North America

After the excitement of the 2024 Solar Eclipse, I knew I had to play basketball during the next big celestial phenomenon—the total lunar eclipse. There was one problem with this lunar eclipse? It started at 2:26 AM EST.

After briefly venturing into the travel blogging era of the WorldBaller blog with posts on Vancouver and Houston, another reader suggested that I needed to catch up with the times. Apparently, long-form Pulzter Prize writings just doesn’t cut it anymore because “no one reads these days.” Instead, they urged me to create short, engaging video content to keep up with the fast-paced world of social media...

Everything is bigger in Texas—including Houston! The city is so massive that you’ll need my travel blog, endorsed by dozens, to navigate which areas are worth exploring. With so many options, it can feel overwhelming, but don't worry—I’ll break it down into a simple day trip that anyone (or any couple) can enjoy. Pro tip: You won’t need a rocketship but please rent a car because everything in Houston is spread out.

A reader recently suggested that since I travel to so many different cities, I could gain "a million more views" by turning my blog into a travel blog, focusing on what to do and see in each city. So here I go, venturing into the world of travel blogging.

I landed in Seattle, and the first notification I got on my phone was that T-Mobile Tuesday was giving away pickleball paddles. While the most typical thing to do after landing would be to grab food or check in at the hotel, the first place I went was a T-Mobile store to pick up these paddles.

I’ll embarrassingly admit that I played more pickleball on this trip than basketball.

My disappointment grew when I realized that I had confused Kaskade with Cascada, meaning I wouldn’t get to dance to ‘Everytime We Touch’ after all. Despite the allure of F1 racing and the clubbing nightlife, I gravitated towards finding the local basketball courts to see where local ballers play pickup basketball.

Four years later, I returned to Chicago with three more goals in mind:

• Eat deep dish pizza

• Take a picture with the Bean

• Play basketball

Even though I didn’t get the opportunity to sink three-pointers on this extraordinary day, the alignment of our celestial bodies, with the moon swishing precisely across the sun's path, literally ‘shooting lights out’ around the world.

Before embarking on my quest to explore the various courts across the island, there was a prerequisite: I had to procure the official basketball jersey of Hawaii for my pickup games—an aloha shirt.

While Denver may be known as the Mile High City, my journey began at the Highland Gateway Park basketball courts, and regardless of whether or not I was high* during this time, I can tell you for fact that there was something wrong with this court. 

*he was not (read in the voice of the narrator from Arrested Development)

With the explosion of AI and ChatGPT in the recent months, I decided to utilize ChatGPT to help me write about my pickup basketball experience in Atlanta. It should be noted that I wrote a draft post first with details of my experience, and then I inputted it into ChatGPT to 'make it sound better'...

I had many potential ways to spend my time in Philly; eat a philly cheesesteak, tour the liberty bell, hunt for an ocular device, or get dunked on by Joel Embiid.

In the past week I traveled around the world – from New York to Hollywood, Paris, Rome and even Egypt – but unfortunately there were no basketball courts in sight. I even traveled back to the medieval times but to be fair, I don’t think basketball had been invented just yet.

My week in Phoenix was actually extremely packed and I was getting afraid that I would miss a chance to play pickup basketball. On the last day of my travels, I found a one hour slot between a steak dinner and a party where I hungout* with a Kardashian, I googled the closest basketball court and drove straight there in hopes there would be people playing pickup. 

This was the first pickup basketball game where we played with 2s and 3s. It just makes so much more sense as 2s and 3s are seemingly played at all levels of basketball except for pickup basketball. I approve

We stayed at the all-inclusive Hard Rock Hotel Cancun resort that boasts “access to unbelievable All Inclusive amenities like experiential dining at 6 world-class restaurants, never-ending cocktails, legendary entertainment, and top-shelf everything across the board. It’s All Day. All Night. All Included, baby”. While all that sounded great (and expensive), I had to take care of some business and you guessed it – play some pickup basketball. 

I had some time to spare before an (basketball) event on a beautiful sunny Saturday morning and instead of sitting around at the hotel, I decided to spend the next hour driving to my destination while stopping at every basketball court along the way. Luckily for me, there was no shortage of basketball courts to choose from. It actually reminded me of the Traveling Salesman Problem, but with basketball courts.

This was my first pickup basketball experience since March 2020, pre-covid, and while I desperately tried to keep my blog active with atypical basketball experiences, nothing could replace the experience of wandering around a new city in hopes to find a place to play some pickup basketball.

The most interesting aspect of this for me at least was that since 3 on 3 is now an Olympic sport, and watching some games on TV and in Singapore, made me fully realize how important the 3 point shot was, especially when playing by 1’s and 2’s. Even though the 3 point shot is not my strength, I spent the entire night jacking up as many 3 point shots as possible. I started out probably 0-10 on 3’s...

If you take a look at the "Total:" you may notice that I received a discount. That's because my cheap ass remembered that their marketing emails sent me a 50% off code a year ago from my New York experience to play again. For those of you who wonder how I get to travel so much, it's partially because I save money in instances like this (Sorry Indoor Hoops, I really should be supporting you as much as I can).

But because it's a public gym, you do have to be careful with your belongings. During one of our games, this one dude ran off the court in the middle of play to chase some guy who stole his basketball (kudos for him for actually watching his stuff every time down the court). So make sure you watch your stuff.

The next 10 minutes of basketball were probably the worst 10 minutes of basketball anybody could have experienced. 4 of the players were referees, so we did not have refs. Nothing against young kids trying to play, but it’s always odd when you have people who are probably 20-30 years old and over 6 ft tall with 13 year old kids who are hovering 4 ft tall. I knew this was going to be a bad game from the get go, but I needed my ‘experience’, so I decided to give it a go.

The most memorable players that I will take away from my visit to NYC is this guy in a Chicago Bulls jersey with the strongest “Noo Yawk” accent and mentality I’ve ever heard. I was happy to have him on my team because there was no way he was losing any argument...

I stumbled upon two different pickup basketball programs and actually had time to try out both. Both pickup basketball programs had two completely different business models and I think it’s worth mentioning both because the use cases fit the need of two separate groups of players...

I have no idea which city to choose so I went with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim naming convention…

I recently got to play on the basketball courts inside the Capital One Arena (formerly known as the Verizon Center) and it was an incredible experience. Yes, I know, travelers who want to play pickup basketball here may never have the chance to, but this experience was far too great for me not to write about it, so consider this a special edition (plus I just wanted to brag a bit)...

There were plenty of players in the gym and it made me wonder how many players would be in there if it had been during the actual school year. UBC is also nicknamed University of Billion Chinese and probably 75% of the people there were Chinese...

Kitsilano Beach Park’s Basketball courts are my favorite basketball courts to date. The scenic views from the courts are magnificent and the court itself is very well maintained. With the court being in the center of a very popular beach park, don’t get nervous because you will always be playing in front of a crowd...