reader question!!

Whoo whoo #1! I got this from our man Kyle Bowden:

hey wuz gd man… i just started going to the gym early morning at 5am. I have a lil work out plan, but since Joey played with the pros overseas, i was wondering, what his work out schedule like?

To be honest…I don’t even know what Joey’s plan was when he was over there. He had some bad experiences with the team over there, they were new, unorganized, so all he did was play ball and work out. Right now I know he trains at a facility that’s more known for a workout gym [Pantheon Athletic Club in downtown Vancouver] than it is a basketball gym, but they have a small gym that dubs as a “triangle” room for yoga classes and whatnot. From a basketball side, he probably puts up at least 300-500 jumpers from all over the court a day. If you have a partner the best way to do it is 5-spot shooting like the NBA 3 point contest, do sets of either: shoot 5, make 5 or make 10…that way you’re looking at HITTING at least 50 jumpers on one trial, if you go around 4 times, you’ve made 200 jumpers. I think Gilbert Arenas said he puts up like 500 jumpers before games and like 1000 a day in the offseason so go figure. I’m sure he still works on his handles but focuses more on his offensive game. Normally he works out alone so it’s harder to actually do drills. I’ve never seen him work his upper body out or legs but I know he does a lot of push-ups with those bar-like handles that are on the floor [you know, Kyle Watson has them in 'Above the Rim'] and also uses an exercise band alot as well.

Hopefully that answers it.
Question –> yash.zandiyeh[at]gmail[dot]com

I have a custom tee-shirt contest coming up!!! Stay tuned!

oak hill all-star game

If you’ve picked up the new SLAM [Dirk/Shaq covers], you’ll see an advertisement about an Oak-Hill All-Star aka alumni game on June 30th @ the Bobcats’ arena in Charlotte. Players featured are: Melo, Josh Smith, Stack, Double D [DeSagana Diop], Marcus Williams, Rajon Rondo, Stephen Jackson, Steve Blake, Jeff McInnis, Ron Mercer, Rodney Strickland, Cory Alexander and John “Helicopter” Humphrey.

Paraphrased from And1.com, Helicopter transferred to Oak Hill for his senior year of basketball before going to Louisberg College in North Carolina. I didn’t know he went to Oak Hill..oh well good enough. Oak Hill definitely has a few more NBA prospects coming along…

There was also a mention of Kenny “Bad Santa” Brunner in here somewhere…or maybe that was in the Dime mag. I gotta pull my old SLAMs out of the vault and find all the streetballer references. In one of them [I think it was the Skip one], they had a young Kenny Brunner sitting on railroad tracks [think of LeBron James in like grade 10 when they took all those pictures of him in Adidas gear when he had a mini-fro]..On the same page, vertical column on the right, your boy Earvin “I’ll Be Right Back” Opong in his high school digs. Damn that must have been like 7 years ago.

your fave 5 [no, not t-mobile]

I was going through the And1 and Ball 4 Real websites today and comparing the rosters and I figured I’d try to get some reader involvement going on.

Question: if these 2 teams were to play each other, what’s your rotation like? You can base it on tricks or real ball, but basically at the end of the game who’s going to win?

From And 1 I’m starting:
C – Troy “Escalade” Jackson - Just a force down low, you want to play 2-3, keep him in the middle, ain’t nobody gonna score. He’s gonna squash people like he did White Chocolate.
PF – Jerry “Assassin” Dupree - Him and GGI are somewhat the same size and build but JD’s played on that legit level so I gotta give him the PF spot. BnB baby – Blocks and Boards
SF – Tony “Go Get It” Jones – Arguably the best player on the team [my #1 man Baby Shack tied with him], good height, can play all over the floor, probably the most versatile out of all of them gotta go with a big front court
SG – Hugh “Baby Shack” Jones – Another Jones on the squad. I’ve loved dude since I saw him on Battlegrounds: Ball or Fall [very first season] where he made it to the semis I think at only 6′3″. Just a beast of a man and a player, seen dude shoot live, NBA range with ease. He be jamming on dudes.
PG – Kenny “Bad Santa” Brunner – At one time a Georgetown Hoya, now reppin’ as the King of Cali. It was hard between him and Sylk and my first choice was Sylk but you know gotta go with the pure PG.

