The long awaited arrival of our video collection will be here soon. We are working out a few problems with our servers and are trying to find more space. This new video server will be much faster and reliable than our old one. Possibly, larger too. The component we use to organize the videos has been successfully installed and scripted, and so have the modules that track them. The only thing left to do is upload and post. Before we post new videos, we will upload and post the old ones first. Many of them had well over a couple-thousand downloads during the time that they were up, so it's only necessary to bring them back. Remember, in order to have access to any downloads, you must be a registered and activated member. Hundreds of people have registered so far - which is great - but around 70 people have not activated their account through e-mail (you must provide a valid e-mail address). If you have not yet registered as a member, you can do so by clicking here. The following is a list of videos that you can expect to be back up shortly:
And1 vs. Atlanta All-Stars
Ankle Breakers: Volume 2
Bone Collector at Venice Beach
Bone Collector Unlimited
Chad vs. Rory - Vancouver HIU Championship
Hot Sauce Tribute 2004
Isiah Thomas Mix
King Handles Mix
And1 Mixtape History
NBA Handles Compilation
Professor Volume 8 Mix
Sauce's Crosses
Shane's Top 10 Mixtape Moments
Kadour Ziani Mix
The local basketball season is just getting underway, but one game has already attracted one of the biggest crowds of the season.
More than 1,600 people packed the basketball gym at Salem State College's O'Keefe Center last month for a street ball showcase fundraiser game to raise money for minority students at Shore Country Day School in Beverly. The game has raised more than $40,000 so far and may eventually reach the school's goal of $50,000 once all the proceeds come in, said Susan Samperi, Shore's director of development. "The place was rockin'," Samperi said.
The game matched the Street Basketball Association All-stars a professional streetball team with players from Washington, D.C., New York City, Baltimore, and North Carolina against a team of North Shore all-stars. The idea came from Therese Melden of Manchester, a Shore Country Day School parent who saw a streetball game on TV....
Even some playground players dislike the And1 Mix-Tapes and Tour; a
DC baller criticized the phenomena in SLAM. Coaches everywhere agree.
All summer, while working camps throughout the West Coast, I listened to
coaches, many who haven’t seen them, blame the tapes and the playground
game for this generation’s lack of fundamentals. Too much emphasis on
the Iverson Cross and the Nike “Freestyle†commercial tricks, and not
enough time spent mastering left-hand lay-ups, or mid-range jump shots.
While I feel the coaches, I see the And1 Tour as this generation’s
Harlem Globetrotters, and I have never heard any coach accuse the
Globetrotters of hurting basketball. Just as the Globetrotters combine
basketball and entertainment, so too does the Tour. The Globetrotters
entertain and please the crowd because of their exceptional abilities,
just like the Tour. The Tapes and Tour generate basketball interest,
arriving on the scene between Jordan’s reign and the dawn of Generation
Next: Kobe, TMac, VC, KG, etc. As the NBA searched desperately for the
next superstar, and as NBA games deteriorated into defensive slugfests
in the seventies and eighties, the Tapes illustrated basketball’s fun
side, the game’s individualism, an artistry...
Where have all the good handles gone? No I don’t mean players with skills with the pill, I mean nicknames. In today’s era in the NBA, people have gotten quite lazy with their nicknames. This wasn’t always the case – dudes used to have creative and unique handles, a legacy that AND 1 is keeping but the NBA is not.
Today’s league is full of boring, uncreative nicknames where the players’ initials, jersey number or shortened name is used as a nickname. The Raptors are as guilty as anyone of this – CB4, MoPete, Hoffa, Charlie V – boring, boring, boring & boring once again. Thank god for Chuck Swirtsky, who coined Matt Bonner the Red Rocket – at least he didn’t name him MaBo. The top stars of the league also have dull monikers – T Mac, D-Wade, KG, A.I., Melo – blah, blah, blah. Now Shawn Marion’s nickname – The Matrix, due to his time & space altering moves – now that is a throwback nickname...
“That was his handle because he had a crossover like a magician,â€
says Bobby Gonzalez, God Shammgod’s friend and former coach at Providence
College. That’s the same crossover that God taught to Kobe Bryant on a summer
AAU squad in 1994. Those are the same handles that took 10-seed Providence to
the Elite 8 in 1997. Shammgod’s ball-handling skills and ability to distribute
the rock made him one of the best pure point guards in the country, and according
to some, maybe even beyond that.
“I think he might have the best handle in the world,†says Ron Artest,
Shammgod’s teammate at LaSalle Academy during Shammgod’s junior and
senior year of high school. “I don’t know anybody who ever had a better
handle than Shammgod.â€
The Playgroundz has returned after a serious accident that occured on October 10th, 2005. The data center that stored and hosted all of our files, including videos, articles, images, content, and statistics, burned to the ground in a fire. There was nothing that could have been done to prevent the fire. The sad thing was, our information was not backed-up. You can be sure that we will be ready for this once in a lifetime event, if in fact, it happens again. Please bare with us while we attempt to restore the site as much as possible to its former state. It will take some time, but eventually The Playgroundz will get back to where it used to be.
The fans and the visitors fuel the site. In order for us to regroup, we need your help. Spread the word that we are officially back. When we gather more visitors, our status in search engines wil be boosted. This will lead to more visitors. These new visitors will click on the links sponsored by Google. This will generate revenue that is used directly to keep the site running and acquire more space. The more space, the more videos, articles, and news. These links keep us running. Click "read more" for more information on what we are currently working on...
"Ball Don’t Lie" is the story of Sticky, a foster kid from Southern California
whose life has been anything but easy. But his great equalizer is that he can ball - you can’t
help but immediately compare Sticky to B-Rabbit, Eminem’s character in
in “8 Mile.†And like Rabbit, Sticky’s gift is the only thing
that can potentially give him a better life. But it’s up to Sticky to
make it happen.
There’s really nothing that bothers us more than when someone who doesn’t
know ball, who’s never played ball, tries to talk or write like a player
would. We can always see right through it. De la Pena played Division I ball
at Pacific University, and one of his greatest strengths in telling Sticky’s
story is that the game action and the dialogue among the characters feels on
point....
It’s been four years since the Grizzlies skipped town. For Vancouver, it was an experiment that failed miserably. Stevie Franchise punked the city before he got drafted, and Big Country never lost enough weight. Looking back, Brian Winters and Stu Jackson never had a chance. Today, it’s a forgotten city among NBA heads. Maybe the L shouldn’t have come here in the first place. Taxes are too high, and the city’s lifeblood is rooted in hockey. But every ending paves the way for a new beginning.
It’s Saturday morning in April on the west coast of Canada, and the winter hangover is in full effect. It’s gray outside, and rain drips from the sky. It’s 6 degrees Celsius, and there’s a piercing chill in the air. Mohammed Wenn saunters in the Metrotown Mall in Burnaby, a Vancouver suburb. He’s dressed in gray jeans and a dark blue San Diego Chargers jacket. A Chargers cap rests on his head, tilted slightly to the left...