Storytime:
The whole thing starts with me noticing the hoop they had this year at the Rio Casino where the WSOP is held.
Perfect, something that I have not told you about me is that I like to play Basketball, it basicly was my life from age 11 to 19.
Obvioulsy throwing some hoops in between breaks and before tournaments sounded awesome, so I got myself a Basketball at the Miracle Mile Shops in the House of Hoops or something.. they didnt have an airpump and their balls where almost flat, but anyways.. 30$ for a ball so I can play for 4 weeks, sounded reasonable.
Today, I suited up for playing some bball, I turned up for the tournament in shorts and kobes ready to shoot some hoops before the tournament starts. Buttt the hoop was GONE! :(
Luckily I got talking with someone that also plays ball and he knew a place in vegas that he recommended to play at, UNLV.
Apparently they have 8 courts and are not that expensive.
Since that sounded awesome, I got into a taxi right after busting the tournament to get there.
Not ten seconds in the cap, the driver lady tolded me that I should definitly go to a place named after a coach that has led the vegas team to the state finals or something, Tarkanian if im not mistaken.
According to her, that is THE place in vegas to go to if I want to play some basketball AND its also nearer!
Awesome! Lets go there then! So she dropped me off at a faciilty that looked pretty closed not really what I expected. In the inside I found out that there were only 2 courts and I could rent a court for 45$ / hour, but not in the next days, everything is full..
I asked where he would recommend me to play, and I was told that the unlv is too expensive since you have to have a gym membership or something and I should check out Hoop City , apparently there I could play for 5$ an hour or something and others would play there.
In the meantime, my cab was gone, luckily there was casino "nearby" and after a 20 minute walk through the 120 degree desert, I arrived there to wait another 15minutes for a cab.
My new cab driver did not really know anything about basketball, he kept saying Hopp city even though I corrected him twice.
After we finally found out the correct address ( no , not the one in LA..) the ride ended up costing 30 bucks + 5$ tip, so I wanted gave him 40 and wanted 5 back. Unfortunately he only had 3$ he could give me back and me paying with credit card would have cost me 3$ in fees, funny how that turns out, so I ended up giving him 37$ for the ONE WAY ride to the court.
The guys at Hoop City were pretty confused by me showing up and asking if its the correct place to play some ball.
They kept asking me if Im a coach... should have worried me a bit.
As it turns out there is a basketball camp at that facilty for kids and me renting the court again costed 40 bucks...
But the camp was only starting in an hour, they let me play at a discount rate of 20$, yey!
Obviously at this point im pretty pot commited here, so I gladly agreed. I had my hour of fun shooting baskets alone on a full court until the kids showed up. I even more or less managed to dunk again that I thought Im just too old for now.
The next problem was that the facility was in the middle of nowwhere and nobody in his right mind would go there without a car so to order a cab from there would take forever. The best option was to walk to a mall "nearby" .. just across the freeway.. so 45minutes of walking through the desert.
Luckily the coach of the camp was kind enough to take me there since it was only 3 minutes by car. Very glad about this since my phone was also about to die and I was a long way of the strip by now..
I have a talent for showing up at the most unexpected basketball places when im in the us, when I was in new york I tried finding a court by walking randomly through brooklyn in my turquoise shorts and top and whiter than the guy in white men cant jump and ended up playing in some random neighbourhood where probably no tourist ever has played.
Some guy in the streets even told me that he bets he can beat me at basketball, I asked him how much he wanted to bet .. then he kelpt walking ;)
Anyway, apparently d'angelo russell ended up also in that facility needing a ride back home the week before, so I guess Im not the only one who ended up there without a car ever.
The Taxi ride back home miraculously took only 25 bucks.
That makes a total of 30 + 37 + 20 + 25 = 112$ to play 1 hour of basketball, guess the gym membership does not look that expensive anymore!
Next time Im going to check out the unlv thing and maybe if there is a gym nearby with a court.. any of you guys ahve any tips?
This may be the most "ball is life" story I've ever read.
haha, ball was life , now its life is just searching for ball
Great story :D