Brackets and Buckets

This time of the year as the early spring gets sprung, the college hoop season unfolds into a glorious panorama of indoor only basketballs bouncing off the minwaxed hardwood. I am drifted to dreams of childhood turned into adulthood when the round, orange rock has been my forever companion. I like how it sounds when it swishes through the nylon net and the sounds of the clank when it banks off the glass and makes that soft, thud sound. Also, a swish on an outdoor rim that is dressed with a metal net is something special in its own right. That sound of the industrial swish is goosebump worthy as much as the nylons being tickled in the finest of gymnasiums. Everything about basketball is elite in my psyche. Much like Jordan floating through the air of time and space like a ballerina on the moon slow motioning through the universe. Like Harden dancing and traveling around the three point line while lining up a leftie three and disregarding all traveling violations. Hey, if the zebras aren’t gonna call it, keep doing it. Like Olajuwon dream shaking the ops into submission and handing out nightmares and hog tying defenses. Dribble drives, ball screens, picks that roll, Curtis Blow on the mic and rapping all about this beautiful game. Steve Alford, Keith Smart and Bobby Knight in the days of tossing chairs and chest passes cross court.

Bernard King, Dr.J and Moses Malone, Sidney Moncrief, Alex English, The Iceman, Bird, Adrian Dantley, Sleepy Floyd, Magic, Kiki Vandeweghe, Mark Aguirre, Isiah Thomas and last but not least The Sixer Killer Clark Kellogg. All these ballers lit the flame in my brain and live there rent free. They were the original players that developed hoops as my ASMR. The orange is my aesthetic and that is eternally copacetic with me.

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