OT: These Regular Guys Challenged An NBA Player And Instantly Regretted It (Jordan Poole sighting)

I'll take a ride in this here 'go-back' machine!  Back in the 80's, I had the pleasure of watching Mark Macon several times when he played for Buena Vista (just outside of Saginaw).  Even as a HS sophomore, it was impossible to immediately recognize him as the best player on the court.  And it wasn't close, despite that BV had a couple of other players on teams that had deep tourney runs, and won one of them (Class B back then, I think).  He took fouls simply because the refs couldn't believe he did what he had just done (ie: steals, needle threading through the lane, rebounds, blocks, etc).

It was pretty clear that he would have a better basketball future than anyone else I ever saw playing HS basketball.

I coached high school varsity ball in South L.A. and the players at that age are so delusional. Even though some of the players we played against in L.A. actually have a shot at the league someday and were miles better than anyone on our squad, my players were adamant that they were better than some NBA players . Living in and around Los Angeles, I have played with many former NBA players at 24 hour fitness (Hermosa Beach and the Magic Johnson ones most frequently). It's pretty striking how much better they are than literally everyone else. When I was in my late 20s, I'd get high schoolers asking me all the time "why didn't you play in the league?" and I would be like "I wasn't even good enough to play on worst D-1 teams. You can't even fathom how good NBA players are compared to anyone you've played with" and they would then call me a hater haha. 

NBA & NFL are two professional leagues that most obviously illustrate the physical differences between them and average people by just looking at their stature.  You simply do not see 6'6" - 7' tall people walking around every day life very often, yet they are quite common in the NBA.  And, you simply don't often see guys weight over 250 lbs that are lean and muscular in every day life, but you do regularly in the NFL.  They are not normal humans.  Want to look like a cartoon character.  Take a picture next to someone like Shaq or stand shirtless at the beach next to someone like Vernon Gholston.

Reminds me of the good ol days of the college all stars vs SB champs. The talent gap was not as wide back then though. Today the worst NFL Team (even the Lions) would probably smoke a college allstar team. 

I played basketball once at the CCRB against Todd Collins, Amani Toomer and a few other football players.  They actually were not great basketball players, but what stuck me was just the level of athleticism they had.  Collins was just a massive tree-trunk of a guy and was still faster and more agile that anyone on our side.  And Toomer could jump out of the gym.  They were playing at about half-speed and beat up my team pretty good, though we did score some buckets because they weren't playing D very hard.  Toomer probably had 20+ rebounds.  He rebounded EVERYTHING.

One of the players was one of the kickers.  He was the only "normal" sized person.  The rest of them were giants.

I have played with dozens of D1, D2, D3 players over the years.  The gap between them was not that huge and their success depended a lot on the fit for them in a program.  While I didn’t take advantage of my own opportunities, my own abilities ranges from likely D3 starter to D1 benchwarmer.  
 

I have had some gym time around 4 legit NBA players.  Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott, Webber, and Bobby Simmons.   They are on a whole different planet.  It’s not even as close as shown in the Scalabrine video.  The most mind blowing was just shooting in an otherwise empty gym with Dennis Scott.  He was enormous and didn’t miss anything from anywhere.