6th – John “Helicopter” Humphrey
7th – Andre “Sylk” Poole

Ball4Real Side [and this is harder than And1]:
C – John “High Octane” Harvey – We haven’t seen dude for a while but I think he’s the biggest on the squad, have to give him this spot
PF – Anthony “1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing aka Biz” Heyward – Hardest working guy, he’ll definitely hold the block down. Old, but still.
SF – Ryan “Special FX” Williams – I had heard about dude playing at Rucker prior to getting out there on the And 1 tour, probably has the best size to play this position too.
SG – Aaron “AO” Owens – Gotta give it to the North Philly rep. Him and Circus are the solid guards on this squad. A bit undersized, but he can still shoot it out.
PG – Jerome “Circus” Holman – Brooklyn born and raised, went to St. Pat’s with cousin Al Harrington, his organized ball is unquestioned on this team with a deadly jumper.

6th – Waliyy “Main Event” Dixon
7th – Robert “50″ Martin

From my eyes, And 1 wins by far. You can kind of tell the direction they took by splitting the OGs with the young guns who can hoop. The matchup to watch would be Circus and Bad Santa by far which we saw some of last season.

It’s gonna be an interesting summer.

grim reaper & the lakers no more

A week or two ago I had changed my msn name [yashzee[at]shaw[dot]ca for the inquiring minds] to “yash. RIP Smush Parker the Laker”…A lot of people don’t know this [or it appears they don't] but Lakers coaching and governing staff [i.e. the GM] have told Smush Parker he won’t be returning to the Lakers anymore. This stems from his comments about having trouble “reading” Coach Jackson towards the end of the season and even getting benched for most of the playoffs to give rookie, Jordan “Jewish Jordan” Farmar minutes, while Shammond Williams was the backup. Fans were disappointed by this b/c of Smush’s strong play last season against Phoenix in the first round, especially his defense on 2-time MVP Steve Nash.

Will The Grim Reaper find another NBA home? Who knows as he’s played for Cleveland, Phoenix, Detrot and the Lakers as well as a solid season in the NBDL, dropping the first ever triple double in an NBDL game. But really is that enough? Many players have been signed, then dropped to the NBDL then re-signed [i.e. Mikki Moore of the Nets who's probably having the best season of his life, let alone best POST-SEASON].

Personally, I feel that as good of a ball player Smush is, he’s way too inconsistent. Yes this is on a team where he may be the 4th option [assume Kwame Brown is an option] and that is overshadowed by Kobe Bryant – but this is the same team that praised him last season for his ability to pick Nash’s pockets at cruicial times. Smush is definitely not starter material in the NBA, let alone POINT GUARD material. He’s a scorer in a point guard’s body at 6′4″ [Nash is 6'3"] and didn’t appear to be capable of creating too many plays, especially with a clutch scorer like Kobe and a do-all forward in Lamar Odom. There’s definitely a team out there that could use him, but Smush has to play like he’s hungry. He’s one of those players that alot of people wish they were – got your name on the street [runs the Cage in NYC], went to a small school [Fordham] and a bit of a journeyman but got their shot as a starter. He lost it, but it’s not too late for him to get it back, he just has to WANT IT. He should be fortunate that his “street cred” hasn’t shadowed his playing ability unlike Queens product Rafer Alston. Look at where Skip is and he’s making the most of it.

