As I have begun to accept that I am a washed-up athlete, I have taken a significant step in the process: I joined a men's rec league. Two of my friends I work with at camp (sidenote: This Week In Campers is roughly a month out from its triumphant return) played in a league at the JCC last summer and asked me a few weeks ago to play in it while I was sitting in my Sports Marketing class probably playing Tetris.
Now, I figured it would be us three and a few kids my friend Jacob knew from the league, and that we would be going up against other guys like us (semi-athletic, for sure not all-star basketball players) and middle-aged Jewish men. Well, it turns out we A) have three unreal guys on our team and B) are playing other teams with multiple unreal guys on them. We're playing in the upper division, which I guess is fair since we can't just have one of our guys dunking on bad teams every week.
I'll recap the first two weeks now and then make this weekly. Let's roll.
First things first, our first time together as a team was three weeks ago when we scrimmaged what I assumed would end up being the second best team behind us. We played three games and we only won the first one, but that's because our guys just kept trying to throw alley-oops the last two games. Still a lot of potential there.
Game 1, we played the defending champs. This threw me off because when I saw them I thought, "There is ZERO chance they won it all last year." One very athletic young guy surrounded by old dudes. One was even wearing plaid dress shorts on the court and looked like a fatter Bill Murray. Turns out that guy could hit an open 3. Also turns out we have zero chemistry right now, and it showed. Not a good game. No shots were falling. I don't even remember the score to be honest, but we lost by something like 11.
Game 2, we were feeling good walking in. And then we saw the other team. First thing I personally saw: 6'6" black dude built like a goddamn Sherman tank. And then a 6'4" kid with arms like the Greek Freak himself. A point guard with good handles. A couple of lanky white guys. And then this older dude who couldn't move around too well.
Here's the thing about our team, no one really likes to get down in the blocks and fight for rebounds. We're the Celtics. Tons of potential offensively, but if the shots aren't falling, the other team will have like 100 rebounds. That carries over to the defensive end to. That big dude was getting putbacks like every other trip down the floor. And that old dude? He went like 11/13 from 3. Incredible.
So at this point i have to ask you, the reader, a question. Is losing 99-68, hypothetically, in men's league basketball a bad thing? Is that bad? Should we (hypothetically) not have done that?
We are 0-2 and it can't get much worse form here except that it absolutely can. Next week is a new test, a new challenge. Will we take home the W, or collect a third straight L? Will Chris (the kid who loves dunking and talking trash while we're down a hundo) show up on time? I guess we'll find out.
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