Taipei

Kudos to one of my editors for picking up the slack and playing pickup basketball in Taipei to assist the WorldBaller blog during the 2020 pandemic. Otherwise, yall would have been stuck with this. He even made his way to the top google search result when you search for ‘pickup basketball Taiwan’!

But being the uber competitive person I am, I also had to play some pickup basketball in Taipei to see if I could beat him by taking over the #1 google search result with this blog post. 

I was recommended two courts from the same editor (shows how confident he is in his blog post) to check out during my time in Taipei; Daan Forest Park Basketball Courts and Xinshen Park( 新生公園籃球場). 

My time in Taipei was limited, as I was bouncing between different cities of Taiwan, experiencing various different night markets and a seemingly unlimited number of bubble tea places. In fact, I got to visit the original bubble tea shop in Taichung, where even the world-famous wizard, Harry Potter, has decided to start a second career.

After drinking enough boba to put myself at severe risk of developing diabetes, I decided it was time to sweat it all out on the basketball courts. 

Daan Forest Park Basketball Courts

I first started out by visiting Daan Forest Park Basketball Courts. I arrived at ~5pm on a weekday and it was already packed with basketballers. There was no way you could play full court here, as there were 4 half court hoops all facing away from each other. I did the same thing I did in Hong Kong (though you can use this strategy really anywhere) and went directly to the hoop where people were just shooting around to wait for the next 3x3 game. After shooting around for 10 minutes or so, a very friendly guy picked me up on his team and we immediately jumped into competition.

I did notice that these courts did not have 3 point lines, so similar to the scoring that one of my editors reported back in 2020, games were by 1’s to 6. And as expected, games moved fast. The one qualm I had about playing on a court without a 3 point line (besides the fact that there were no 3 pointers) was that the take back line was pretty ambiguous. While that didn’t become an issue in any of our games, I would assume it could become a point of argument, especially on gamepoint, if someone didn’t take the ball out far enough. Luckily everyone here got along and we had nice, long, competitive games against each other.

Xinshen Park (新生公園籃球場)

I visited Xinshen Park (新生公園籃球場) around 6-8pm on a weekday night. When I first got there, I wasn't sure if it was because of the time I arrived (or just bad luck) that there was not much basketball going on. Besides a small half court game consisting of middle schoolers, there were only 3 other people shooting around by themselves. I shot around for about an hour in hopes that people would come, but no one showed up. It wasn’t until right when I was about to leave for dinner that a LOT of people started streaming in and started to play pickup basketball. If I had stayed only 30 minutes longer, I would have easily jumped on a game, but unfortunately the beef noodle soup and stinky tofu could wait no longer.

While I didn’t actually play at this park, I did enjoy the atmosphere and the level of competition. If I had to pick a court between Daan Forest Park Basketball Courts and Xinshen Park (新生公園籃球場), I would probably chose Xinshen Park (新生公園籃球場) because of the 3 point line and talent levels I witnessed in my very short time here. 

Conclusion 

Playing pickup basketball in Taipei was almost too easy. I don’t think you can go wrong on any courts; Daan Forest Park Basketball Courts, Xinshen Park (新生公園籃球場) or even Xinsheng Elevated Road. With lights at all courts, you could potentially play late into the night, so make sure you stay hydrated. Bring your bubble tea and get ready for some fun, competitive pickup basketball!