NBA in Culiacan

I was sitting comfortably in my living room one Friday afternoon when I heard through the grape-vine that several NBA basketball players were rumored to be playing an exhibition game in Culiacan the very next day. My first reaction was disbelief, however thanks to Eduardo Najera and Horacios Llamas, both Mexican NBA players, there was in fact an event scheduled and I made it my mission to get tickets and go see the game. That instant I dropped everything and bolted from the couch, jumped in the car in search of tickets that I would soon discover were already sold out. At the ticket office a sign hung that read “Boletos Agotados,” however after some smooth talking and a stroke of luck I weaseled my way into the very last three tickets available for the game at the price of about $16 a ticket. They weren’t winning lottery tickets, but they sure felt like they were.

From the time I bought the tickets until the players finally took the court felt like an eternity especially since I didn’t know who was actually going to be playing. I got to the game early to find good seats, but in a stadium the size of a high school gymnasium any seat is a good seat. An hour after the printed tip off game time a line of basketball players started jogging onto the court to warm up not ten feet away from our third row seats behind the far hoop. I will spare the suspense no more and share the list of players that graced the worn and dusty hardwood of the Polideportivo in Culiacan, Sinaloa that night.

On the White Team: Marcus Camby. DeAndre Jordan, Anthony Tolliver, Jarret Jack, Dahntay Jones, Iman Shumpert, Dominc McGuire, Corey Maggette and Kevin Love.

And on the Blue Team: Ryan Hollins, Tyson Chandler, Shawn Marion, JJ Barea, Darius Morris, Jordan Hamilton, Demar Derozan, Jerryd Bayless, Eduardo Najera and Horacios Llamas.

To be perfectly honest I am have found it very difficult to find the correct words to describe how incredible this game was for me. I walked onto the court during warmups to ask for a photo with Tyson Chandler, high-fived Shawn Marion (who was sporting a yellow mohawk) and even caught Dahntay Jones’s sweaty No. 7 jersey after the game. To say the least, I enjoyed the game.

Bring 19 NBA basketball players down to Mexico and one should expect no defense. The quarters were only 10 minutes in length, however, the final score of the game was a soaring 150 to 140 in favor of the white team. DeAndre Jordan and Iman Shumpert were the highlights of the game with their incredible high-flying dunks and alley-oops.