Smush is a model for those who were born on the playground, and this isn’t the end, it’s just time for a new beginning.

we reminisce: the skip tape

For those of us that have been following streetball for years, we know that And 1 Mixtape Volume 1, also dubbed “The Skip Tape”, is what brough streetball to the masses. The story behind the Skip Tape is that Ron “The Teacher” Naclerio, the infamous head coach of Cardozo High [Rafer's alma-mater], had sent And 1 these tapes of Rafer “Skip 2 My Lou” Alston playing in Rucker against older and stronger players. Now I don’t know exactly but I think he was only 13, 14 at the time of these tapes being passed. We’re talking about a scrawny kid from Queens, NY who was just shaking guys left and right with ease. So Naclerio had sent them these tapes and they put together the triple-OG, first ever And 1 game in New York which also featured guys like Shane the Dribbling Machine, Main Event, Alimoe, Future, 1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing and [RIP] Conrad “McNasty” McRae. I was watching Volume 1 Friday night and I said to myself “Damn, it would have been so sweet to see all these guys before corporate America kicked in.” Just raw, no BS streetball. Most of us have seen Volume 1 and know what the game was all about – people going nuts over Skip skipping down the court, Alimoe crossing dudes up and McNasty just swatting everything in the paint. I mean Volume 1 is definitely a G.O.A.T [greatest of all time] in the mixtape game, forget the fact the editing, music and video quality was poor – the fact that it revolutionized streetball and brought it to the masses, gives it that status.

Now, alot of people aren’t exactly familiar with the history of actual streetball, and I won’t bother going into that now but it’s important to look at our roots and see how far streetball has come today. For those of you that are deeply into streetball I would suggest reading And 1’s “Streetball: All the Ballers, Moves, Slams & Shines” because it tells you alot about the players’ history. Yeah, the history portion of it is targeted to And 1 players, but it’s still a good read no doubt. It tells you about how Rafer’s second nickname was “Wasted Talent.” In the sense that he had high school troubles, but it was funny because when he played on the team, he’d average like 31 points a game over 4 games. The first SLAM magazine I bought was a young Rafer on the cover in a Fresno State Bulldogs jersey and the headline said: “The Best Point Guard in the World (you’ve never heard of).” I still have that magazine and read it from time to time and what they put about Rafer is just amazing. In the Skip vs. Alimoe Battletape, The Teacher talks about how at Rucker he goes: “Yeah, those are the two best point guards in New York; that’s Rafer Alston and that’s Stephon Marbury.” It’s funny because the one thing I’ve been wanting to see for years is part of the SLAM interview where they say it’s an urban legend that one time at Rucker, while Rafer was still young, he went up for a layup but he ended up ROLLING the ball down his back and down his other arm off to someone else. Think of the tricks the Globetrotters do when they roll the ball from one hand to the other down their backs and shoulders – now thing of doing that in the air. I’d love to see that!

Going back to the tape..watching it just made me go WOW. This kid is no more than 15, 16 and he has all the confidence in the world going at these guys. The best part of it was that unlike alot of streetball these days, Skip [and Alimoe] weren’t setting their guys up, they would make the defence react the way they wanted them to without thinking about it. Skip faking the pass then putting it thru his for the dish and his infamous, trademark spin move shaking defenders like it’s nothing. We hear alot about And 1 and other streetball events including some form of choreography, no matter how acute it is – but the stuff on Volume 1 was definitely legit because it’s not like EVERY pass or EVERY dunk was successful, heck I think on most of Skips passes they were intercepted, but how fluid it was was breath-taking. These guys were just having fun, no gimmicks, no contracts on the line, no sponsorships just a packed gym of people watching a show.

Most of us are fans of Streetball: Season 1 because of how much we could relate to it. By that I mean, some of us may have been in the gym, for free, just inches from these big star players seeing them play local talent. Now it’s a bit different and it’s become more of a reality show. However, this summer will be interesting and will prove whether SOMETHING out there can compete with the gigantic shadow And 1 has placed over streetball.

