Johannesburg

Ratings (1-10): 1=terrible/hard, 10=great/easy.

Courts: 7 – two courts. one with a broken rim, and one side blinded by sun.

Skill Level: 3 and 6 – one court for advanced, one for recreational

Easy to Play: 9 and 3 – one court I was invited, the other had too many people

I got to travel to South Africa for the first time in my life, and of course the first thing I do is to look for a basketball court to play on #bballaddiction. I thought it was going to be difficult finding a basketball court in Johannesburg, but I was lucky that the hotel I stayed at was part of the Wanderers Club, a premiere sports club founded in 1888 with facilities for pretty much any sport that you can think of, and they had a basketball court that was only a 10 min walk away.

I googled the Wanderers Club website and saw that they had pickup basketball from 15:00-18:00 on Sundays. The website also mentioned that you had to be a club or hotel member to play on the courts so everything worked out perfectly because I was staying at the hotel and I had just arrived Sunday morning.

Being in South Africa and everything I read about Africa, I figured it was best for me to carry as little as possible, so all I brought to the courts were my room key and a small bottle of water.

Although the courts were only 10 minutes away, when I got there, I was already drenched in sweat (it was a sunny 85F but the african sun made it feel like over 100F). My first observation was that, surprisingly, even though the courts were fenced off, really anybody could have walked right in.

There were 2 full size regulation outdoor basketball courts with what I believe to be NBA 3 point lines. Court 1 seemed like where the main action was, and Court 2 contained people who looked more like recreational players. Unfortunately, they were only playing half court games on both courts. Court 1’s second hoop was bent so no one could shoot on it and court 2’s second hoop was for anybody just looking to shoot around.

Just like any baller getting familiar with a new court and new players, I head straight for the basketball hoop where people were just shooting around. I figured I had no shot at court 1 because there was already a line of people waiting to play, and I had no ‘in’ to get picked up. Court 2 was promising because they were playing 4 on 4 and we had exactly 4 people just shooting around. I waited patiently for court 2’s game to finish and luckily for me, right after they finished, they asked us 4 to play next.

The game rules were simple: all 1’s up to 5 (I don’t think anybody hit a 3 pointer that day so it didn’t matter), call your own fouls, and take back everything. Most rules were pretty standard in half court basketball. Since the games ended so quickly, I think I ended up playing over 10 games of 4 on 4. Average height was probably 5’10. One thing to watch out for, if you shot from one side of the hoop, you would get blinded by the sun.

Here are the 2 things I will remember the most about these games:

1. This one guy, who probably idolized Tim Duncan, could only shoot bank shots. He wasn’t very good at it  but those were the only shots he took. If it goes in, it looks good. But if it doesn’t go in, any missed bank shot is going to look horrible. Most shots completely missed the rim, or hit the side of the backboard, but undeterred, this guy kept trying his bank. To his credit, he did hit 1 game winner.

2. This one guy I guarded had a very strong drive with his right hand. In fact, he scored on me multiple times going right. After a while, I realized that he was only going right, so the next times I guarded him, I literally stood on his right hip. It was so obvious that if we were 2 straight lines, we would be perpendicular to each other. If this guy had a better left, he would have been decent. But he still tried to drive by me using his right hand, which proved to be ineffective after I figured him out. It got to the point where even if he was on the left side of the court, and he seemingly had a wide open left hand drive, he would still dribble with his right hand to the right side of the court and then drive to the hoop with his right which ultimately ended up with either a turnover or a wild shot that went no where. Glad to say that was one of my best self-coaching moments of 2017.

During the times when I was not playing, I did catch a glimpse of Court 1 action. They were better but I wouldn’t say incredible. They were definitely bigger. Average height was probably 6’1. They did have a big 6’5 guy who could dribble a bit, but he was more effective grabbing rebounds and putting them back up. But he tried being too much of a guard and floated around the 3 point line too much. There was a short 5’8 guard who had better handles than anyone else and could finish around the basket. And then there was this lanky 6’0 kid who I remember seeing him shoot a 3 pointer every time he touched the ball. He did not make any…

Around 17:30, everyone started getting tired. All of Court 1 players left, and we were just finishing up on court 2. I was dying of thirst because, supposedly, there was nowhere to buy water so people were drinking this well water. I definitely did not trust that so I skipped out on that part.

All in all, I was satisfied. While I didn’t try my hardest , I still felt effective by grabbing a lot of rebounds and making a lot of layups. I went 0/1 on 3 pointers and probably had a lot of turnovers, but I had a lot of fun which is what matters the most. I even got a suntan(burn).