When I ask him to name five players to comprise an all-time team, he mentions Jordan, then almost gushes with admiration just to say Rondo’s name. He identifies with the antiauthoritarian point guard, who views the game through the lens of love, loyalty, and heart, and who shuns standardized versions of fundamentals and statistical analysis. A streetballer’s baller.
“Rondo plays because he loves basketball,” TJ says. “Basketball players in the NBA right now, like LeBron James, they’re all about money. Like, Rondo dislocated his elbow and he still played.”
Finally, he picks up his basketball off the carpeted floor, and tosses it to me. “You wanna play one-on-one?” he asks.
Seventy-four hours, 12 states, and eight bus changes. The distance from Sacramento to New York can be measured in many ways—hours wearing the same underwear, times stepping over a poor, passed-out soul in a bus station bathroom, centimeters of your swollen ankles, vending machine Snickers bars for lunch or dinner—but as the hours pass and sleep deprivation takes hold of you, your actual destination seems less and less important. It’s almost as if you begin to just float alongside the bus in a sort of zombie-fied state, watching yourself through glossy eyes.
Still days away from New York, falling forward through the night across I-80, somewhere east of Utah, I looked over in TJ’s direction and wondered what he was thinking. The lights inside the bus were off completely except for the thin strip across the roof that acted as a night-light.
Maybe he could sense me looking at him and he turned toward me. “You know how the EBC started?” he offered, as if he’s been waiting for this moment to tell me. I say nothing. “You don’t know?” He leans in as if we’re around a campfire. I can make out the outline of his face across the aisle.
“It was 1982,” he begins, and then proceeds to tell me about the moment when modern streetball, as we know it—the marriage of hip-hop and outdoor basketball—really started. It’s his creation myth, and happened seven years before he was born, but as far as he’s concerned, it’s the beginning of time.
During a 2:00 A.M. broadcast of the legendary Mr. Magic and Marley Marl radio show on WHBI in New York City (which Notorious B.I.G. later immortalized in the song “Juicy”), the local rap group the Crash Crew issued a live on-air challenge to another up-and-coming rap group, the Disco Four, to play a basketball game.
At the time, the show was the only strictly hip-hop broadcast in the nation, and a must listen for many of the youth in Harlem. Word spread fast and the next day hundreds of people turned up to watch as the Disco Four destroyed the Crash Crew by 59 points in the impromptu game.
Over the next few weeks, other pioneers of the genre, like the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash, wanted to join in, so Greg Marius of the Disco Four organized a round-robin tournament of rappers.
To up the stakes, some of the best ballplayers in New York City were brought in as ringers to compete alongside the musicians and rappers. Soon, as the quality of play went up, the rappers were forced to the sideline (Nas and Rick Ross coached teams this year). By 1987, crowds were so large that the EBC found a permanent home at Rucker Park.
TJ smiles proudly when he finishes the story. I could see his white teeth through the dimness.
I feel my stomach grumbling and I reach into my bag for a granola bar. Despite being on a bus with 45 other people crammed together for endless hours across the American landscape, there’s a distinct sense of isolation hovering over each of us. As the miles pass and you’re pushed further away from home, your thoughts become more powerful; your dreams get bigger, and your fears start to scream at you.
Minutes lapse in silence, maybe even hours. My red eyes flickered shut, then back open. TJ, who never seemed to sleep more than a few minutes, leans over and taps me on the shoulder. “You know what my goal is?” he says through the darkness. “Kevin Durant scored 66 points one game at Rucker. That would be cool if I beat that.” His voice trails off. “There’s a chance I could do that shit. There’s a chance.”
I finish my granola bar, and stash the wrapper back in my bag. Maybe, I wonder, it’s better if he gets off the bus in Denver and turns back home, never attempts to play at Rucker, and just lives inside his own innocence, his own version of reality.
I felt as if I was escorting him to his own wake.
A couple of days before, he took me from his place to Roosevelt Park on 10th and P Street, a quiet, well-manicured playground just south of downtown. Right away, he asked again if I wanted to play one-on-one. I had on jeans and low-top sneakers and hadn’t planned on playing, but he needed to prove to me he had game, so I agreed. He showed off his turnaround jumper, quick hops, and sharp lateral quickness. The hours of hard work had paid off and we split two games to 11. But when more players showed up for the noontime run, the crater-sized holes in his game became obvious.