talking to me and another friend. I think it was one of funniest things i've ever seen, particularly since I was the one who knocked it out with such great fanfare.
Great thread. 1) Horsing around outside at a party shooting hoops in the driveway and playing 3 on 3. I upfaked this guy I'd never met before, he totally goes for it, almost jumping OVER MY HEAD, but catching his knee on my shoulder. Face first into the cement. 5 stiches above the eye! 2) Playing in college against a rival school. Other team and had a known 'Artest' (w/out skills). After stealing the ball from him as he was dribbling on the wing and starting to take off the other way I get a sharp mule kick which nearly left his big toe permanantly in my rectum. If im half a step slower the furniture would've been re-arranged!
man, i got some.. 1. LOCAL BASKETBALL LEAGUE (walnut, ca) - my team (lets call it team a) was whooping the other team (lets call it team b) real bad and there was this "gangster-wannabe" guy on team b. ok so this gangster-wannabe guy was talkin alot of smack even when his team was losing and he was my defensive assignment. with every minute that passes by, our play became more and more physical that it came to a point that even the people in the crowd noticed that me and him are almost wrestling in the court. what made matters worse was i was scoring on him every possession and that prolly ticked him. when i made a fadeaway jumper all over him that kind of pushed him over the edge. i was talkin alot of smack to him going back to defense because i got sick and tired of his mouth and i wanted to frustrate him more. so his teammate missed a shot and me and him was battling for position, he got the position but i jumped higher so i got the ball while im behind him and when he saw that i got the rebound he straight up elbowed me to the nose and trust me, i was gushing out so much blood that paramedics was called. but anyways, i dropped in pain and here comes my teammate with a punch on the face on gangster wannabe dude and before you know it, both benches cleared out and it was an all out brawl. cops had to stop the fight.. end of game. my team won. 2. SAME LOCAL BASKETBALL LEAGUE AS ABOVE - it was a really tight game. double ot and we were already playing our third ot. everyone was on their feet. our pg brought the ball up to set the play. he passed it to one of my guys (guy a) and he was double teamed. he protected the ball and when he was about to pass he accidentally elbowed one of the oppponents players (guy b) in the face. offensive foul was called. guy b retaliated and shoved my guy. my guy tried to tell him that he didnt do it on purpose but before he can finish his sentence here comes the punch from guy b. hit him straight in the face. benches cleared. my whole team chased guy b while guy b was running all over the gym like the little b!tch that he is. finally i caught him but didnt hit him because his teammate instantly pulled him out of my grip. not as big of a rumble as the story above. that one got controlled fast. end of game. league was cancelled. gym banned all players that played in the league. funny thing tho is my friend got it all on tape so everytime we watch it, gives us a good laugh. 3. HIGHSCHOOL GAME - it started when he was running on a fast break opportunity.. i caught up and eventually i blocked his shot. talked smack to me and i just brushed it off. next possession, he was bringin down the ball and he was trying so hard to break my ankles, to his surprise, i found an opening and stripped the ball right in half-court, before i can break away, he caught my jersey pulled me back and started to pummel the **** outta me. refs broke it up and last thing i heard was that guy got suspended from his school and my popularity went sky high. lol.
