Transitioning from point guard to center

I have to say that my transition to playing in adult Asian leagues has definitely hurt my hoop game. Technically, this past season I was in four basketball leagues and three of them were adult "Asian" basketball leagues. In a sweet display of reverse-racism, Asians have managed to create all these "Asians-only" basketball leagues. The reasoning is that Asians are shorter than whites and blacks (and latinos?), so they should be able to play in their own league where they can compete with people that are the same size. But if this was the case, wouldn't they just start a six-foot and under league or something?? So the truth is, Asians are upholding their stereotype of acting like elitists and being racist (don't worry I'm half Chinese so I can criticize the culture all I want.. at least half the time).

Anyways, I'm an opportunist and a decent basketball player so ever since I was in 8th grade, I've participated in these all-asian hoop leagues (I'm half chinese, half white). Most of the leagues allow for one or two non-asian players, that way they don't seem so racist.

The problem with playing in these leagues is that I have to play center, which is the worst. In high school I was strictly a point guard. I was the smallest player on my (95% black) varsity team and my role was to bring the ball up and pass it. Avoid turnovers and stay out of the way.

Now in these Asian leagues, I'm the tallest guy so I take the jump balls and anchor the post defense playing the middle in our horrendous 2-3 zones.



Not only that, but this automatically defers me from the point guard role and I have to witness someone else bring the ball up and make bad decisions at the point (not always, but definitely regularly). So half the time, I just grab the rebound, throw the outlet and watch the madness occur. By the time I get to half court we've already made a lay-up, bricked a three, or thrown a turnover.



So in the past two years of playing this style, I've gone from a quick point guard who out-hustles everyone on the court, to a slow, lazy center who watches most of the action from half court.

I even run like a big man now, which is the worst part about it. Instead of running on my toes and sprinting up and down the court, I lumber. Yeah, I f---ing lumber up and down the court.

It's pretty ugly and it has happened slowly and really crept up on me. In high school, they let me run the point on my asian team and I was more of a Lebron James of the asian league, easily capturing the MVP of the Seattle Chinese Athletic Association.


However, my current Asian teams don't want me to bring the ball up, they want me to play post defense and shoot three's, which has turned my game into some sort of hapa version of Mehmet Okur.


So now my mission is to get my game back to Seattle Asian league status as a big point guard and not L.A. Asian league status as a slow, three-point shooting center. If they force me to play down low on defense, I will do so but outlet passes will be far and few between.

Summer league starts in two weeks, I'll keep you posted.