Since the formation of the National Basketball Association in the late-1940’s, the New York City subculture of streetball blossomed, contradicting the fundamentals and structure encouraged by basketball puritans with a wave of creativity and improvisational style that originated from the urban playground. Mythic tales of inner-city ballplayers were birthed on the blacktop of New York’s most revered basketball courts, such as Rucker Park, Dyckman Park, and the “Cage,” where an onslaught of New York City talent, such as future NBA stars Julius Erving, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Connie Hawkins flourished within the confines of the concrete jungle. Likewise, New York City streetball is credited for the assortment of exceptional basketball players who never played a minute of professional basketball, a testament to the allure derived from the urban playgrounds and the legacy that follows. Streetball icons, such as Earl “the Goat” Manigault, Jon Hammond, and Pee-Wee Kirkland, who infamously turned down a three year contract with the Chicago Bull’s because he made more money from drug-dealing, are immortalized within the history of NYC streetball, all possessing a legacy that is innately New York. Furthermore, the characteristics of the New York point guard are a distinct quality, an aesthetic style of play that rejected the traditional skillset of a point guard and incorporated an innovative modification: a playstyle that consists of a scoring mindset, producing an variance of crossovers, elaborate displays of passing, and attacking the basket with ferocity. Today, the NYC point guard is on life-support, but the legacy of the NYC point guard is one that parallels the history of basketball, incorporating a stylistic approach that rivaled the traditional structure of the game, and helped consolidate the culture of New York, basketball, and Hip-Hop for generations of fans.
Perhaps most important in characterizing the NYC point guard is rejecting the traditional mold of point guards who rely on outside shooting and playmaking from the perimeter, rather encompassing the ability to attack the basket, through quick first steps or exquisite displays of ball-handling, to score at the rim and create open looks for their teammates. According to Sundiata Gaines, a Brooklyn-born professional basketball player whose career was chronicled in Martin Kessler’s article “Messed-Up Rims And ‘Magic’: The Story Behind the NYC Style of Basketball,” the style of play for New York point guards is molded within the constraints of the playgrounds. Multiple factors impact the mechanism’s that define the NYC point guard, including the actual quality of the rims at the playgrounds. Whereas most major cities upgrade the rims of local parks, New York relies on rims forged, welded, and painted by blacksmiths employed by New York’s park and recreation department. The blacksmith basketball hoop model is a relic of the past, but essential to New York’s streetball culture. In the parameters of New York, 700 of these blacksmith hoops remain incorporated into local playgrounds, where the finished rim is nearly unbreakable to the most thunderous dunks. However, the blacksmith rims design is unfavorable to outside shooting, in contrast to the punishment it can endure by aggressive dunks, for when a player shoots from the perimeter, the basketball is likely to bounce off the blacksmith rims. Furthermore, the blacksmith rims are often attached to a metal or wooden backboard, a disadvantage for shooters who often do not get a friendly bounce, rather their shot succumb to designated dead spots on the wooden backboards or emphatic bricks off the metal backboards. In turn, Gaine’s claims the reason most NYC ballplayers’ stray away from shooting and rely heavily on penetrating to the basket originates from the less desirable result from outside shooting on the blacksmith rims, further bolstering NYC point guard’s ability to attack the rim.
Furthermore, according to Jason Curry, the founder of Big Apple Basketball, a grass-roots organization designated to uplifting youth in their athletic endeavors, shooting from the outside on the playground is understood to be an indication that a player is soft, opposed to the hardened point guards who attack the rim and suffer the beating’s executed by big men. Likewise, a majority of NYC pick-up basketball games are played to 11, where every shot is tallied for 1 point, regardless of the distance of the shot, thereby encouraging perimeter players to attack the rim to secure a higher percentage shot. Gaine’s further claims that outside shooting dilutes the spectators cognitive experience of the game, citing that “guys want to see some type of magic on the court” and “if you are going to shoot jump shots, you better be hitting at a very high rate.” In an Sport Illustrated article written by Alexander Wolff, Kenny Smith, a native of New York, who would go on to win two championship’s with the Houston Rocket’s in the mid-90’s corroborates Gaine’s assessment of NYC fans hoping to see some type of “magic” on the playground, claiming you can mesmerize on-going spectators with the ability to break down your opponent with an array of dribbling and crossovers, while also captivating fans with mind-altering passes. In the same article, Wolff quotes legendary basketball player and Brooklyn-native Bob Cousy, who cites fellow New York point guards Marc Jackson, Kenny Anderson, and Stephon Marbury of exhibiting the essence of the NYC point guard, who are able to use a quick first step to attack the lane, keep their teammates involved, control the tempo of the offense, and not rely solely on outside shooting, merely shooting “well enough to keep the defense honest.” Overall, the role of the point guard on the playgrounds of New York is to relentlessly attack the basket, create playmaking opportunities to involve teammates, and, as past New York Knicks point guard Dean Meminger eloquently summarizes, playing with a sense of “choreographed spontaneity.”
