Basketball and winning

It's November and that means it's the NBA season again. I just love basketball and I wish I can play as much as I used to. I was driving the other day and was thinking back (I was paying attention on the road) when I used to play a lot of basketball with my friends back in college.

We used to rent a gym and play twice a week. I used to never wake up before 10 or 11am, but I will wake up at 5:30am to play a 2 hour game of basketball at 6am, go figure. The biggest problem we usually have is finding some other teams to play as we don't have enough people on our team to play against each other. Usually what happens is we split the cost of the gym either loser pays or loser pays two-thirds. This basically amounts to betting and in the hope that everyone plays better because there's money at stake.

The funny thing about it is that whenever an arrangement like that is made in advance, we start evaluating who the opponents are and what their strengths and weaknesses are. For sure the other team are doing the same and when there's someone really good in either team. Someone will start inviting an "outsider" or somone not normally involved in their respective teams.

"Hakot" is what we call it. It's usually someone who's a varsity player or some really big guy, sometimes they'll bring people from their barangay or a "kanto boy" who looks like he just killed someone or might be carrying a knife.

The "hakot" is usually the guy who hold the ball most of the time and scores all the time. Which just totally takes away all the fun of playing.

There were times where the game ended up in a fight. Which gets me thinking...what was the whole point of that exercise? Is winning so important that instead of playing a friendly competition, we have to win at all cost? Are we so desperate of winning that we have to bring someone else to prop up the team? What happened to playing your best and doing the winning on your skills?

Of course bringing someone in usually means someone else is losing playing time. So you got a teammate who's not a happy camper. Sometimes I was that unhappy camper.

Another problem with doing this is that the losing team ends up getting really pissed and elbows start flying. Feet start going under someone who's jumping and knees start banging. A couple of times I've seen people that have to be taken to the hospital for a game of basketball. That happened to one of my best friends.

Was it even worth it?

I mean, I can understand getting hurt if basketball is one's profession. Like if you play for the NBA or the PBA. But getting hurt for a game you have to pay for doesn't really make sense. There was even a time we had a person on the other team bring out a Sai, you know, one of those Japanese weapons the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles carry. He threatened a player on our team because he was being defended very well and he wasn't scoring. That was totally crazy.

People sometimes want to win so much that they're willing to throw out their morals and are willing to hurt someone just to win a game of basketball.

Of course, that was during the time of Anejo/Ginebra, where Jaworski is still a playing coach making a sign across his neck to see whether Allan Caidic is dead. Where Rudy Distrito totally went for Ronnie Magsanoc's face when he tried to shoot a 3 point shot during a championship game Anejo/Ginebra was losing and finally went to the locker room and never came back out forfeiting the game.

It was a time of dirty plays by one team and being popular for doing it. They had so many fans that they were even called a Barangay.

I don't know how things are now in Philippine basketball. I haven't seen a PBA game in over 10 years and I haven't played serious basketball in the Philippines in over 8 years. Have things changed? Have the new generation of players cleaned up basketball and play more with skills than with dirty plays?

I don't know, I was just thinking about it, about basketball and winning.