I think my pick would be Magic Johnson, what he and Bird did for the league was incredible and made the NBA how popular it is now.

Going for Magic over Bird just because I think he was just a little bit greater, but idk too much lol

In January 2023, I injured my hip while working on a house. Now, in September 2024, I’m feeling 100%.

I used to enjoy playing basketball, but over time the group I played with developed a 'highlight culture' style of play and toxic blame games for loses. I’m kind of happy my injury forced me to stop playing with this certain group after 7 years of playing pickup together.

Lately, I’ve been shooting around and rediscovering my love for the game, and I’m looking for a laid-back, friendly group to play pickup basketball with. Any suggestions or ideas as to where a 33 year old fart could find something like this? I feel like 80% of all pickup games nowadays have this toxic, highlight culture style of play 😔.

I feel these are 2 of the most underappreciated all time greats. Who is better and why? Both are top ten all time players. Old man Hakeem played a young Tim Duncan a few times and did well. Tim has more accolades but he was on the better team.

What advantages do you think there would be if you learned how to shoot right-handed and left-handed equally?

Im good at basketball ,i work hard but in game I cant do nothing I got too much stress and my skill are not there when I need it,I really like this sport and i want to be better in game,any tips?

After i sprained my ankle on my left foot ive been using my right leg way more. Now when its somewhat healed when i try to jump I only feel it in my right leg and not my left. I feel like when i jump i only use my right leg and my left leg is just there what can i do. Also my left calf basically lost all of the muscle it ever had. The difference is just night and day on how small my left calf is.

A bit of backstory: I've played basketball my entire life, from middle school into my 40s, purely for fun and recreation. I'm 43 now, and I think most people here can relate to that casual love of the game.

Everything changed rapidly after I got married and had our first kid. For the past five years, I've struggled with persistent knee issues. It got so bad that I couldn't even walk downstairs without holding onto something, and my wife had to carry our stroller because I was physically unable to. Bending down was possible, but standing back up was agonizing.

Once, I tried to just shoot around, and my knees would be swollen for 5-7 days afterward. I could bend but they were completely swollen that I had to bend down really slowly in a weird angle. Even getting up from a seated position was painful. Doctors checked my knees and found no structural damage, just inflammation and fluid buildup.

I lived like this for years, occasionally playing ball but getting roasted due to my lack of mobility. I tried not to overuse my knees and stuck to mild exercises.

One day in early August this year, I'd had enough. I thought, "So what if my knees get worse? It's not like they could get any worse anyway." I dove straight into some crazy plyometric exercises: jump rope, lunges, high jumps, alternating lunge jumps, you name it.

Surprisingly, my knees felt okay right after that session, though I was totally gassed from long-term inactivity. I fully expected to wake up the next day with excruciating knee pain, but nope - just sore muscles. So I rolled with it and started training even more intensively, promising myself I'd only reduce the intensity if I felt pain.

After just 3-4 training sessions, I tried playing basketball again. Oh damn, it was the best feeling ever! I felt like I'd turned back the clock a decade. I was explosive by my standards, and it felt surreal! Still not fully confident, I stopped after about 45 minutes. I trained for another week or so and played again. Still no pain whatsoever, and I even dropped a defender with a crossover. His butt hit the floor, lol! I hadn't done that in maybe two decades!

After the first month, I noticed some weird sensations in my right knee but kept training. It got mildly swollen, so I rested until it fully recovered before resuming. The third time I played basketball after starting this training regimen, I played for 5 hours in two separate sessions. My knees were pain-free, and more importantly, my overall fitness level was incomparable to just two months prior.

The best part? I was training to get back into basketball, but I started realizing the many benefits of improved mobility in general. I could lift heavy things, hold my daughters however I wanted, and even get out of my car without thinking about the angles. So many trivial daily activities that I didn't realize I missed until recently. I also feel way more energetic and focused every day.

I'm sharing this to give some of you hope that this is totally doable. Most of us aren't pro athletes, and it doesn't matter how old you are because you've likely never reached your full potential.

As the title says, does anyone have experience with running a hypertrophy focused program throughout a basketball season?

I am currently focused on putting on some lean muscle using a program that's mainly hypertrophy based with some compound strength exercises at the start of each workout. Getting a steady surplus of clean calories every day so nutrition isn't a problem. Whilst I'm seeing some slow results, I'm not sure if I'm just better off focusing on pure strength/balance/stamina and leaving the muscle building for off-season.

Is it too much of a stretch to try and gain muscle whilst playing ball 3x a week?

Thanks!

Anyone have a good rehab program?

