Jeff Cho, SG/Free Safety

Played basketball tonight. Made some open jumpers, grabbed a few rebounds, threw some nice passes, and laid out a few hits.

It all started out during warm-up. We do a 3-on-2 full-court drill after the layup lines, and I was on offense. I caught the pass on the left wing, saw this zit-faced skin-and-bone high schooler was just slightly out of position guarding 2 guys, so I took it to the hole. It wasn't a high percentage shot, since he could have recovered in time to put a hand in my face--and that he did. Poked his finger right into my right eye and popped out my contact. I coverd my eye and stopped. This zit-faced fucker grabbed the missed layup (it drew iron) and threw an outlet to his teammate which returned the pass to him for a layup. Through my still-seeing right eye I saw him high-fiving his teammate. The fucker did not even bother to apologize.

I ran to the other end of the court, thought better of it, returned to the original side and began looking for my contact. Other guys stopped the drill to help. Zit face came back to help too, but he walked around first and started checking the bottom of his Reebok. The contact was found at the opposite side of the court. I spit on it and popped it back.

I sat the first game, which might as well because the zit-face sat too. We both played in the second game on opposite sides. It's on, and it was meant to be.

The game (a 15 minute run) started out slow and tepid. A new guy showed up on our team, an self-annointed point guard with a lot of flair but under control. We all played a little bit tentative in the beginning. I assisted a couple of his baskets so he started passing it to me. Finally catching the ball where I can do something with it, I did.

Then on one play, the skinny zit-face rebounded one of my missed floater, and sprinted down the sideline. I cut him off at about mid-court, and instead of pulling up and maybe go towards the middle of the court or pass to his open teammate, he put his shoulder down and decided to beat me down the line. If that's not disrespect, I don't know what is. So I flopped my left arm up like I was playing defense, and cocked my right arm and gave him a forearm. It wasn't overly malicious, and I do it quite often actually to put the other guy out of balance. I thought it was a rather gentle tap, but you wouldn't guessed it from the result--I laid him out like a free safety on an airborne wide receiver.

Of course, I didn't apologize either. I ran down the court straight to my part of the zone. Fuck him. Having honed my chops on the blacktop battlefields of suburban Southern California, I too can be a nasty badass in Japan whose best basketball player is a 5'9" buck forty who plays like a Earl Boykin on speed (Yuta Tabuse).

The problem with being a badass is that you've gotta live up your rep. I know I gotta so I'm gonna. I hit a floater, a 15 footer, and a 3. None forced, none with more than 3 dribbles. I made outlet passes to the Trinidadian(sp? Trinidian?) in open court, a lefty shovel bounce pass (just a step ahead of the defender) to the guy who does nothing but pass and layup when open, even that guy with headband with absolutely no skill hit a 2-foot bank off my lob. I was doing it from the defensive end too, I was put at the bottom of the zone and I was pulling down plenty of rebounds. I hid behind the top of the zone and popped out to deflect or steal a few passes. But anyway, I was playing really well and swagger is setting in. Meanwhile, I stuffed the floppy-haired tall guy from behind and he fell down backwards (it was one of those jump-ball type blocks). According to Jap. rule (personally I think there's a big difference between Jap and Jap.), a block that nasty has got to be a foul .

So, my all-around play was finally getting noticed, and the intensity of the games picked up. It was the same team the next game, and the zit-face was sitting. This other guy, donning a spiked mullet with bleached bangs (I wish I had a picture), apparently the hot shot from some local high school (I heard he once scored 40 in a game), was going to do something about this nonsense about me. He proceeded to miss threes and gimme 15 footers, turn the ball over, and dribble off his feet. I stayed focused because I know when he gets hot, he gets HOT. Meanwhile all his mustard was missing the dog by miles. On this one play, he was dribbling down the middle on a 3-on-2 fast break and I was chasing. I saw him look to his right, and then proceeded to put on 15 fakes--which gave me enough time to close down the open guy on his right--finally he threw a wrap-around, behind-the-defender's back pass right into my hands. It wasn't like I reached and barely made the interception--I stood there, with two feet on the ground, facing him, and caught his pass with both hands as if it was intended for me. It was just too much, and I let out a loud "Ha!" as I dribbled down the other end. Maybe it was TOO much...he did not look pleased when I came back for defense after laying it in with my left hand. His bangs may have looked a little bit whiter too.

Another trip down, another 2 on 1 fast break led by the hot shot with the mutant mullet, and I was in the middle. He danced down the lane and stutter stepped with the ball in his right. I've been watching him play for a couple of months now and I've seen that move a zillion times: he doesn't have the handle to cross over. I bounced right, and so did he. Now for my philosophy on taking charges: I will take a charge, but since you just don't call charges in pick-ups, I make it a point to make it a hard one: you will have to either flat out punk me and go around, or take a hit--none of that Vlade flop. I'm not really sure if my feet were even set (it probably wasn't) or if I was standing my ground (I may hvae leaned a little). But I could say that it definitely wasn't a NBA charge: he ran into my shoulder, and I dropped him. I stood and picked up the ball, threw it down to the streaking Trinidian and a late whistle blew (the guys sitting ref the game). I don't know how I'm doing this, the last time I checked I only weighed like 66 kg.

The gauntlet was thrown down, but I sat our team's last game. I laughed it up while watching on the side with the Trinidian Rodrico and Adam. We even took uniformed team photos after tonight's games ended since the league is starting in May. Our team name: Bacchus. I was number 24. Just googled "24 nba." to check my NBA alter-ego. First hit: Jerome Beasley of the Miami Heat. Not much of a player, but I like the sound of that.

I left soon after the team photo, but I probably should have backtracked to retrieve my wallet. Which one was mine you ask? The one that says "Bad Motherfucker."

Laid back.