Let's be honest with each other. I have become bad at basketball. It seems I don't really fit playing any position. I'm going to blame this on my early growth spurt.
It started when I was about 13-14 years old. I hit my growth spurt long before any of my friends did, so while I was 5'10 everyone else was still 5'5. Since I couldn't really dribble or pass that well, I was relegated to being the inside guy that could get rebounds and occasionally the low-post basket. And so thus I developed my game. Never had to dribble or shoot from outside. Just post up and rebound.
This started to hit a serious snag when I was 21 and took a basketball class from BYU. We played a lot of pickup ball in the class, and I started to naturally take my position at the low post. But the more I tried to play there, the more I got dominated by everyone around me. I wasn't getting rebounds, all my shots were blocked, I was pretty much a liability for my team. I really couldn't figure out what was going on until I realized that I was no longer the tall guy on the floor. Our team would generally have 2-3 guys that were taller than me. I would have to start playing on the outside.
And I've been trying to adjust to the change ever since. This was brought home with me the other day when I was playing basketball with my co-workers (a weekly occurrence). I have been mildly sick lately, not too bad but enough to take a few more pounds off me than normal. I'm not a heavy guy to begin with, but I just noticed how bad I was getting pushed around and boxed out. I remember thinking "how did this happen? I used to be so good on the inside." Well, I blame my early growth spurt.
So there you go. Just thought I'd let you know in case you ever play basketball with me.
