Three-pete

So I've been playing in this intramural Asian basketball league for a couple months now. I recommend it to anyone who is attracted to the novelty of blocking the shots of pint-sized Filipinos. Let me tell you how "Asian" this league is. There was this guy who I had been calling Raymond, right? Real nice guy, although very quiet. Well it turns out, his name wasn't spelled R-A-Y-M-O-N-D like I expected. His name was spelled R-A-M-E-N. As in, ramen noodles!

Puns don't come giftwrapped like that in any other league.

Now, I won't usually give myself credit for anything, but one thing I will say is that I'm a good shooter. It's what I do. Things that involve focus and aiming -- throwing darts, pitching baseballs, tossing horseshoes -- come very naturally to me. Shooting a basketball is no different, which is why in this league I quickly rose to prominence as its greatest perimeter threat.

They gave me a nickname: The Asian Peja (for Peja Stojakovic), which I found inaccurate. When I was growing up I diligently studied tape of four of my favorite NBA three-point shooters -- Reggie Miller, B.J. Armstrong, Dennis Scott, and Glen Rice -- and combined elements from all of their techniques into a formidable amalgam of precision that was both energy-efficient and versatile to any type of defensive pressure. Hours upon hours were spent each day in front of my driveway hoop practicing my shot, thinking it would come in handy one day. And that's why I disliked the "Peja" label. I was more than his Asian equivalent. I was four basketball gods combined into one. I was Reggie Armscottrice.

But semantics didn't matter. What mattered was that I was tearing up the league with my circus act three-point shot, helping my team cruise through the regular season to an 8-1 record. Oohs and ahhs and all sorts of adulation followed me everywhere. I'd hit a jumper from about thirty feet out and wink in the direction of my teammates on the bench who were all whooping and hollering and nearly falling out of their seats grabbing each other in giddy amazement. Loyal girlfriends swooned. Children trying to mimic me on the unused courts were asked to stop launching half-court shots. Teams would argue amongst themselves during frustrated timeouts. "WHO THE FUCK IS GUARDING THAT GUY?!" they'd yell to each other. Sometimes on a fast break I'd stop right in front of the three-point stripe and hit an off-balance jumper with someone's hand in my face, and the guy defending me would shake his head in disbelief. "God damn," he'd say, laughing a little. "You've got the craziest shot I have ever seen."

Life was good. But looking back, I should have paid attention to the warning signs. As the season progressed, observers wondered if my head was getting too big. I started showing up to games just five minutes before tip-off, wearing fresh stubble and aviator glasses and a tan suede jacket and a half-tucked button down. Guys would walk up to shake my hand, only to get a fist-bump from me instead. I started referring to myself in the third person. I grew more isolated from my group of teammates, preferring to do my warm-up routine alone on the other side of the gym instead of with the guys. Actually, I wasn't alone on that side of the gym: poor little Ramen would fetch rebounds for me as I shot around.

Today our league had a three-point contest of which one player from each of the eight teams participated in. Everyone was projecting me to run away with the win. It was a huge event; people came from all over to watch me put on a show. As usual, I made the game officials nervous by showing up at the last minute. "All right, who's playing for second?" I said, quoting Larry Bird.

I smirked while watching the guys that shot before me during the contest. I almost felt bad for them. They were inferior. Their forms lacked consistency, and the shorter guys clearly had trouble squaring up their feet under them properly.

Finally, it was my turn. If you make every shot, the most you can score in our contest is 20 points, and the current score to beat was 8. Everyone expected me to get somewhere between 15 to 18 points, if not more. As I walked up to my spot behind the three-point line, waiting for the timer to begin, the anticipatory buzzing around me grew into cheers of excitement. I looked around the gym and was amazed to see that everyone was standing.

They were all witnesses.

The timer began. It was time to make history.

And then, airball.

Airball.

Airball.

I overshot my first three jumpers in a row, missing the hoop by a good two feet each time. I couldn't believe it. Neither could everyone else. As the energy that had been so palpable just seconds before was being sucked out of the room, my hands started shaking uncontrollably. It felt like every eye in that gym burned hot holes into the back of my neck as I kept tossing up bricks. It got so quiet in there that I heard a puzzled little boy ask his mother, "...What's wrong with him?"

Soon it was all over, and as I plodded over to my gym bag while avoiding eye contact with everyone, I ran into my teammates. I looked down but one of them playfully punched me on the shoulder and another gave me a buttslap and another yanked off my goofy-looking headband. They were all laughing and smiling and cracking jokes and they told me how amusingly intense I looked -- like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders out there -- and it was during that moment that I realized that the reason I joined this league is because one of my favorite things in life is not blocking the shot of a puny Filipino, but the feeling of camaraderie on a team. "The championship game is next Sunday, fellas," I said, clapping my hands together arrogantly. "Let's win that motherfucker."