Game On: Basketball at Its Purest

While March Madness takes center stage, hoops obsessives take to their own courts.

Author:
SI Staff
Publish date:
Mar 30, 2022

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A version of this piece appears in the March 2022 issue of SI.

If you’re a basketball fan, you like where we’re headed on the calendar. The men’s and women’s NCAA tournaments. The NBA playoffs and WNBA tip off soon after. Hoops obsessives might barely leave the couch before June—but they will, because the best reminder of why we love the game is shooting and rebounding ourselves. So SI photographers went searching for some of the country’s most picturesque pickup spots. No crowds, no TV cameras—just basketball at its purest.