Sneakers, new and old, squeak loudly on the basketball hardwood. Five on five. First team to eleven, going by ones and twos. Four teams are waiting to play and the list promises to get longer and longer, but luckily the games go pretty quickly. Still, you don’t want to lose because if you do you might not play again for a half hour—depending on the list maybe an hour. This is late night basketball, where kids go to hone their skills, talk their shit, and get better, before, during and after the season. Conversations bounce along like the basketballs in their palms. Last Friday the conversation that dominated the courts was the difference between saying “hoop” and “ball.” It was decided that it was a regional term. A lot of the guys down in California would say “ball” and if you played down there and were good, you were considered a “baller.” New York, too. In Seattle though, where most of the people at these late night sessions were from, it was all about “hooping.” You went to go “hoop.” If you were good you were a “hooper.” And if you were going to terrorize someone at the gym, you’d “hoop” them. This might seem like a tame argument on the surface, but as the night went on at these gatherings, the tame becomes a little more intense. You’d have the “hoopers” against the “ballers.” That was just one of the things you’d be playing for, essentially the right to claim the better term. The “hoopers” usually won. Other nights it would cover everything from the best player in the NBA to the best team in the NBA. “Russell?” “LeBron?” “Steph?” “KD?” “Kahwi?” “Did he really just say Boogie Cousins?” “Fuck outta here…” The same guy would always monitor the wait list of teams. He was the neighborhood old head, going in and out of sobriety, sometimes bringing in those shot bottles ranging from Jack Daniels to Jim Bean to Jameson to Hennessy. Everyone loved him except when he would walk the fine line of sloshed and belligerent. Luckily things never got too out of hand, but sometimes he would say strange things like, “Hey Davis, I hurt yo feelings and I don’t mean your emotions!” and people would kind of just stare back and process the meaning of his latest saying. The competition was real, too. Most of the time it was filled with elite high school players looking to get some good runs in, but sometimes you’d have several D1 athletes drop by, revisiting the gym that was their old stomping ground. In the summer, it was a different story. Not only would the current NBA players that were born in the city come by and play against each other, but they would bring their teammate friends, too. It was like a late night pro-am. If you thought the games to eleven went fast, these games went at a lightning pace. You could put your head down to check your phone, look up and the game would be over. A lot of the professionals were so good they would hardly break a sweat, but in those good runs, those memorable runs where two superstar teams would face each other, there was sweat flying everywhere. Hard fouls—the street kind mind you, not the flagrant slap on the wrists called in the league—would occur as if they were common. The energy never got malicious. Not really, anyway. Sometimes it would. On rare occasions you’d get two NBA players that didn’t like each other at all and you could always tell how it was going to go because of how physical the games started off. A layup attempt followed by a clothesline. A hard screen to the knee. An undercut gone horribly wrong. There was only one time punches were thrown and landed. Those two weren’t allowed to come back and they settled the rest outside. No, it was just a lot of squaring up and empty threats over here. The rights were won in the games not with the fists. A lot of people agreed that the NBA games’ intrigue were short lived during late night. What seemed to be more special was when the NBA players would mix and match with the high schoolers and the college athletes. Those games were ultimately the most competitive. And just think of the impact that had on the young guys. One minute you’re playing against people you’re own age and then next think you know you’re playing with Paul George and Anthony Davis and they’re passing you the ball! The NBA players were always so gracious, so willing to give, so willing to be patient. Willing to teach too, but make no mistake, at the end of the day, they wanted to win. It was against their nature not to. Well, let’s take a look shall we?
