Ramon Rodriguez and I met circa 1994. We lived on the same block in the Lower East Side, and I noticed his ill white/orange Nike Air Ballistics. “Where’d you get those?” I asked, and that opened an entire friendship that would encompass a mutual love for music, dancing, family, and of course b-ball. We started putting up jumpers at the 14th St. Y every morning at 8am, and eventually ran together in tournaments like Fireball, Tillary Park, Nickelodeon, Ham-Fish, on and on.
In 2002, he, Jack Ryan, and I formed Project Playground, a traveling basketball performance group that wound up doing halftime shows for the Mavs, Knicks, Hornets, U Conn, U of Tennessee, U of Florida, u name it! Those are all great memories, and I consider “Mone” my little brother, so you know I was stupid proud this summer to see him rock the big screen in Taking Of Pelham 1, 2, 3 alongside Denzel, and the blockbuster Transformers.
Recently, Ramon went on the Jimmy Kimmel Show for an interview. Towards the end he shows Kimmel some b-ball tricks–HIGHLARIOUS!
If you wondering if the brother can really play, he ran at DII Wheeling U. in West Virginia, was All-State in Michigan at a prep school, or you can just ask Mike Campbell, who he crossed up something terrible one Fireball game at Baruch College!
July 29th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Ahmad Hooper says:
BOB, I need to know ahead of time about the ANY-DAY,ANY-TIME workouts. I need shorts, every color!!! What I gotta do, to get a heads up early!!!???
July 29th, 2009 at 11:06 pm
El Guapo says:
yoooooooo… I didn’t know homie from the Wire could Hoop! nice post Bob
July 30th, 2009 at 2:38 am
Seldom Seen says:
Fantastic…that was a great look…as fellow NYer’s, latinos, bballers and in particular LES residents, we should all be very proud of Ramon and wish him nothing less than contiued success!!!
July 30th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Bakar says:
Yo yo yo… Senor Rodriguez is blowing up on the big screen! His character in Transformers is mad funny, and I noticed he wore a nice pair of Dunks, too. Gonna go catch Pelham 123 soon. On another note, his Latino ball videos in jumpman23.com was off the hook! (JB, you gotta bring back those clips on your website, y’hear?). Hope he’s still keeping his game sharp.
August 5th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Jason Gibbons says:
That was crazy! Good for him. Dang the original ppg members have come a long way!!!