Gonna be 40 in a year. 5'11", 190lbs. Played soccer in high school and my twenties til my 2nd ACL surgery. Basketball never quite clicked for me growing up, minus two brief (2 weeks each) periods where I could shoot over 90% from 3. Dribbling was always my weakest skill.

I have no illusions about playing at an elite level, and probably never better than a skilled 12 year old, but I decided I love the game and want to get as good as I can given my limitations.

I've got two 1-hour sessions to practice on the weekends, and have been consistent for a couple months. I've developed some drills and my jump shot is starting to click. Also doing some jogging and strength training during the week.

Is there anything y'all can point me to get better? I basically just want to be able to play pickup without embarrassing myself.

Also, how do you practice passing when working solo?

I think it's extremely funny that people say LeBron ruin current NBA this that and third. Like those people assume 40 year old LeBron is still the face of NBA and it's not even based on anything substantive beyond NBA TV rating which most of NBA demographic don't do that but even if we play those demographic game.

LeBron was defecto face in 2010s cause curry didn't arrive till 2015 as face of league candidate , KD was in small market and Kobe was no longer in contender. NBA broke all kind of TV deal record, Saw consistent growth in revenue and saw consistent high playoffs and final ratings.

The 4 parter GSW and Cavs are some of the highest rated final ever and not only that 2018 saw highest playoffs viewership since 2002. Like game 7 of 2016 finals is second most viewed professional basketball game ever (I could be wrong) the decline in TV ratings happen in 2020 Pre pandemic actually and final decline happen in 2020 figure out why that happen ? But blaming solely on LeBron is laughable like 2023 Warriors and Lakers saw high rating.

My local team has two young players that are absolutely amazing. I'm always watching cause hell yeah basketball is fun, and i practise with them. They kill the rest of the players, especially the starters. Wether its ingame or in practise. Its like i'm in bizarro world knowing players that are absolutely a LOT worse then whoever is stealing their minutes. Parents know it. Any spectator knows it.

Everybody can see it, everybody knows it, and it just keeps happening. The coach is on the board of the local team, his brother, the....its just keeps on going. His son has to play, and his buddies too.

Quite weird to know these two kids destroy the rest of our first team but the "old guard" is blocking them from playing more minutes.

Oh and another thing: we lost three players of the course of six years that went on to become insanely good players cause of stuff like this. Unreal.

Any similar stories?

Hi, I have an issue with my shot where I raise the ball and my body dips down slightly, leading to bad fluidity and rhythm. And by the time the ball reaches my set point, by knees and hips are still loaded. When comparing to the best one motion shooters, they are almost off the ground. How do I fix my bad rhythm to be able to shoot in one motion?

I miss HS ball when the home team would start accidentally getting us hype.

For the last two years, it's been "painless by JI" for me

I just got into a new team as a u18, the club didn’t really want me since I never played there, but the coach really wanted me in, so obviously I feel like I got a lot to prove. This next week will be week 3 with this team, and to be honest I’ve only had like 3 good practices where I felt like I belonged there (5 practices a week). Today we also had our first game, practice game, and I SUCKED like I couldn’t do anything for some reason. I’m a pretty decent shooter, but I rarely get the ball and drive, so it feels like I didn’t do much, because my 3’s weren’t getting in too. I’m pretty small, 5’10, but fortunately in my country people aren’t that tall, so I’m avarege height on the team. I just need some advice to actually prove that I belong there, I came to this team because I want to play more minutes. I should also say, that many times I’m not as confident as I should be, instead of shooting the open 3 I make an extra pass, instead of driving I call some random play etc. Please give me some advice or what I should work on!

Been suffering finger injuries and fractures for a while now. Anything i can do to protect my fingers practically?

I went down with a knee injury just last May, rested for 4 months and now I'm cleared to do light jogs and non contact basketball. I gained a significant amount of weight, so actually my first plan is to jog and take long runs just to get myself in shape. I also plan to work on my handles and movement. My problem is I just feel hopeless after not even touching a ball for 4 months, I'm not a pro player but I do play in men's leagues around my area and basketball is really a hobby that I have and I'm passionate about it. My question is does anybody here have a similar experience ? What did you do to get back to a competing state? And is there still hope ? Ty so much

idk what the correct term would be, but is there a stat that accounts for assist + points?

example - i have 2 assist that result in 5 points and i score 10 points so my effective points would be 15

I would say I am average in shooting except for the 3 points line, average at getting rebounds, decent handles, decent driving skills, above average in finishing offensive rebounds and my best trait is probably passing. I can drive and do a turnaround pass easily and usually get quite a number of assist.