The Golden State Warriors have dropped in. Kevin Durant is to thank for this visit. He’s always had a soft spot for Seattle and heard about late night during his days as a Sonic. The energy when they came in the gym was absolutely electric. It wasn’t a spectacular late night at the start, but within moments after dropping in, the word got out and better players started to show up, hoping to play alongside the defending championships. A couple of the exceptional high school athletes, PJ Fuller and Kevin Porter are here. Daejon Davis, currently at Stanford and Shaqquan Aaron, currently at USC are here. Nate Robinson is here, Pierre Jackson is here. Jon Brockman is here. Bobby Jones is here. What the Warriors will come to find out is that nobody plays harder than ex-NBA players looking to prove a point, looking to prove that they should still be in the league and that they can still compete with the best of them. Nate Robinson made sure to get in the first game against the Warriors squad that had Steph and Klay. That’s just who he was. He was going to attack Steph every play, even though they had been former teammates. The teams were about half and half because the Warriors didn’t want to all be on the same team. Nate Robinson, Nick Young, Brockman, Bobby Jones, and Daejon were all on one squad and Steph, Klay, Draymond, PJ Fuller and Kevin Porter were on another. The other players like Igoudala, Livingston, and McGee decided to be on different teams and KD elected to be on an all high school squad. Steph opens up the game with two quick twos over Nate Robinson. There is a chorus of ooh’s and aahs at the silky sound of the ball through the nylon. Nate Rob laughs it off and so does Steph. On the next possession Nick Young throws the oop to Daejon, who is savagely blocked by Draymond. The ball skids to Kevin Porter who leads the break, fakes a pass to Steph an throws an alley cop to a trailing PJ Fuller who skies for the tomahawk, but is padded by Brockman. After getting his own block Brockman outlets to a leaking Nate Robinson, who makes sure he’s being trailed by Klay Thompson, rises up and throws a disgusting dunk on Klay’s chase down attempt. People on the sideline are going crazy. The old head falls out of his seat. The players couldn’t be enjoying themselves more. Everyone except Klay, who always seems to find himself on the wrong side of the poster. The game goes back and forth. Shot for shot. When Nate’s team is down 11-10 (it’s win by two) he hits a key bucket to tie up the score and both teams go back and forth, with an assortment of high flying acrobatics, deep three point attempts and great team basketball mixed with individual effort. Finally the score is 20-20 and the game is down to it’s final point (straight up to 21). Shit talking has commenced indeed and each team finds themselves equally under the other team’s skin. Brick. Brick. Brick. Brick. A sneaky give and go has Daejon all by himself at the rim, but out of nowhere comes Steph with a rare defensive effort to send the attempt flying. Klay Thompson corrals the rebound and gets a good head of steam against Nick Young. With a nasty head fake he gets Young to bite, takes a dribble and a step, crosses back to his original position and Young skirts to the ground in a crippling crossover move. Chaos ensues. The stoic Klay looks at the broken Young, sets up an fires a nothing but net, pure as purified water bucket an the Splash brothers take the game. Klay leaves the building as only Klay would do and the atmosphere in the gym reaches a fever pitch. None of the games after quite reach the level of madness, but some great ones are played nonetheless. KD’s high school squad against the Seattle squad was an incredible matchup and the team that ended up winning was the team featuring Igoudala and Livingston. They were overlooked from the beginning and coasted to seven easy victories. Finally the Warriors take turns leaving, some staying later than others. Everyone kind of wondered if Klay would come back, but he never did. The last person to leave was KD who sat out the last couple of games to talk to the old head, rearing his head back to laugh the drunker the old head got. And so it went here at late night. KD took the time to say goodbye to each player individually and the games continued even as the clocks hit 1 o clock in the morning.
The old head was the last person to leave and he was all alone, just him and his basketball sanctuary. He got out the brooms and made sure the court was in good shape. Nice and clean and shiny. He threw away the shot bottles and sat down to look at the gym and ponder the latest edition of late night. He reflected on his own playing days, his time as a ranked high school star, his legendary career at the state university and the promising NBA career that ended before it could get started. He scratched his leg and smoothed his hands over the scars on both of his knees, knees which for many years had no cartilage in them at all. Knees that were faulty to begin with and finally couldn’t withstand the daily grind. Make no mistake, he was a legend anyway, but on nights like these he took a little longer to ponder what might have been. He deserved that much, he thought. When the memories in his head came to an end he got up slowly and went to the door to turn the lights off one by one. After one last look he closed the doors and locked them, whispering a soft “See you next Friday, baby” before walking home into the night.