One thing I realized from watching the Skip Tape and comparing it to where streetball today is that, just like the evolution of man, everything has to have change to continue. Years ago [and up until Friday night] I was one of the people that would say “Oh streetball is hurt now, it’s all about money, not about the REALness of it”…But like I said, everything needs change to continue on, it needs to evolve yearly. Volume 1 launched And 1 out there and has made it what it is today. Although it may be run by greed or lack of democracy in the organization – it’s still what connected us to streetball, so we’re forever in their debt for that. Past few years have been all And 1, but we’ve seen some smaller organizations creep up with games here and there, garnering some recognition from fans. But the real change is in Ball 4 Real and how they’ll attempt to out-throne And1. Change will keep streetball alive.

“Conrad..you block my shot, I block your shot..but it’s all love baby.”-1/2 Man 1/2 Amazing

down with the king

As most people are aware – and as I put in my intro, I’m best friends with Joey “King Handles” Haywood. I’ve seen dude overcome adversity and take comments from tons of people: on the internet, in person and even in our hometown. Truth of it is that most people don’t realize how hard Joey’s worked to get where he is and like I’ll say – it’s just the beginning. When the Notic first dropped, nobody thought it would catapult an internet streetball revolution let alone be known around the world as it was just a fun project for two film/hoop heads – Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux [JSR aka Jeremiah the Prophet] and Kirk Thomas [KT]. A year half later, The Notic 2 hits and this is when stuff starts. So we’ve all seen the Notic outtakes that were put on HoopLife years back [I still have them all - I think] and one of them was one that’s still talked about and that’s the training clip that had Rory Grace aka Disaster, Joey and former protege, Aymen, in it. We all know the King is known for his uncanny quickness with the ball and the funny thing is that most people DON’T KNOW that Joey’s quickness comes from two things. Over the years tons of people have been asking “how does the King dribble so fast”, one kid [KingP] said “he’s not human!”, “I want to dribble like King Handles – how can I?” and we know everyone’s wanted that training clip/dvd on him. But I’ll let you guys in on a secret.

First, he comes from an athletic family – his dad can run forever, and literally I mean forever, he’s run from home to North Vancouver which is about 20KM non-stop. His older brother, Gary “Sweet Feet” Haywood [I gave him the name Sweet Feet because of this air-claw-type move he does and it works like a charm] is quick as crazy. So, genetics play a huge role in his quickness. When he was a kid he’d out run everyone and naturally had quick handles. On top of that, our coach, Mel Davis, spent at least about 30 minutes out of an hour working on ball handling [dribble and no dribble] skills which has definitely stuck through the years.
Secondly, and probably most importantly, Joey puts WORK IN! Most people think it’s all natural and that training with the heavy ball is what got him where he is but really it’s also discipline. Joey must be one of the hardest workers I’ve seen, just a gym rat – he’ll train in the morning, only to do it again in the afternoon and play at night. Now, we know the myth of training with a heavy ball will give you handles like Joey but that’s not entirely true either. Hard work may give you handles like him b/c remember that genetics play a role in his natural quickness. His footwork enables him to do combos that are so fast the defender’s left sitting there. A few years back he used to spend at least an hour, 2 hours a day working on his handles. This included sets of 1 minute “burn outs” you could say where you pound the ball on the ground for a minute straight. Shift hands, do crosses, through the legs, behind the back. There were also drills like the figure 8 and dribbling with your finger tips. Now that’s only the dribbling side..

