Opinion | Depressive state of a quarantined basketball

Joe Perrino, Sports Editor

Winter 2019 was a glorious time for me. I can still remember the exact moment when I was picked up off my shelf from the Target on North Tustin Street in Orange, California, and taken to a new home. 

Hi. I’m Joe’s basketball. I’m an official Wilson basketball, measuring 29.5 inches in circumference. I’m good on any terrain and I’m a beautiful burnt orange color.  

I got the feeling that Joe used me as a depression purchase, probably to get over some girl or something – I don’t get it. After picking me out because I was the cheapest, he tried to go play at a park with his friend, but they quickly found out it had no hoops to shoot me on. Instead, he practiced his dribble moves walking down a sidewalk, but ended up dropping me in a puddle and ruining my pristine leather. Ever since, we’ve been the best of friends.

A few months later, Joe ended up placing me in a car that was strangely stuffed to the brim. I thought it might be our routine trip to the court by Chapman’s Digital Media Arts Center (DMAC), but this was different. We traveled all the way through Los Angeles, then past miles and miles of farmland, but eventually we pulled into a driveway in Mountain View, California. It was a strange day for a trip, I thought; but this new place, with people Joe seemed to recognize, ended up feeling like heaven. 

The house had a basketball hoop above the garage! We would play for countless hours almost every day for about five months, whether it be at home or a park. 

I look back on that now with the fondest of memories, because that stretch was the last time I was happy.

At the end of August, Joe and I made that long, boring drive yet again. I was looking forward to being back in my hometown and getting to jump through the rim at the DMAC hoop. My oh my, was I in for a rude awakening.

As we pulled up next to the court, a feeling of dread crept over my surface. Rows upon rows of tents took up the entire basketball court. I had no idea what to do. I felt deflated. 

We weren’t going to give up that easily. We decided to take our talents to El Camino Real Park in Orange, a place I had been before but kept getting clanked off those disgusting, godforsaken double rims. But once we turned into the parking lot, I noticed something was off.

Nobody was playing on the courts; the only passerby wore a sort of face covering. Upon further review, I could see wooden planks covering the baskets. How am I supposed to make that swish sound in the net if I can’t even fly through it? I looked up at Joe, seeing the disappointment crinkle his face.

We had to go home.

I haven’t been dribbled, shot, tossed, bounced or even moved since late August. What was once an active life is now sedentary, dull and depressing. Being cooped up inside his car has given me a lot of time to think and reflect on what I was once able to do.

I yearn for the day I can get back out on the court and bounce around with Joe, but for now I’m stuck with the memories of early days, bouncing down the sidewalk, wondering what this life has in store for me.