Well folks, another season has come and gone and I can probably say this was one of the most enjoyable ones I’ve participated in. Not because of the basketball part of it although keeping stats does make it a little livelier, but because of the friendships that I saw being built on and off the court. Hopefully, everyone can return next season because you won’t find any other league like this that has this combination of spirit and life-changing messages.
Ok, so here are my final team rankings:
#1 Team Red
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that this team won the championship. As I mentioned during the pre-season write-up that any team with Ryan Squanto (where did this name come from?!?) has a chance to win it all. And it held true, especially in the championship game with him scoring 20+ points. But this wasn’t a one-man team. Darryl showed some surprisingly nifty moves by scoring on running jumpers and crashing the offensive glass. I told you to be careful once he flashes that smile because that’s the last thing you’ll see once he blows past you. Andrew provided the rebounding and defensive presence all season long. You need role players like this for a championship team ala Bruce Bowen and Ben Wallace. Rich, Calvin, and Dennis all produced at certain times which was enough to win this league. Notice I didn’t mention the other Jon in the league. Probably because the only thing he contributed was his constant yammering about no one can stop him, he’s the best shooter in the league, people were wasting their time by trying to guard him, blah…blah…blah…(Ok, none of this is really true but he was talking during the games. I just couldn’t understand what he was saying so I’m making it up). Other than him, the team was solid. Congratulations for a season well-played!
#2 Team Grey
This team was nearly perfect throughout the season except for one loss (to team white). No one could solve the problem of trying to guard both Hank and Stan (except team white). The championship was less about team red stopping both those guys but how sometimes you just have off-nights. And for Stan that proved true that night. I don’t know what the final shooting stats were for that game but I think Stan hit less than 20% of his shots. And these were shots that he would make 9 times out of 10 but this was that one time that they weren’t falling. Frustration was building as well for him as he drew a technical during the game. Hubert picked up some of the slack by abusing whoever was trying to guard him down low. Octavio tried to keep the game simple by feeding the big guy which worked on a few occasions. Even Jim provided solid outside shooting all season shooting over taller guys. Hank was his usual consistent self by pulling up for jumpers and running back before the shot was even made because he knew it was going in. Even Octavio got in a few reps with sweatpants and all. He probably should have played against our team, maybe they would have won. Still a great season by team grey that has nothing to hang their heads about. Did I mention that our team beat them?
#3 Team Orange
Talk about a Jekyll and Hyde team. After starting out the season 0-2, they won their last 4 games. Who knows what would have happened if they won one more additional game. I guess Greg didn’t play enough in the first 2 games. I only had him averaging about 37 minutes a game for those first 2 while trying to spare a few minutes to others. But then he realized that he would need to play every minute on the floor so he averaged about 43 minutes the rest of the season. That seemed to motivate the rest of the team to excel their play. The few times that Greg wasn’t either shooting or dribbling the ball, Jeff and Sherman stepped up their offensive games. Sherman in particular showed some uncanny drives to the bucket that seemed to defy the laws of physics. In the end though, Greg wasn’t there to play his usual 49 minutes but the guys off the bench were fresh and ready to contribute due to inactivity during the season. If the playoffs had been a tournament-style bracket, team orange would have probably gone to the finals.
#4 Team Blue
This was pretty much the opposite of team orange. They started off the season 2-0 and sputtered towards the end of the season. Not sure what happened but I assume it was because they didn’t have ringer #2 Eugene for a couple games. Being the sparkplug that he is, I’m sure that motivated the other guys to perform at higher level. But maybe it was the Willis Reed type comeback from Dennis that inspired a couple more wins. Not sure what type of healing therapy that he did but I’ll be sure to ask him for a medical reference if I should ever get hurt. Tim was pretty consistent throughout the season and so was Kevin. Colman kept this team together by averaging a few less seconds than Greg’s playing time. I can also say that our team did play against this Ray Zansky person so he does exist and they did beat our team so who knows if he had played the entire season. X-factor? Possibly but Colman already did a good enough job by recruiting ringers AFTER the season had started. Not that Donald helped too much anyways.
#5 Team White
- Friendship league fee- $30
- Friendship league t-shirt- $0
- Prime rib dinner- $0
- Swatting Oz with my elbow- 1 bruised ego
- Winning 2 games when rhymes with rob predicted that we would not win 1 and handing team grey their only loss of the regular season while the team captain sat the whole game- Priceless…
Even though the record does not show it, our team was resilient and competitive in each game. Despite being the oldest and probably slowest team that was plagued with injuries towards the end, a few players stepped up their game and showed flashes of brilliance. Tony was probably our 2nd half MVP by being a monster on the boards but the most impressive skill was his point-guard-like passing ability on the fast break. Poor man’s Boris Diaw. Jeff should maturity as he learned to play organized ball for the first time. The guy’s got potential. League leading scorer Sherman was the rock for our team by carrying us offensively. Mel was getting Shaq-like treatment from the refs but still played through it all with a calm demeanor. I contributed a few minutes here and there and tried to disrupt the other team by saying a few friendly remarks about their poor basketball abilities along with ensuring the stat people were doing their job.
#6 Team Black
This was a surprise to me that they performed this poorly. Fundamentally, they had all the components of a solid team with a good point guard in Erik, solid shooting with Kenton, all-around contributor with Brandon, solid big man with Adam, and solid coaching with…well, the players on the court were good. So what happened? Not sure really. They were a little short-handed on the bench since the coach was a DNP-WD for most the season. Maybe it was Oz not really regaining his confidence back after that unsuccessful encounter with my elbow in the first game. Maybe it was missing Adam the last couple games that disrupted their chemistry. Whatever the case, if this season was longer, I have no doubt that they probably would have won a few more games. Even Brian felt the team was turning it around towards the end and boldly guaranteed a win in the playoffs against our team. Luckily for us, he had to suit up for the game and contributed to our win by shooting 0-10.
<< back to index