In high school, Joey was THE team [Magee Secondary], I remember probably his best performance of his high school career – most of you have seen a clip or two on the Notic 2 – where he dropped 36 on the #1 team in the Province [and they won the Provincials that year]. I think he had 16 of the team’s 19 points in the first half. It was funny because he had borrowed our boy’s T-Mac 1s [you know them ugly bricks, black and blue stripe across the front], he shot out his hair and resembled Hot Sauce. Pull up after pull up would just go in, amazing. There were some college scouts at that game too. Now know this – at different stages of Joey’s game, there was always something people would criticize. “Oh he’s a streetballer”, “he can’t shoot”, “I’ll let him dribble all day.” When Joey was a kid, his jumper was deadly, probably the highlight of his youth in basketball was in a league game [my team vs. his] where he pulled up at the 3 point line, shot the ball, got fouled on the arm in the process and yelled out a mean “ahhhhh!!” and boom it went in. First and last 4 point play. But what I’m trying to say is that when we were young jumper > handles. High school it shifted back and forth to the point that his handles were his game. But in the past 3 years, and spending hours in the gym does this to you – his jumper is just deadly. One of the meanest pull-ups I’ve ever seen because he’ll cross and cross [you know do his combos] and right when you think he’s about to slow down he’ll pull one up. The ability to dribble so fast and shoot is retarded! And if you’ve seen any of our league games, he’ll hit at least 70, 80% of his pull-ups. It’s interesting to see that after only playing a half-semester at Langara College, last year in a UCFV [University College of the Fraser Valley] tournament where he played with BC Lion [CFL] Geroy Simon [who is a hooper himself], a coach went up to him and said “if you ever want to play College again, I have a spot for you on my team.” That just shows people realized how good he is even though everyone’s talking behind his back saying “oh he’s nothing, he wouldn’t be able to play college.” My thought – he would destory on the college level here and could definitely hold his own down state. We’ve seen glimpses of how he does his thing against other professional streetballers out there.

His defense is very notable too, when we were young he’d play the passing lanes beautiful and caused a lot of steals. When he wants to, he can lock guys down because he relatively long arms and good lateral movement. In our past two league games he picked up THREE FOULS in the first half because he was playing so aggressive and I’ve never seen him pick up 3 fouls that fast.

So I’ve shed light and given away some “secrets” that most people may have been aware of..

Maybe one day down the road we’ll drop a training dvd/clip-set.

Feel free to ask questions.

the intro…

Well I’ve been contemplating doing a streetball-related blog for quite some time as I had been approached by someone in BC [BCSportsFanatic] to do one last summer, but I, uhh..”fell off” so to say. So I figured, with this summer showing some serious promise as far as the future of streetball goes and my “minor” involvement in “the game” [from here on out "the game" refers to streetball in all aspects: corporate, underground, whatever], I might as well start something up even if it gets me nowhere.

To start it off I should introduce myself to the masses [hahaha, right!] of people that will come across this blog over the next months [years?]. My name’s Yash Zandiyeh, I’m 22 years old based in Richmond, British Columbia [yes home of the forever remembered "The Notic" mixtape]  and I work and goto school. I work for an accounting firm in downtown Vancouver where I’m tech support and I goto BCIT [British Columbia Institute of Technology] aiming to get my Bachelor’s Degree of Technology in Forensic Science – focusing on Computer Crime. I graduated from Langara College where I got my Diploma in Computer Information Systems [aka Information Technology] and I also worked there for a bit. Alright, BS aside I’ve been playing basketball since I was, I think 4 or 5 when I lived in Tsawwassen [a city in B.C.]. My parents had enrolled my [older] sister into basketball camp with former Harlem Globetrotter, Mel “Tricks” Davis [if you don't believe me, look at the history on the HG site] who had a camp that had a motto of “Have Ball, Will Teach.” So when I was 5 I was lounging around in the gym, then I picked up a ball and the rest was history. 17 years later, here I am – no where near my dream of playing in the NBA, let alone the NBDL – in grade 11 I was really set on playing in the NBDL when it had first came out, yeah, that’s EXACTLY why I never played on my high school team that year. Most people ask me this so I’m just going to answer it: do I play basketball? Yes. Without trying to hype myself up I’m a pass first-shoot rarely point guard who probably has a higher basketball IQ than most people I’ve played with. Think a hybrid of Avery Johnson, Eric Snow, Baron Davis, John Stockton and that’s the type of player I am.

