Pickup Artists: Street Basketball in America

by Lars Anderson, Chad Millman

The history of blacktop basketball in fast-paced words and pictures. A New York street hustler. A lonely man in a Maryland prison. A confused Native American on a reservation in Idaho. What do they all have in common? They are among the best pickup basketball players in the country. In Pickup Artists, Lars Anderson and Chad Millman tell the complete story of the street game from its mythical past to its glorious present. Using original reporting to examine the evolution of playground basketball, Anderson and Millman are the first journalists to unravel the thickly woven tapestry of the sport’s subculture. Today’s super-hyped, corporate-sponsored tournaments weren’t always the norm. The foundation of the game was laid with sweat in the 1920s and it has grown from a rudimentary sport to a sophisticated exhibition. Basketball is more than macho melodramas acted out in America’s inner cities. It’s a town meeting in the heart of Indiana and symbol of freedom for prisoners in jail. Anderson and Millman tap into the essence of pickup basketball, examining its importance everywhere the game is played. They profile not just legends like Earl Marigault and Joe Hammond, but players like Fred “Spook” Stegman, the man who carries the legacy of being the first to connect the playgrounds with colleges, and Gregory Vaughn, whose tragic death in the 1980s exposed the underground world of drugs in basketball. Forget about the NBA and showtime. Pickup basketball is about basketball on the blacktops, at its most basic level. It’s about the unusual lives of some of the nation’s best players you’ve never heard of. Until now.

Genres: Basketball, Sports

224 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1998

Reviews

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

The two men who wrote this book put in a lot of work, then they surely love playground pickup basketball. But the book itself is is slog. It's dull and repetitive, and it actually takes the joy out of playground ball by focusing so much on the violence of the game and the need/desire to prove one's manhood by dominating opponents on the court.

The reading gets dull after a while. It's kind of like reading about jazz or rock music; it doesn't really work. You just gotta watch the ballgames or listen to the music.

But then problem No. 2 comes in. I don't buy into some of the claims in this book. Most notably, I disagree totally with the idea that the guys on pickup courts play hard defense. I've watched games in NYC, Cleveland, DC, and LA, and I haven't seen it. I see guys going for the flashy steal, which they never get, and then there man has dribbled past them for a layup, a dunk or an easy pass to teammate. In fact, the entire problem with playground players who want to become solid players or stars in college or the NBA is that they haven't learned to play real defense. This book talks over and over about in-your-face defense that left players bruised, etc. In my experience, however, when a game gets physical, the guys just stand there yelling at each other about fouls -- they don't compete hard.

Here's another complaint. While I recognize that the point of playing basketball is to win, I don't agree at all that it's the only benefit of playing. I'm not a great player, and love basketball for the motion, for the handful of good plays I might make in an afternoon, and for the camaraderie of the players. Yeah, I "get" that I'm a short, white, suburban guy, and the pickup game that these guys are writing about is played by inner-city black guys. But those guys play for fun, too.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some great parts of this book, like the 193os description from the Daily News about why young Jewish men made up a disproportionate amount of pickup basketball enthusiasts: "It places a premium on the alert, scheming mind ... flashy trickiness, artful dodging, and general smart aleckness, [traits naturally appealing] to the Hebrew with his Oriental background." The individual stories of playground legends are also well done, but there are only so many wistful mini-biographies one can read about how guys with great potential couldn't quite make it to the big time.

If this book were a movie featuring the above quote, several of these stories, mid 1990s rap music, and a lot of video of street basketball, it would have been great. Instead, it was enjoyable but slightly unsatisfying.

Pickup basketball fans might also enjoy:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/...

[RJ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories about lots of different players from different places. Lots of fun and interesting. If anyone has similar books for me to read, let me know.