I play a lot of pick-up basketball, mostly at a park near my house that has a bunch of full-court setups, lights for night play, and almost always at least one decent game going during any hours I’m thinking of playing. The competition is good, and there are enough regulars that the rules and norms are pretty well entrenched; you can show up, inquire about next, jump on a team, and not have to worry about the ground rules.
It doesn’t really matter, though; the games play by pretty much the standard pick-up structure: games straight to 11, everything counts for one, call your own fouls by saying “ball,” no backcourt, checks from half-court after out of bounds turnovers, only call un-ignorable violations (like egregious carries or travels) and never call offensive fouls, unless you want to fess up to it yourself (like a hideous over-the-back). Winners stay on the court, whoever has next builds a team with the first four guys who asked him, and a queue of nexts builds behind that. All very standard.
What interests me, from both a basketball and non-basketball standpoint, is how disputes both within the game and within the queue structure for next are settled. Pick-up basketball provides a great case study of an institutional structure that provides for interaction between competing actors without a system to enforce the institutional rules, any sort of Leviathan-like actor to settle disputes or interpret the rules. Even more to the point, beyond the basics, the rules themselves are so fuzzy and/or open to variation in interpretation and strictness, and no stable cannon of precedent exists to guide the actors as to when and how to apply the rules.
And yet disputes, especially minor ones, come up virtually constantly on the court and, somewhat less frequently, off the court in the queue for next. It’s rare for a full game to be played out without at least one minor dispute over a call, and every few games a major dispute occurs that stops play for a minute or more. Sometimes it’s at simple as a disagreement about who last touched a ball that went out of bounds. Often it’s a much more serious accusation that an offensive player is either calling imaginary fouls, or not calling them until after seeing the outcome of letting it go.
The fascinating thing, though, is watching these disputes get resolved. Especially since I’ve come to see that certain players tend to be very good at winning these disputes, seemingly regardless of the substantive merits of their claim (it’s not always who was objectively correct), the side of the dispute they were on (it’s not as if the offensive team constantly wins disputes), or whether they were even involved in, or had a good vantage point to see, the actual disputed play.
So I’ve spent some time compiling a list of things that seem to help people prevail in these disputes. Some of them are not controllable variables; for instance, the better players among those on the court at any given time will be given more weight in a dispute if they choose to speak up. Same thing with the players who have been regulars at the courts for a long time. Neither of these things are surprising, nor are they of particular interest to me. I’m mostly interested in the strategic elements that any player can adopt to increase his chances (or his team’s chances) of winning a dispute. Here’s a list of what I’ve got so far:
(1) Be vocal. Since it’s quite rare for a defensive player to seriously challenge an offensive player calling a foul on a drive to the hoop (see point #8), the most common disputes revolve around balls going out of bounds and the calling of violations on the offense, neither of which question the motives/sportsmanship of another player the way disputing a called foul does. Typically, the out-of-bounds calls are not high controversy — unless the call was made late or happened very close to the hoop, there is never a a point at stake. And therefore it pays to be loud, since the other team may simply give in and accept defeat in the dispute with merely possession at stake. That doesn’t mean scream, it just means make sure everyone can hear you and you are loud enough that your voice implies you are positive that you are correct about the call.
Disputes over violations are much different, for two reasons. First, when a ball goes out of bounds, play stops and a decision (even if it’s obvious) needs to be made about who gets the ball. Calling a violation, on the other hand, itself stops play. Meaning that absent the violation call, the game goes on. Secondly, calling a violation is somewhat uncouth — if it’s borderline, you let it go. Compounding all this is the problem that violations are often called in ways that take away what would obviously be a point. For instance, someone calls a travel during a two-on-one fast break that produces a lay-up. That’s almost a guaranteed argument. In any case, it once again pays to be vocal. Any hesitation in forcefully and loudly making your case will be received as weakness for your position.
(2) Never give any ground. The cardinal sin of disputing a call is admitting that you aren’t 100% sure that you are 100% correct. The moment your argument erodes into any sort of compromise solution, you are done. Compromises are almost never enacted on the court, and in most cases the side that offers the compromise ends up losing the entire dispute. For example, team A scores an apparent point via a layup, but team B calls a travel just before the layup is scored. It’s not inherently clear who will win this dispute (I would say that team A has the advantage so long as the travel call wasn’t made in time for anyone to stop playing defense prior to the layup), but if team B at any point suggests that it be settled by giving team A the ball but not the basket, forget it. It’s over. Team A will get the point.