So our tryouts for the varsity is this coming Thursday, and I just wanna know in general what coaches are looking for, or what do coaches notice. Last year I didn't make the team because my play style was very different to how it is now, but this year I'm confident I have the skills. Do you guys have any idea what I should be showing on the court for the coaches to take notice?

For context, I’m in 8th grade. I’m on the basketball team and we’re gonna start practicing this Wednesday. We barely have any one, and there’s only 4 eighth graders, and I have NO clue what the positions are gonna look like. All of our 8th graders are tall, so we have no guards. Me and one other person are tied for the tallest on the team, both being 6’0, and then there’s a 5’11 kid and a 5’10 kid. So we have very little guard-play, and the coaches said one of us eighth graders is going to have to be a guard.

My strengths are shooting and footwork in the post. I really cannot tell whether they will play me as guard or post player. I can shoot 3s kinda consistently, I’m the best mid-range shooter on the team (by far) and probably the second best ball-handler. But I’m terrible at passing. Im really bad about passing too late and then my guy can’t get it and it’s a turn over. On the post end, my footwork in the post is really good but I’m really bad about just straight posting up and going to the bucket, because I’m really weak and play pretty timid tbh. I’m really good at fading away which is how I score in the post most of the time, but my coach hates fade aways and so I can’t do them this year at all. I’m good at rebounding and boxing out and stuff, I just have a hard time making layups in the post, I always lose the ball or get blocked. But if I was gonna be a guard, I would probably turn over the ball a lot. I’m really not a bad basketball player, this is just my first year playing and my experience is very low so I get kinda lost in a game situation.

Anyway, my point is i really don’t know if they’re gonna play me as guard or a post player, because I need to know what to focus on when practicing.

As the defender, is going over the ball screen the same as drop coverage? Where is the big/forward at in both?

6’5 guard at 17 years old, any tips for missing short from 3, I recently changed my form, I can hit contested and tough mid ranges but I am missing short from 3. Also you guys have any players to study? I am elite ball handler, very good from mid range and I have good vision. Also I think I would be elite from 3 only if I had enough range.

I am quite new to basketball but when I dribbel I feel like I am not in control of the ball and I am asking if I should just train more or just dribble more and play more maybe having fluid handels just comes with time if a train enough

So I’m currently a Forward (SF/PF) that plays mostly in the post due to my team’s playstyle. I’m 15 years old and 6’2. I want to transition to playing Point Guard in the near future. My definite strenghts are my shooting (especially mid-range) and my speed and overall athleticism both of these being at a very high level. I struggle with Ball Handling and Playmaking tho. Especially now I’m working a lot on my ball handling. I need a point guard in any league (would prefer the NBA due to easy access to game film) that just plays good basketball. Not looking at my strenghts, he doesn’t have to be athletic or anything, I just need him to teach me basic PG things, like bringing the ball up the court, playing off picks, handling on-ball pressure etc. I’m also ofc open to any tips and criticism. Thank you to everyone that decides to help out!

As someone who enjoys watching the WNBA, my guess would have been lower scoring, but overall I still find the shot-making impressive of course. I don't watch college, and Idk why to be honest, because If I had went to a game, id be into it for sure, but I'll definitely get around to it this year. I just think basketball is basketball, and if you truly love it or are nuts about it, you could watch all levels of it and still have fun. Ive been to highschool games even after I graduated highschool, and they were fun.

I’ve played endlessly with many people on many Courts and have always had a knack for Banking in what felt good but went in different than expected. This has only ever been the case. I can shoot Bankers, I do so in Horse and that. Never once in the Games have I gone for one. Always go right for the Net. Anyone a Bankshot guy? (Jumpers, not close shots like runners, layups and that.)

My son is 14 and recently developed a passion for trying his hand at basketball. He has never wanted to entertain sports much because he was pretty uncoordinated growing up. However, I attribute that uncoordination to his lanky stature. He just hit 6'5" a few months ago and is finally learning how to control his long limbs.

He started a basketball skills/drills clinic last week. He goes 2x a week and plays with dad between. However, his freshmen bball team tryouts are next month and he will not be ready for them. Any stories of folks who started later in their teens and went on to play for their high school or even college? His hands are massive, he can palm a basketball mid dribble or if its thrown to him. I just want to encourage him however possible.

Edit: Yes, he really is 6'5" and will be 15 in March. He's anticipated to be 6'8" to 6'10" and currently wears a size 16 shoe. His hand is over nine inches long from wrist to fingertip.

M43 and I homeschool 5 children including a 6”0 M14 basketball player. Been looking for a training program for him to study the game in a structured way. Found SportsLab360 for $125 a year. Has anyone used this? Have any suggestions for similar online film study/game theory programs that are better or more cost effective? Open to other suggestions to help him become the better player he wants to be.