Fantasy Basketball October 16, 2008

Fantasy Basketball
Jerome Green

It’s in the game at every turn. We see it, we feel it and we express it. The luvv of the game is stored in our DNA. It is so present and revealing that we don’t need a C.S.I crew to examine it or find out how it got there. It’s in the exchange between competitors that we get to explore who we are and why we are. What are we here to do? What are our lives about? Basketball, while not the Gandhi of wisdom, is a perfect place to discover a few things about us. No matter if it’s between the lines or on the sidelines. Every exchange, every possibility brings us closure to the courage that is needed to conquer our fears, overcome obstacles and learn.

Basketball is a fantasy game. A game that allows us to dream and venture beyond the realities of the realness of everyday life and into the playfulness of the world. Basketball is a game. A game made up of spirit, skill and athleticism. To play the game to it’s fullest requires work, not drudgery. If you find yourself laboring with the game, step away, but don’t run away.  Each player and coach who comes to the game comes with a set of expectations and a bucket full of potential. Sometimes players choke on their potential.  Potential requires work.

There is no better place for me to watch basketball right now than on a Sunday at the Hangar in Hawthorne, California. There you get to see 8-year-old 3rd grader and 18-year-old twelfth graders playing with their hearts, mindless to the outside pressures of the day. Economic recession? Not in their thoughts. What is in their thoughts is getting the ball up the court, making the pass, playing defense and having fun. I see some kids having fun, I see others worrying about not being good enough, but in each of them I see hope, passion and luvv.

Today’s player has to navigate in waters that I never had to. Everyone is looking for their ESPN moment, the top 10 play of the day. Being rated, being scouted, being chosen as the one is something that many of today’s players play for.  They have to manage their fantasy lives with the reality of being compared. One college coach told me-“ players have to pass the eye ball test, and look the part of a D1 player.”

As I look around the Hangar, I see parents with dreams and wishes, desiring their son to be the one that gets that D1 scholarship. Many parents want their child to be the one that everyone talks about being the horse or go to guy on his team. Yet, others parents just want their son or daughter to play the game to learn lessons about dedication, discipline, teamwork and achievement and develop life-long companions.

Imagine if each player had to carry the burden of the game only having value if you are the best-the game would die. What makes the game great is the process of the game itself. The process of getting better, understanding what it takes for you to make the winning shot. How many shots you took to be able to realize that one moment of victory and how many losses you’ve had and the learning that took place because of those loses.

The game was meant to be fun and in the process a few players get the opportunity to take that fun all the way to the top. The rest of us get to play the game in adult league, or intramurals or until our bodies give way to age. In the meantime, no matter if it’s the NBA or the PBA, you can see that glimmer in every ones eyes once the ball goes up. The question being asked over and over, will today be the day that I find peace in the game?

Before he passed, Paul Newman said, “It’s been s privilege to be here.”  What a way to go out. Realizing that the life you lived was wonderful and that it was a pleasure to be here, to exchange, to luvv and be luvved. I’ve heard coaches say leave it all on the floor and some people like Hank Gathers and others have done just that. We remember them, not for how they died, but how they lived.

The game is just that. A game. A funny, silly game invented by Naismith and refined and defined by thousands of others. I am sure when Naismith invented the game, he never in his wildest dreams thought that it would be where it is today, but then again, maybe he did. It is all a fantasy after all.