The New Guy at the Gym

My local gym has a basketball court where a nice group of guys, aged about 20 - 55, show up at regular times during the week for pick-up basketball. It's nice to know that during any given week, up to 4 times a week, you can go and get a decent pick-up game. I've lived down here (South Jersey) for 3.5 years now, and during that time everybody gets to know each other, at least by name, and there are regulars at the gym. Most places, I'd imagine, work that way.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago a regular guy brought his buddy "Al". Al was tall (maybe about 6'4" or 6'5"), skinny, and dressed from head to toe in official Villanova gear. He looked athletic, and was clowning around when guys were warming up waiting for the game to start. I figured one of two things must be true. Either this guy is really good, or he is just a goofy guy who happens to be a decent athlete.

Anyway, the game starts and I wind up guarding Al. As the game goes on, Al isn't doing anything. Passing the ball mainly, and not scoring. He also had a little bit of hobble to his kneeThe game gets tight. It is up to 11 baskets and it's like 9-8 us. Suddenly, Al wakes up. He hits a long three with my hand in his face. Then, he comes off a screen and hits a fade-away 18 foot jumper. Finally, with the score 10-10, he jukes me and pulls up from about 15 feet and hits a jumper all-net to win the game.

Our team goes and waits to get back on. A teammate of mine goes,
"Hey, [Walt], you did a good job on that guy." (not sarcastically).
I said, "Are you serious? He hit like the last three shots on me to win the game!" He goes, "Yeah, but he didn't score aside from that."
I shrug.
He goes, "You knew who that was, right?"
"Who?"
"Alvin Williams."





I immediately remember Alvin Williams from my many hours spent playing NBA Live 2003 for XBox, where he was the starting point guard from the Toronto Raptors. Turns out, he's not much older than me, but had a bunch of knee issues. He's a Philadelphia-area guy and is just playing at the gym to stay in shape.

Anyway, I wound up guarding him about 3 or 4 times as teams rotated on to face his team. He only played hard when he had to, and occasionally he would do something so athletic that it was incredible. He was "just trying to stay in shape". He was a nice guy and it was cool to say that I played against an NBA player. I did play well against him though I'm sure it was someone of a downgrade for him to go from playing against guys like Allen Iverson and Paul Pierce to somebody like me.