(3) Act like it’s a fait accompli. If you are the one who made the layup on Team A, the single best thing you can do to help yourself win the dispute is to start walking the toward the other end of the court while repeatedly and forcefully announcing the new score and something like “Bucket!” over and over again. Add some alternative words in there, and you’re gold. “Nine-six.” “Buckets!” “Nine-six.” “Point.” “Nine-six.” “Check ball.” “Nine-six.” “Bucket!” This tactic is especially forceful if the location of the next play hinges on the outcome of the call. For example, if you are on defense and call a travel in a half-court set and it is disputed, the next play is going to start at the top of one key or the other. Start walking toward the other end immediately. Put the dispute in the past. It’s over. You won.
(4) Do not survey opinion. Never survey non-players. This is a fatal mistake made on lots of out of bounds calls. If you’re so sure, why are you recruiting witnesses? Just forcefully state the correct call. And never, ever, ask for help from the players waiting on the sidelines. This is 100% of the time interpreted as weakness, and usually also raises questions of impropriety. Pick-up game disputes are settled by the players. If you wanted someone impartial, you’d get a ref. Most players react very poorly when someone else seeks outside judgment.
(5) Get the ball. Or don’t. This goes along with point #3. If you are on defense and call either a violation (not on a scoring play) or an out-of-bounds, get the ball and take it to the top of the key at the other end of the court. It’s a huge advantage. Your team will almost certainly follow you if you have any case, and the other team will begrudgingly do the same. They’ll grumble, but they’ll come down. And once you have everyone down at the other end, the dispute is settled unless someone wants to get really pissy. And people rarely want to take that step, especially on a non-scoring dispute.
(6) Get help. It’s hard to win an argument alone. In a perfect world, you’d have four teammates who were great players who had played at your court for years and don’t typically cry wolf. But it’s good enough just have some vocal people on your team who are willing to get loud when they want a call. So if a dispute is about to ignite, look at your teammates, give them the “give me a break” face, and see if you can light them up. It’s usually not too hard.
(7) If you have to actually argue, don’t worry too much about substance. A technical knowledge of NCAA rules is basically useless on the pick-up court. And if you ever find yourself defending your position by showing off someone’s footwork, forget it. No one wants a lecture. You are better off appealing to either (1) traditional norms on your court (which speaks to your experience and/or works as an appeal to more veteran players than you) or (2) appealing to “what we’re trying to do here.” So if someone calls a real ticky-tack foul, like a meaningless travel walking around on the wing or a nothing hand-check, get the ball, vocally announce your position, and move on. If you have to argue, go with the strategy that works for your case: if your team got called for the idiotic travel, talk about how that’s not how we play here. If you called the travel, discuss how we’re trying to play a serious game here and keep it tip-top. But in either case, don’t get into the minutia of the rules about traveling.
(8) Pick your battles. While it’s probably silly to point out that you won’t win all your disputes if you dispute every call, there’s still an important long-term strategy to mostly staying quiet. No individual non-point call has a chance of deciding a game, especially if the score is 4-3. So let most of it go, and get some credibility. On the other dimension of this, don’t spend your time making the “hard” disputes. The king daddy of these, of course, is trying to overturn an offensive player’s call of a foul. There’s a strong norm that foul calls are respected regardless of their merit, mostly because it’s such a nightmare to try and settle disputes about fouls. Even if you make a perfectly clean block and never touch your opponents body even a bit, it’s dangerous to try and argue when he calls foul. Save it for only the most perfect situations, and even then be judicious. Questioning a foul call goes right to motive, and can get heated fast.
(9) Don’t cry wolf. There is a kind of player who mildly disputes, or at least questions, every single call on the court. Every out of bounds he shouts, “D’you touch that?” and every time someone drives to the hoop he says, “Travel?” None of this is serious, and 99% of the time it’s ignored as the opportunism that it is. But if you behave like this, you are given almost zero weight when there is an actual dispute. In fact, it’s like your team has only four players, because you cannot even be recruited as help for the case.
