thisnewday

Yesterday afternoon was Jason's second game of the season with his middle school basketball team and, even though he's been playing soccer since kindergarten, it looks like basketball is really his sport. I even joked with his mom that I wish we'd invested even a little, of the small fortune his grandmother and I spent on soccer, to encourage and support his interest in basketball.

Because, watching him perform out on the court the past couple of days, it's amazing to realize what he's accomplished totally on his own, on a broken-down neighborhood basketball court. Maybe part of it's a difference in perception, because the game is played in a much smaller space with 5 players on a side instead of 11. It's just a lot easier to see and appreciate the incredible speed and quickness the kid has when he's one of ten on the basketball court instead of one of twenty-two on the soccer pitch.

It's also easier for us to see, and for him to assert, the amazing leadership skills that come from his great vision of the court and his almost encyclopedic understanding of the game, the strategies, his teammates' skill sets, etc. But there's still something more, something about the way he moves and asserts his presence in the game when HE'S the one at point guard, his preferred position, or making his presence equally-felt at shooting guard.

All of which makes it only slightly easier to tell the next part of the story which is that Jason's team was totally blown out of both games, the first against a small-to-medium-sized Catholic middle school and the second against a charter school from the city.

In the first game, they lost by something like 45-30 and the second was something like 36-22. I was a little late getting to the school for the first one but, by the time I arrived near the end of the first quarter, the score was already 14-2. And it was easy to see why: their defense was almost non-existant. They weren't guarding closely enough, they weren't getting back in transition, and they were providing wide-open lanes for the other team to pass, dribble, and shoot.

By the end of the game, some of that had improved and Jason had scored 20 of their 30 points and had numerous assists. And his speed, ball handling, and passing were truly amazing to watch. Occasionally, as was the case when he was trying to show off his newly-acquired soccer skills, he'd try to do too much and lose the ball or just get "stuffed," totally buried in the crush of defensive players converging on him.

But other times he would demonstrate that great vision of the court and lazer-accurate passing skills that make him such a great mid-fielder in soccer. And once, on a blazing fast trip down the court that ended under the basket, he executed a behind-the-back pass to a teammate who was following him unguarded and made the basket.

That was against a rather average team, not very tall, with a mediocre skill set. The team from the city, as expected, was a different story. They had some height, great athleticism, and some amazing shooters. So why didn't we get blown out ten times worse than in the first game?

For starters, we actually played some defense. It still wasn't pretty, and we killed ourselves with turnovers, but it was incrementally better. In some cases, the turnovers were due, once again, to showboating, trying to do too much instead of passing, or just plain ineptness or careless ball handling. And actually, during this game, the showboating mostly went away.

One highlight of the game, for me, occured near the end when there was this huge scrum under our basket, half of each team on the floor, fighting for the ball, and Jason came blazing out of it, dribbled to the other end, and made an easy layup.

There were some other "best plays of the game" as well, and some of his teammates are beginning to show some life. There's a couple of really good ball handlers, some pretty good speed, a couple with some height, and some decent shooting skills. There is, I believe, enough talent there to make it a fun, interesting, and more-competitive season down the road.

That's what I'm hoping anyway, for myself, for the team, and for the few other parents who, like me, will be their die-hard fans...

LPK
Dreamwidth
11.18.2017