Three-on-three basketball exists because you couldn’t find enough guys working out downstairs to go five-on-five.
And now, somehow, it’s an Olympic event, which can only mean, coming in 2028, H-O-R-S-E.
Seriously, maybe by ’32, they can add Around the World.
I say this, and it turns out, among my athletics career highlights is a three-on-three game, on the outdoor court behind Webb, first-year at UVA, spring of 1991.
Me, my buddy, Jay, and a guy from the Dobie 230s, G, were playing a game of 21 – maybe we can get that in the ’32 Games, too, now that we have that out there on the table – when three guys from Balz, all first-year linemen on the UVA Football team, told us that we were now going to play three-on-three.
Somehow, we won the first game, 15-11, which resulted in the football players telling us that we had to run it back.
We won Game 2, 15-12, and at this point, it became clear that we were going to keep playing until the football players beat us, which they did in Game 3, something like 15-3, because we’d gotten the hint.
I mean, I get it, the Olympics people want to look like they’re being inclusive, but three-on-three ball isn’t a specialized skill, and it doesn’t involve the best athletes in the sport.
Jimmer Fredette is on the U.S. team, for instance.
No offense to Jimmer, but, come on.
If you’re wanting to expand, maybe a tournament along the lines of The Basketball Tournament, though without the former NBA guys that signed on this year, just the best playground players in the world, and if you play the games in a park inside a cage with a couple of sets of bleachers and a guy doing PR on a tinny microphone, all the better.
In the meantime, I’ve been brainstorming new Olympic events. You’ve heard of synchronized diving; how about synchronized javelin?
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Chris Graham
