PCTI Basketball Training: JJ Stephen

- I've been playing about twice per week. I doubt if anyone knows this, but I partially tore my plantar fascia either during PCTI Portland or soon after. It took until about February to heal because I kept trying to play and fucking it up, so that kept me out of hoops for quite a while. I'm back playing now with hopefully enough time to get my game somewhat in order. Thankfully during that time off I didn't get too fat.

- I don't have a "game" so to speak. I have to deal with weekday pickup runs at my local 24 hour fitness. Danny has been there and can attest to the drastic variation of skill amongst the players.

- Like I said before, ALOT of variation. Not many people over 35 though. Im usually the largest but occasionally some people will show up that are larger than I am. You'll have the typical overconfident horrible shooters, the guy that you can leave wide open under the basket and he panics and misses but for some reason thats where he stays 100% of the time, the guy that is scared to pass because a defender is within 3 feet of you so you have to literally go take the ball out of his hands, you know the usual.

- Role varies largely depending on who I play with. There are games where I may only get the ball a few times. These games typically don't make me very happy. It helps when I get to play with better players since they understand the basketball basics a little better.

- As compared to my role in PCTI, playing in these games puts me in an unfamiliar position. I've never been a good face up one on one player and typically when I get the ball that's what I have to do. I'm much more effective moving without the ball and using screens to get open and get in better positions to score.

- Love having something I know I can go to run around regardless of how shitty it may be. Hate pretty much everything else about it.

Side note, I just purchased my first pair of bball shoes since I got my Vince Carter Shox three plus years ago. They arrive Monday and I expect that purchase to spur me into playing more, just as buying a new toothbrush makes you automatically want to brush your teeth 3 times per day. Of course that's until you realize 2 days later how annoying it is to do that. So hopefully it will encourage me to get in the gym a lot from now til Cincy.

Editor's Note: We almost got through a whole post with Abe without talking about teeth or dental hygene. All I could think about when he was describing the bad players were Anderson and Franklin that were up at UT and awful. As a follow up, I would like Abe to post a pic of his new shoes and how they are holding up. TIA