Hoop Dreams

Sixty-two aspiring professional basketball players waited on the concrete steps outside Tulane University’s Hertz Center on a sweltering September Saturday morning in New Orleans.

The doors opened and they streamed in, grabbing practice jerseys from a folding table before ambling onto the court. Under the fluorescent lights, a familiar cacophony ensued, accompanied by dreams long deferred: Sneakers squeaked on the hardwood. Errant shots clanked off rims. Many of the players were from New Orleans and recognized each other from the city’s high school circuit five, 10, 12 years earlier. There were hugs, with a sizing-up of the competition.

They shared a dream that they might leave here one step closer to playing for the Laketown Squadron, the New Orleans Pelicans’ G League affiliate that nominally offers a pipeline to NBA rosterdom.

I was one of them.

The Squadron has just relocated from Birmingham, Alabama, to Kenner, and marked their move with a Sept. 19 tryout open to all comers. Akin to baseball’s minor leagues, the G League—the G stands for “Gatorade” under a sponsorship with the sports drink giant—serves as a development ground for the NBA.

My job is covering federal cops and courts for The Times-Picayune. But I also “played” college basketball, and I still play when I can. An editor sent me a press release on the tryout.

I signed up.

I had the resume for this assignment. I played high school hoops in the San Francisco Bay Area, where at 6 feet 7 inches I was taller than most of my opponents. In 2017, I walked onto the team at  Middlebury. I hardly played, and survived practices by running hard and throwing elbows. I quit two seasons later to help edit The Campus.

I had enough experience to know what I was getting into. I was bad enough that this could be funny.

The Pelicans, it bears noting, are perennial underachievers. The satirical newspaper The Onion went hyper-local in torching the team with a recent headline: “New Orleans Pelicans can’t help but notice they’re not on NBA schedule this year.”

Ups and downs

Stepping onto the Hertz Center court, though, I felt a pang of nerves. I flashed back to the gym where, at 14, I joined my high school’s summer league team as a gangly novice for practices, which soon became exercises in enduring humiliation. Five years later, I subjected myself to a ramped-up version of the ritual at Middlebury.

Back then, I wanted to prove my work ethic. I was also learning to nurture a fiery competitive streak. Now I channel those traits into newspaper stories. I play pickup basketball for fun at parks and high schools. Lower stakes.

At the tryout, I still glanced around trying to gauge whether I’d be the worst player on the floor.

As we jogged to center court for our team assignments, I could tell I wasn’t the only non-conventional aspiring pro there. One was a 6-foot-11 former Louisiana Tech baseball player who’d never played organized basketball. So was Khalen “Bink” Saunders, a former Saints defensive tackle who’d just been cut by the Tennessee Titans and had promised on Twitter to try for the G League as a backup.

There were also the likes of Gregory Hammond, a 6-foot-6 wing from New Orleans who played for two Division I college programs, made a G League roster last year and now was gunning to make a second.

After warm-ups, we broke off by position for one-on-one games. We were allowed three dribbles to score a bucket. I was grouped with Kirk Smith Jr., a lanky 6-foot-8 wing who’d played pro overseas; Caleb White, a 6-foot-9 center who looked built for football; Brenton Thiels, the towering baseball player; and another 6-foot-5-ish wing, Cedric Smith.

Every moment of success felt like an overachievement. I hit a three-pointer to start with the ball on offense, then pounded the ball into the paint with my left hand and dropped in a baby-hook off the glass.

I’d developed a clunky long-range shot in college, and none of my opponents presented particularly enticing off-the-dribble targets, so I fired a three-pointer over White’s long arms on the next possession. Airball. I winced a few minutes later when I got the ball back and airballed another.

From there it was onto the day’s main event: Two hours of five-on-five scrimmages.

I subbed into my squad’s first game about midway through the first half. The pace, set by Division I and overseas vets, jolted my lungs and legs. I was jolted back to the fear of not keeping up.

I blew a couple of layups in that first game but got fouled, and dropped in four points on free throws. I hoped those overshadowed my labored defense and leaden running.

Gasping for air on defense, I thought of the most memorable trash-talk I’ve absorbed on a basketball court. “You run like you need a shoulder massage,” an opponent barked during a pickup run a decade ago. I do need a shoulder massage, I thought.

My team lost that game by a few points. At least I’d made my free throws.

 

Reality check

Somehow I started the next game. I lost a jump ball against White, the burly center I’d been matched up with during the one-on-one portion. The ball ended up in my team’s hands, though, and I drew a foul on the other end.

My day reached a low point on the next possession. White, who I was guarding, set a high ball screen. Handling the ball was Miles-Jordan Smartt, another New Orleans-born guard with Division I experience. I tried hedging the screen. White rolled as I faltered in recovering, caught a dart from Smartt and elevated for a thunderous two-handed slam with a quickness that defied the physics of his 240-pound frame.

My team’s soft-spoken coach, Tony Sterling, subbed me out.

I went back in during the second half and added another made free throw to my stat sheet. We lost the game.

The day wound down with a 10-minute “all-star” game featuring the day’s top dozen-or-so players. I did not make the cut. Neither did another player, whose name I didn’t catch, who told me he’d played professionally in Azerbaijan. We watched together in a moment of dejected sideline camaraderie.

I took comfort knowing that come Monday, I’d be back writing newspaper reports. My sideline pal, who drove in that morning from Alabama, would presumably be on the hunt for his next tryout. A Squadron spokesperson, Trey Hines, told me the team could add up to three players from the tryout to its 18-man training camp roster—and not all of them are guaranteed a final spot.

A couple young Pelicans stars, Yves Missi and Jeremiah Fears, had been watching the games. They closed the day with a center-court huddle, telling us we’d displayed impressive hustle that morning.

I assume their bosses are hammering out my contract now. I’m waiting for their call.

James Finn usually covers federal law enforcement and courts for The Times-Picayune | The Advocate, where this story was originally published under the headline “I tried out for the NBA G League. Here’s how I did.”