I’ve garnered “much” of my “fame” as an affiliate of Joey “King Handles” Haywood, who almost anyone in the streetball world would know. I’ve also been “known” to leak information about The Notic back in my glory days [circa 2000-2004?] over at the HoopLife.ca [formerly BasketballJones.ca] where I was the only person who had “Hall of Fame” status. Many hours typing in a forum – yes! But hey it did get me somewhere. Through my multitude of posts on HoopLife, the Young Players’ Association [YPA] and streetballin.net forums, I was able to gather contacts around the world. Now I’m not trying to over-hype myself up, but really it came to knowing kids in places I had never heard of [i.e. Estonia!]. All while meeting some of the right people: Matt, Chayla, Fred, Court from YPA, Jay Bryant from the Harlem Magic Masters, Jay McLaughlin [Blacktop Hustler/JayCurtiss Athletics], Eric Cuadra [SHO-SHOT Athletics] and an array of other people as well. Through these connections I was able to meet others in the streetball game, so I guess for someone who spent a lot of time at his computer – it’s not bad. So now, at 22, I can say that I know people all around the world related to streetball – in the States, in Europe, in Japan, life’s been good.

Just to clarify – I’ve never profited off anything I’ve done for anyone – whether it be provide advice or actually help them get somewhere, that’s not me. I’m not an agent, more a fan of the game than anything. However it should be noted that I am Joey’s manager, although our “Union” [basically our clique of people that help him] together help him out. That consists of guys like Jay from Blacktop Hustler, Jordan Lewis at GetLiveMedia.com, myself, his brother – Gary “Sweet Feet” Haywood. How I came about being his manager, it’s hard to say, but basically all my years of “dick-riding” [which is what ALOT of people called it] paid off because it wasn’t “dick-riding”, it was unlimited support for your best friend knowing that he’d get somewhere with his talents. And the beginning has just started. So, when I was younger and killing posts [Matt from YPA knows about my multi-paged posts, I would write BOOKS] I’d get a lot “heat” because people would question my reliability and think I was just blowing dude badly. But years later people realized what’s really up. I’ve known Joey since we were 10 years old and we’ve been through a lot together [I'll save the drama for a rainy day] but we were also in the movie “Air Bud” –> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118570/ together among other things. So through friendship, a business partnership was made. With the connections I made we were able to get him out to games and events and most importantly get him into EA Sports’ NBA Street [all the years up to NBA Street: Homecourt, the credit solely goes to Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux and Kirk Thomas of the Notic who got the guys in]. And now my man is just prospering into the next streetball Star. From underground to mainstream.

So with all this being said I’ve decided to tackle streetball topics that I see in forums and hope that some readers will email me [yash.zandiyeh[at]gmail[dot]com] and provide some insight or ask questions they’d like to ask. I have a few things in mind: common questions I get asked about Joey, will there be a Notic 3 [thanks to Clown Prince ], the upcoming tour circuit and other things that’ll arise over the next few weeks. So please! Either post a comment about a topic you want to know more about [or at least my opinion on it].

Oh yeah – why’d I start a blog on streetball, I mean what justifies ME as being certified streetball-blogger status? Nothing really, except that I’ve been told I have a good view on the game and have been following it since underground/internet streetball blew up since what the late 90s? I think that’s good enough.

Lastly – on a personal note and I share this in the event that anyone ever wants to call me and talk to me. Everything I’ve done so far in streetball I’ve done through my computer. There’s a reason for this. That’s because I’m hearing impaired – no that doesn’t mean DEAF – it means that I don’t hear as much as others do. For example – you listen to a song, after 3, 4 times you pick up the words. Me I’d pick up about 1 out of every 7 words. I can hear the words but I can’t make them out Same thing talking on the phone so I stay away from it. Not trying to use some ethical appeal for you guys to read it, but this is about ME so I might as well share that with y’all.

Looking forward to some comments!!