Gooooooooaaaaaaaaal!

As in, I got a basketball goal. The design of this one is pretty nice. The parts all nested in the molded plastic base in the box… good packaging. After some time assembling, which was a little trying with one set of hands, the job was finished. It has a nice spring loaded rim and a clear acrylic backboard. It’s none too fancy, but I’m quite pleased. We raised it up and I tried to touch the net. The earth’s gravity relented momentarily and I was able to touch nylon. I decided it must be half a foot too short. A double-check of the height confirmed we were at ten feet. Mad hops… I got ‘em.

The court leaves something to be desired, which is ok. What it leaves to be desired is flatness and hardness. Remember how the old Boston Garden parquet floor had all those dead spots? The Celtics players, especially Larry Bird, seemed to know intuitively the nuances of the floor while visitors were continually frustrated. My court is a lot like that, except after only an hour of court time, it confounds me while my imaginary foes seem to have it figured out already. It’s a gravel driveway, but solid enough for dribbling. Where the ball bounces, the rocks disperse and a little patch of dirt opens up, but the randomness of my ball handling should prevent any one spot from wearing out. But talk about dead spots… get out in the grass at all and you get the bounce of shotput. I’ve over inflated my ball a little to simulate a good bounce, with decent results. Other interesting court tidbit: the most difficult shot in sports is the “follow” from the left side at about 4pm, the sun is right there and, man, is it ever bright.

I’ve still got it… “it” being whatever I once had, which was not all that much. I like to play like I live, so I shoot from the hip. Yeah, that’s right. It’s fun to bounce around and shoot again. This fat man sho needs some exercise. I expect to work some muscles that have been neglected over the past few years - specifically the leg muscle, the arm muscle and the torso muscle. Also, many a frustration has been pounded out on many a basketball court over the years. Good stuff.

Basketball court - Therapeutic value of 8, Exercise value of 7, Blog topic value of 1 entry.

Me + Basketball = Happy.