How I fell in love with basketball

While on summer vacation I stopped in a game store and bought NBA Live 08. It had Gilbert Arenas on the cover in the Washington Wizard's gold and black uniform. I got the game for my PlayStation 2 at home. I had to wait until I made it home. When the vacation was over and I walked in the door I quickly ran to my room to play my new game. I fired up the system and waited as the game loaded. Once I was in I wanted to set up a match between 2 of the teams. I looked through each team checking the rankings before landing on the Cleveland Cavaliers to play against a bad team so I could learn the controls.

I was hooked. I loved playing the game. It made me want to play the game in real life (I think I did things backward!). I asked my mom to buy me a basketball so we visited a locally owned sports shop where I got a ball, headband, and wristbands. I started dribbling in the driveway and would walk to a nearby court to shoot. Man did I stink! I couldn't make a shot if my life was on the line. But then I started to think about how the players shot the ball on NBA Live 08 and started to imitate that. Then, the shots started to drop more often. Before long other kids would stop by the court and we would play ball. I won a few games and lost a few. but over the next few summers, I built on my game and became one of the better players that would come to that court. I would watch NBA games during the season to see what the pros were doing so I could incorporate it into my game.

Watching the games was so much fun! I loved it. I would make sure to finish up playing basketball or doing homework or whatever I was doing so I could watch the games and listen to the commentary at halftime. I would even watch all the sports shows to hear what they had to say about the NBA season. Over this time I fell in love with the game and all its aspects. I loved the shoes, the smell of the ball, the swish of the net, and the thrill of a close game.