“I’ve got next.” It doesn’t matter who says it, everyone at the court must respect the code and let whoever is waiting play in the next game. While there are hundreds of implied rules in pick-up basketball, which change depending on where you are playing, this one is universal: if your team loses you get kicked off the court and whoever is waiting gets their turn.
Only in pick-up basketball games will you find people who barely played in high school balling alongside grads who played in college. Only in pick-up basketball will you see two guys playing one-on-one for hours. Only in pick-up basketball — ok, maybe pick-up soccer too — will you see teams built up of three different languages. Other sports don’t lend themselves to spontaneous, diverse games the way basketball does. Baseball is nearly impossible to play unorganized unless it’s in a movie, hockey is dependent on freezing weather, and tennis is restricted to four players at a time. Touch football and soccer are basketball’s only true competitors in the pick-up world, but even those have not been fully embraced in the American pick-up scene. Touch, or flag football is so different from professional football that there is a large gap within the sport, and soccer, although undoubtedly the most popular international pick-up sport is still only a subculture here in the U.S. These two sports also typically require more players than in basketball making it harder to organize games.
In basketball, all you need is a few guys, a ball, a hoop and 20 square yards. For hardcore pick-up players like Brad Gelfand, a college student who played basketball in high school and regularly plays pick-up, this is part of what attracts them to the sport. Gelfand says, “My favorite part about pick-up basketball is that anyone can play at any court at any given time.” This accessibility he talks about is one of the defining features of pick-up basketball. While many fields for other sports are often private, finding a public basketball court is extremely easy. In addition, people constantly play on many of these courts, making full games even more accessible. If you want to play pick-up football you have to organize a game with a large group of friends, but if you want to play pick-up basketball you can just go by yourself to a basketball court and play with whoever is there.
Obviously playing pick-up with your friends or strangers on the weekend is less of a commitment than joining a team, but pick-up also allows for a much different style of game. The two biggest differences between structured games and pick-up are that there aren’t referees and that teams typically don’t run predetermined plays. Without referees, players in pick-up usually call their own fouls and this allows the players to set the tone for the game. If everyone wants to play a physical brand of basketball, they’ll call less fouls. The refs do this in real basketball games, so the players can’t choose their own style of basketball. Without designed plays, players are allowed to be more creative: Darian Hooker, a Division I basketball player at Campbell University, believes creativity is one of the most fun parts of basketball, “Basketball is a simple sport, but the simplicity is the thing that allows a lot of room for people to use their individual creativity.” This is one of the things that has brought popularity to the pick-up basketball movement and specifically the subculture of And1 Street Ball.
And1 is a basketball shoe company that has sponsored commercials and games of Street Ball. Street ball is a style of basketball where the object isn’t necessarily to win, but to be creative and make your opponent look silly with a mix of killer crossovers and no-look passes. It has taken on a presence in America similar to the way Joga Bonito has internationally. Although street ball is different from pick-up, its presence can be felt on the court. Playing imaginatively, looking good, and having fun are all elements of pick-up that have been picked up (excuse the pun) from street ball.
While everyone can’t show off the way Rafer Alston can, everyone from Gelfand to Hooker can play in a pick-up game. Because a lack of skill doesn’t matter so long as you hustle, the backdoor cut doesn’t adhere to language barriers and just because White Men Can’t Jump, doesn’t mean we can’t play.
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