Where have all the basketballs gone?

With the wave of NBA Finals mania sweeping across the world, I find myself longing to play the sport I love.. Too bad the court here at home was taken down..

Despite coming from an all-boys school here in the Philippines, basketball wasn't really my first sport, heck I wasn't really into any kind of sport back in the day, mainly due to the limitations imposed upon me by my neurological impairment. I contented myself being a bookworm and a computer geek, knowing I would never be able to play that well with my friends. I dabbled in soccer as it didn't require much manual dexterity of the hands, which was my main deficit, however the interest fizzled out since basketball was the "in" thing, and hardly anyone wanted to waste their precious breaktimes kicking a ball around the field. I occasionally played when I went to the houses of my barkada who had hoops at home, and sucked badly. I never really got the hang of the rules since I hardly watched it on TV and was generally uninterested. I mean, I followed the NBA and knew who Jordan, Pippen, Bird, Olajuwon, et al were but never really took time to understand the game.

Things began to change when I reached high school. I found myself watching PBA on a regular basis. If I remember correctly, that was during the time Jaworski was the playing coach of Ginebra. :P Thus my education on the game really began. I became an avid basketball junkie, but since I hardly played at all as a kid, I seriously lacked skills and even basic technique, so I still sucked.. :P Be that as it may, I still improved, though never up to par with my classmates. Having a court at home helped, and I taught my bro to play ball as a little kid so he won't suffer the same fate I had. :P

In college, I followed the UAAP intently. I didn't root for UST that much, and instead found myself watching the rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle, thanks to the efforts of hardcore Lasallite Dr. Alex Legarda. :P MedTech internship found me playing almost every week, since I got into a benign rotation during the second part of that year. In medical school, we played sporadically during 1st and 2nd year, eventually abandoning balling altogether when 3rd year started getting serious. Hm.. as I recall, the last time I even played in a real game was way back duting the Clerks' retreat (Dec 2006) where our section went head-to-head against section D... Damn, ang tagal na pala.... :| Although I remember having occasional shootarounds at home before I started really reviewing in earnest for the boards, I haven't played competitively in 2 years!! That sucks.. :P