Basketball is art...

I thought I knew plenty about basketball, then I read this article. Nevertheless, Dave Hickey was a very entertaining read.

I had no trouble grasping his connection between the fluidity of basketball and it's similarity to art. "It's okay to drip paint." I had no trouble grasping the rules that began to govern both art and basketball. Hickey also focused on how rules affect every citizen from birth to death. Bringing in his own defiance of adolescence and later relating rules to the loss of freedom in basketball. The line that stood out most to me was "...when a rule ceases to liberate and begins to govern." I think a lot of times in society we perceive that all rules are meant to govern and control us. And while that is true in many instances, there are just as many that liberate us. Hickey even makes that point about basketball where rules were established that prohibited zone defense and made the game more of a "match-up."

I did have some trouble following along with his mannerisms. He was particular to basketball terminology and did talk about some plays that an amateur basketball watcher doesn't isn't always familiar with. It didn't inhibit Hickey from getting his point across to my reader base but I did struggle to keep up with his vocabulary. I felt no other detrimental effects of his writing and did enjoy the connection between the art and basketball worlds.