Ball in Japan: The G Suns, not the おじさんs

When I first came to Japan, I really didn't ball for maybe 6 months, other than once or twice every two weeks with the kids. I was bigger than them, so I couldn't really hit the post as hard as I wanted to. Couple that with my unnoticed but almost unbelievable loss of shape, (undoubtedly due to the abundance of two things that I had never had enough of: money, and beer), and I was in trouble. There is no such thing as pickup ball in Japan. Let me repeat...there is No Such Thing. This was especially troubling for me, only ever having played pickup ball my whole life. I talked to the coach at my school, and he introduced me to a club team in my area. That club team turned out to be the G Suns, or Glowing Suns. Here are the founders:

(In the beginning, I'm like, 'This is the G Suns', but I say it wrong and it sounds like Ojisans, which means old men. My teammate is like, that's not what it is. I then ask how long have they been running the team, and they said over ten years.)

When I first started going to the G Suns' practices, I spoke Japanese, but in an effort not to sound dumb, I rarely spoke. It was pretty cool though, because for a while our main form of communication was ball. I've found that's how you make your friends. You can tell a lot about someone from the way they ball.

These guys are more relaxed than the other team I play with, the Hailars. All of them are really nice guys, although they are a little rough on me at times. They refuse to try and speak English. "お前のために日本語喋ってるやん、いい勉強になるやろう？" (For your ass we are speakin' Japanese, you better study!).

Overall, practice is the shit. Everyone watches every game, so if you pull something nice off, you get hooked up. At the same time though, if you do something dumb, you get the catcalls. It's a nice little atmosphere.

(Here's a dude I had trouble guarding when I got here, the dude who hits that J in the beginning of the clip. This dude's J is, can't even describe it. Cash, Milk, Money, Splash, Bottoms - all that. You can hear it too, it's just common sense that he's gonna score, no one cheers or anything. If he's open, it's a layup, from wherever. And he is real good at getting his shot off, from whatever position. I take pride in my ability to block J's, so I've spent a lot of time guarding him, and he's definitely helped my game. He's also the captain of that other team I go to.)

So, yups.