Adventures in South America

Basquetbol in Argentina

Well, I finally played some basketball (simply basquet here) on sunday. Some interesting observations, futbol (soccer) is the only sport that has the pick-up game quality here. All other popular sports rugby, basquet, tennis, etc... you have to play at a "club" which means paying a small fee daily (or joining the club on a monthly/annual basis) - so after asking around, we found out that "club de amigos" has games on sat/sun (not to mention tennis courts, pools, futbol you get the idea) . onto the basquet...
- they play basquet with similar rules as soccer! that is there is no stoppage of play, if you call a foul, or the ball goes out of bounds, you just grab it and play - no such thing as checking it up. this makes for some interesting times, as you could be arguing the merits of a foul call (which is called at pretty much all times!) and the ball is inbounded while the defense isnt ready.
another aspect of their playing that is socceresque is they pass the ball a lot!! its actually a nice way to play but sometimes they are overly unselfish and really coming from the ny style of almost everyman for himself it feels almost unnatural.
- the courts are international (so the 3pt shot is a little bit further) but they count 3pters - just not done in nyc playground bball.
- portenos (people from bs. as.) love to give everyone nicknames, usually based on features. for ex, if you are older they will call you 'viejo' (old), a little chubby 'gordo', etc... kind of funny to hear.
- lastly, they literally treat basquet like its not a contact sport, any touching and they cry foul. this part is annoying and takes getting used to. there was another american on my team and in the great spirit of diplomatic relations he continually berated the argentines with some colorful english.
all in all a fun day, and i expect to play some more in the coming wknds.

posted by sethnem @ 8:41 AM