The history of the New York-style point guard in the NBA coincided with the dawn of the NBA, when Bob Cousy, a native of Manhattan and son of impoverished French Immigrants, was selected 3rd overall by the Tri-Cities Blackhawks in the 1950 NBA draft. After his short stint with the Blackhawks, Cousy was traded to the Boston Celtics, where Cousy’s ball-handling and passing ability bewildered the Boston audience, earning Cousy the nickname “Houdini of the Hardwood.” Cousy cites the incorporation of his spontaneous ball-handling and passing replicated the game of fellow New York native, Dick McGuire, who predated the birth of the modern NBA, credited as the first player to incorporate the pass off-the-dribble, and inspired a generation of New York point guards with the originality he introduced to basketball. In the span of 13 seasons, Cousy led the league in assist’s eight times, won six championship’s, and is regarded as the first recognized superstar in the NBA, whose style of fast-paced offense, no-look passes, and mesmerizing ball-handling would serve as the prototype of the modern NBA point guard. At the time of Bob Cousy’s retirement, the NBA was introduced to two more New York natives, Lenny Wilken’s and “Tiny” Nate Archibald, who further solidified the characteristic design of New York point guards. Wilkens, who was born in Brooklyn, averaged 17+ points 10 times in the span of 14 years and led the league in Assists in 1969, foreshadowing the forthcoming era of NYC point guards who maintained the ability to combine scoring and passing on the highest professional levels. Later, “Tiny” Nate Archibald completely revolutionized the point guard position as a player possessed with an uncanny capacity to score, penetrate the lane, and create open looks for his teammates. Standing at 6 foot 1 inches, with a slender 150 lbs. frame, Archibald scored at will throughout the 1970’s, averaging 18 points over the course of his Hall of Fame career, including his 1973 MVP season, when Archibald led the NBA in scoring and assists per game with an average of 34 points and 11 assists, a statistical accomplishment that has yet to be matched. The combination of scoring, ball-handling, and passing off-the-dribble continued to define the stylistic play of the New York City point guard throughout the 1980’s through Kenny Smith, who set the all-time record for assists at North Carolina, Mark Jackson, who finished his career with the 2nd most total assists in NBA history, and Vinnie Johnson, who played for “Bad Boy” pistons of the 80’s and was nicknamed the “Microwave” for his ability to inflict a barrage of scoring on opposing teams. However, it was the 1990’s that was the definite golden era of NYC point guards, a period that witnessed the rise of And-1 mixtapes and captured the relationship between NY Hip-Hop and streetball culture.
At the beginning of the 1990’s, the most notable point guards who resided in New York were Kenny Anderson and Rod Strickland, both of whom possessed an electrifying ability to attack the basket with a portfolio of dribble-crossover maneuvers and retained capability to contort their bodies in motion around the sea of big men to successfully finish awe-inspiring layups. Yet, while Anderson and Strickland were busy dazzling opponents in the NBA, the birth of the basketball mixtape swept the inner-city playgrounds of New York, capturing the duality of basketball and the plight of urban neighborhoods. In 1997, documentarian Danielle Garner introduced the streetball culture in NYC to the mainstream, through her documentary Soul in the Hole that followed the life of basketball prodigy Booger Smith, whose basketball career is depicted within the socio-political constraints inflicted on predominately African American inner-city neighborhoods. Smith, although a tremendous talent who averaged 21 points and 12 assists his Junior year of high school, was subdued by the allure of the streets, declaring in the first line of the film “If I don’t make it to the NBA, I’m going to be a drug dealer.” Throughout the course of the documentary, the audience is introduced to the violence and impoverishment Smith endured in adolescence, how Smith was regarded as one of the best high school players in the country, but failed to make the grades to complete high school, the 2nd chance Smith was offered by the JUCO program at Arizona Western, where Smith unfortunately succumbs to drinking and smoking weed, eventually leading to the end of the film that tragically reveals Smith’s playing days were over, he had spent a few years living on the street, and he had been shot twice.
