The Art of a Beautiful Game [antikvár]

Introduction Some years ago I had the unenviable task of guarding Mark Aguirre in a pickup game. I'd like to say I held my ground as he posted me up, absorbing each of the bargelike blows he delivered with his hips and prodigious backside, holding strong against the Nor'easter of Ass he unleashed upon me. But I did not. Like so many opponents during Aguirre's NBA days, 1 slid and stumbled and shuffled backward until he was essentially standing under the basket and 1 out-of-bounds. At which point he could merely reach up and lay the ball into the basket. How 1 came to be guarding Aguirre was a matter of circumstance. 1 was in Indianapolis writing a story for Sports Illustrated and had wandered over to a local health club looking for a run. Aguirre, then an assistant coach for the Indiana Pacers, arrived a half hour later. My teammates, kind souls that they were, agreed that I should be the one to guard Aguirre. This was what an NBA coach might refer to as "a matchup problem." Aguirre was a 6' 6", 230-pound NBA legend who averaged 20 points during his 13-year career with the Mavericks and the Pistons, and even at 43 years old, he was still in remarkably good shape. I, on the other hand, was a 6' 1", 175-pound former small-college player who had a difficult enough time defending the guys in my local rec league. For the most part Aguirre took it easy on me in the post, backing me down only a handful of times. Not that it mattered; he turned out to be just as adept on the perimeter. At one point I was guarding him on the wing and he fooled me so completely, using a ball fake together with a subtle push on my leg and hip, that I actually turned around to try to beat him to the baseline. In mid-sprint I heard Aguirre chuckle