Playing basketball with strangers is one of my guilty pleasures.

To be clear, I think team ball sports are harmful on net for the body when you factor in injury risk. Time and energy required to play them is a very limited resource, and if you are considering taking up a physical activity as an adult, start weightlifting or running or swimming or whatever you like.

But still, team sports are extremely fun, and if you have a regular group of friends to play with, it is a nice opportunity to socialize too!

Equipment

You should have:

• A basketball and a pump. ($30 total)

• Some sort of sportswear. ($40 total)

• A pair of basketball shoes. Do not go play in sneakers, you will hurt yourself. Buy a pair for $100 and it will last you for years.

How to find people to play with

If you don’t have a group chat that coordinates games already, there are a couple of options:

1. Go to regularly scheduled gym pick-up games. I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but in Zurich there is the very popular ASVZ system to which all students (undergraduate and graduate) have access by default, while non-students need to pay a fee. They have a couple slots per week for games; full-court is more frequent but occasionally there are half-court games. I believe the median age on the gym games is late 20s, and lots of non-students come to play.

2. Buy a basketball and go to any popular outdoor basketball court. Ask people to play. Everywhere I’ve lived in Europe, people were extremely friendly and willing to take me in as a player.

In pick-up game culture, it is appropriate to ask people to play even if you don’t know them. This is a rare social norm! If you have social anxiety, consider this activity as a way to practice approaching strangers when it’s socially sanctioned.

Game rules to minimize injury risk

The first priority at all times is to not get injured. Listen to your body and don’t play if you’re feeling pain or discomfort with the physical demands of the game. Everyone should know their level of comfort and feel free to stop playing at any time.

The most common cause of injury, from my anecdotal experience, is a misjudged landing—usually a sprained ankle, rarely a back or knee injury. The misjudged landing happens because the player subconsciously predicts only the trajectory of their jump while not modeling contact with other players.

The most injurious situations are contested rebounds, especially in the key. Amateur players don’t know how to do this properly and people get hurt. Establish norms against being too physical in the air while rebounding.

Second place for injury potential are high-acceleration drives into a crowd. The responsibility here is mostly on the offense player to avoid risky moves; the defender often moves slower and can’t react properly.

An additional injury risk: people who put their feet below the feet of another player who lands on the rebound or after a shot. I’ve never seen it result in an injury, but it looks very dangerous when it happens. Try to never do that to someone.

Finger injuries (especially the painful ones from misjudging a pass) hurt worse than their actual impact. But if you’re not comfortable playing with a sprained finger, feel free to stop playing for the day.

Fouls

There is no referee; the fouled player should call the foul.

Contested shot fouls look bad but aren’t actually risky at all. I’ve never seen an injury caused by hand-to-hand contact on the shot. It inevitably happens every now and then, and the offense player shouldn’t get mad for getting slapped on the wrist occasionally. Just continue playing.

If you’re not playing with free throws or other methods of penalizing fouls, establish strong norms against fouling intentionally. You want players who come to have fun, not intensely competitive hustlers.

Sometimes you’ll encounter people who can’t control their aggression. If someone hits another player, kick them out of the game or just leave and play with someone else. There’s a big gap between healthy sporting aggression and assault. You don’t want to play with people prone to the latter.

Screens

Amateur pick-up basketball players don’t know how to set screens properly. Once you accept this, you have two options:

1. Call every moving screen and interrupt the game flow;

2. Accept that every other screen is a moving screen and don’t call them.

I prefer the latter option. Screens make basketball so much more fun and much more of a team sport.

Your strategy for offense if you’re bad at basketball

1. When you’re open and can maybe score from this distance, shoot it.

2. When you’re guarded and far from the basket, pass it to the other man.

3. If your teammate is good at dribbling and scoring, the defense will put a good defender there. Set a screen to force the defense to switch.

4. If they double your teammate, someone is open. If that’s you, try to be in a position to receive the pass and score.

5. If they double you, pass the ball to someone else.

6. Don’t stay inside the paint if your defender is guarding you. Keep moving.

Your strategy for defense if you’re bad at basketball

1. Guard your man. This is your maxim: the opposing team may score, but whoever you are guarding will definitely not.

Balancing the teams

There are two axes to balance: size and shooting ability.

It’s obvious to everyone that it’s more fun when the teams are roughly balanced on size, at least for the tallest/heaviest player under the rim. If not, one team has a very boring but successful strategy: pass it to the guy under the rim and let him score.

What’s less obvious is that it’s also more fun for both teams to have some shooters. If no one can shoot from outside, the defending team can just pack the paint and the offense is stuck.