Following the release of Sole in the Hole, the sneaker-company, And-1, began producing a collection of hoop mixtapes, focused primarily on the affinity New Yorker’s had for local streetball. The And-1 mixtape introduced the world to a collection of basketball talent hidden within the playgrounds of the concrete jungle, including streetball legends such as Phillip “Hot Sauce” Champion, Woney “Half Man, Half Amazing” Heyward, and Rafeer “Skip 2 My Lou” Alston, whose personal mixtape was produced by DJ Set Free and scored by local NY rapper, Mos Def. With the exposure through the And-1 mixtape and the growing popularity of his -masterfully-crafted ball-handling abilities, Alston was able to secure a scholarship to Fresno State University, until he was later drafted to the NBA, where Aleton played 10 seasons, appeared on the 2009 NBA Championship on the Orlando Magic, and amassed a fortune of $30 million. Likewise, the late-90’s NYC streetball scene further popularized local point guards, including Kareem Reid, God Shammgod, and Stephon Marbury, while at the same time drawing attention from local NYC rappers, such as Fat Joe, P Diddy, and the members of Dipset, whose contributions to the And-1 mixtape tour and their participation in summertime streetball tournaments further intertwined basketball and hip-hop into a cultural phenomenon that persists to this day. However, by the end of the 90’s, NYC saw the decline of local produced point guards and Stephon Marbury is heralded as the last of the prodigious NYC point guard. Born in Coney Island and selected fourth overall in the 1996 NBA draft, Marbury was destined to fill the role of the next great NYC point guard. In the span of 15 seasons, Marbury was good for 20 points and 8 assists game, which, in turn led to multiple invitations to the NBA All-Star game. Marbury was a spectacle to watch, possessing the characteristics of his NYC predecessors by attacking the basket and creating open looks for his teammates, all while displaying an exhilarating amount of athleticism with logic-defying in-game dunks. However, injuries and bouts of mental illness continued to derail Marbury’s career, until he retired from the NBA all-together at the age of 31 to pursue a prolific career in China’s top basketball league.
Coincidentally, Marbury was not the last point guard to come out of New York, for his cousin, Sebastian Telfair, was pegged as the second-coming, a disciple of the NYC point guards before him, and was destined to a career of stardom. However, Telfair’s career did not pan-out as expected, failing to reach the pantheon of basketball success, and, deservedly or not, symbolized the end of the NYC point guard. Today, Boston Celtics’ Kemba Walker is the sole NYC point guard in the NBA: a sole reminder of a position that was revolutionized by the five Burroughs. Various accounts differ as to why the NYC point guard has faltered in the modern-NBA. Legendary basketball reporter Scoop Jackson elaborates that the fandom derived from the streetball culture has since outweighed the national recognition of playing in the NBA, producing an analogy of a “stage actor on Broadway who doesn’t need Hollywood.” Furthermore, Jackson poses the question “why conquer the world when New York is a more difficult challenge?” a sentiment that is supported by past players Booger Smith and Pee-Wee Kirkland’s inability to leave their local neighborhoods, finding that their streetball credibility as a more fulfilling personal accomplishment. Jason Curry, as mentioned earlier, cites the progression of basketball as the detriment to NYC point guards, where modern NBA point guards are required to shoot from beyond the three-point line, a skillset that is foreign for NYC point guards whose style of play has been fashioned by the unsatisfactory playground hoops, the pride of breaking down a defender an isolation, and the tendency to attack the rim. Modern NBA point guards, such as Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, and Trae Young exhibit the natural evolution of the game, where perimeter players must be able to shoot in order to stay on the court, rivaling the mindset of NYC point guards who traditionally never mastered the art of the jump shot.
Overall, the history of the NYC point guard transcends the sport of basketball, encompassing the formation of a style of play through outside factors, such as geographical location, sense of community, and musical influence. That said, the NYC point guard is not completely extinct, for Cole Anthony, who played this past collegiate season at the University of North Carolina and grew up in New York, recently announced his declaration for the NBA Draft, offering a spark of optimism in the perceived dying breed. In the end, time will only tell the livelihood of the NYC point guard, but the NBA is always a tad more fun when a general of Gotham suits up on the hardwood and with the lottery-bound Cole Anthony, the NYC point guard will persist into another decade, hopefully resetting the trend of NYC point guards in the NBA.
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