As Paige mentioned last time, I recently made my big Thai NBA debut. Well...not really but I did play in a basketball competition in a nearby city.
It came about pretty randomly. One day I went with Paige to the school right next to our apartment where she was going to do some running. I usually just go there and shoot around for a little bit but this time there were a few kids playing (who were awful) and a teacher who was playing with them. They asked me if I wanted to join in with them and I had nothing better to do so I said yes. The teacher playing with them actually turned out to be pretty good and we went back and forth a few times between watching the kids run around in circles with the ball.
When we were finished he came up to me and asked me if I wanted to play in a basketball competition with him the next day. He spoke decent English but I still had a hard time understanding what he was talking about. From what we could gather, there was a competition about 100 km away and that the games started at 10 PM, but he wanted to meet at the school we were at around 6 PM. So I ended up just saying yes and figuring that I would find out what the deal was the next day when I met him.
The next day I showed up to the school and he asked me again if I wanted to play in the competition that day and I said yes. We jumped in his truck and we were on our way...or so I thought. We ended up driving for ten minutes to a court in Suphan. When we got out he introduced me to a few of his friends that were playing and told me that they were on the team with him. We ended up staying at the court for about 2 hours and then he finally told me that we were ready to go. For real this time. Talking to him in the car on the way I found out that the competition was at a university which was 100 km away. It took us about an hour and a half to get there. I don't know what I was really expecting but when we got there I was really surprised.
When we walked into the gym the first thing that I noticed were the referees, scorers table, scoreboard, and shot-clock. I have played a lot of basketball games since middle school (shout-out to my 3-peating IM team!) but none of them since that time have involved any of the above amenities. The first day we just played one game which we ended up losing by about 10. It was a lot of fun playing a sport in an actual competition again but it was hard just because of the language barrier as well as the way that they play. Not to get all basketball nerd on you but they did a lot of isolation trying to beat their man off the dribble versus a lot of screens and cuts like I am used to. One of the weirder things of the whole game was stepping up to the free throw line. I literally have not shot a free throw in a game in at least 10 years.
If any of you guys needed lessons on shooting form, here you go.
The second day Paige decided to come back with me. We met at the school again at 6 and were on our way...or so we thought. Instead we had to pick up 2 other people. We rode for about an hour and half all squished into a pick-up truck. It was a pretty uncomfortable ride but we made it. For our game that night we played against one of the better teams in the competition. We hung around with them for most of the game until the 4th quarter. They ended up winning by 30 or so. All while wearing purple jersey's.
You can see the other team in their purple jersey's.
Overall, it was a really cool experience to have been able to play in a competition over here. Thinking about a lot of the situations I might find myself in before I left America, I don't think this one would have ever crossed my mind. Also, I never ever, ever, thought I would see a Thai person throw down in-person. The teams we played against were surprisingly big, strong and athletic.
Hope everyone is doing well back home. Looks like State basketball is playing good so that's awesome. Everything else is going well over here and we are just finishing up our first semester and looking forward to our summer break and also the trip we have all been waiting for from Linda and Debbie.
Cyrus and Paige
PS. In case you were wondering my debut stat line was 16 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 block, and 1 TO (maybe). I'm no Draymond but I'd say those were pretty solid numbers. If anybody can get a hold of Coach Izzo, I think I might still have eligibility left for the basketball team.
