Clark “Mr. Backboard” Elie was born into the world on December 20, 1954. Growing up in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood, he played ball with his friends and wasn’t the best at it. At Brandeis HS, he ran intramurals, not varsity. In the early ’70s, the group of cats he rolled with all got recruited to play college ball outside New York. Left behind, he decided to attend City College. And that’s when the legend started . . .
“We used to tease him,” childhood friend Greg “Elevator Man #2″ Brown reminisced with me. “But when we all went away, that’s when Clark got 20 times better!” Elie wound up taking a couple of CUNY chips at CCNY, but his legendary tear in the parks began when Greg Brown returned home. The two, along with Clark’s little brother Mario, wound up terrorizing every playground in the vicinity. Read More »
What happens when you bring streetball indoors? Let me answer that question for you with this clip. The DnD winter and spring classic is the number 1 tournament in queens, Teams such as Money Train, TNP, Money Inc., Diamond, X-Men, United Brooklyn, 1/3 The Champs have played in this tournament. I played in this tournament myself and it’s no walk in the park.
(Friday, August 14th) — Team Bad Boy, also known as the X-Men, led 49-40 against Dancy Power with the legendary MC Duke Tango calling the game. Also, others in attendance included Fat Joe & Co. as well as Harlem’s own streetball legend Ron “Terminator” Mathias who was officiating the game.
For Bad Boy, or Brooklyn’s X-Men, Tommie Gunz came lighting it up with a crazy reverse lay-up to capture a 26-17 lead early in the game. At 5:30 in the first half, Bad Boy built the lead up to ten points but Dancy Power started roaring back. The Kareem “Best Kept Secret” Reid to Jazz “Total Package” Mansell connection kept Dancy in the game by cutting Bad Boy’s lead to six points with 2:00 left. By halftime, the game started to receive more AHHHs and claps than all the ladies who walked into the park in front of the crowd of streetball-hungry men! AHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhHHHHHHHaaaaa!!! Read More »
After Andre Barrett hit a teammate with a no look pass that led to a dunk, #2 United Brooklyn coach James Ryan threw his hands in the air in triumph. The flush gave the team, who trailed by 10 at one point, a seven-point lead. But little did the coach know his boys were far from in the clear.
After being down by 12 entering the fourth, the #6 Usual Suspects cut the deficit to just four after Erving Brown drilled a three from the left wing with about 3:35 remaining. Brown then stole the inbounds pass and put in a lay-up to make it a 95-93 game.
With the Usual Suspects leading by three with 20 seconds left, UBK guard Gary Ervin connected on one of two free throws to make the score 104-102. The Suspects then threw away the inbounds pass and James “Stixx” Williams put in a running hook for UBK with about 11 seconds left to tie the game. Read More »
Donnie McGrath terrorized the United Brooklyn defense all night.
With about 2:30 left in the first quarter of the game between Dyckman and United Brooklyn at Pro City Thursday night, Dyckman guard Donnie McGrath dragged his pivot foot and was called for a walk. That was about the only thing the former Second-Team All Big East selection did wrong.
McGrath absolutely abused the nets for two hours, shooting 10-for-11 including 7-for-7 from behind the arc en route to 29 points in Dyckman’s 121-104 win over United Brooklyn. Read More »
Miguel “Miles High” Millien hit a teammate with a no look dish for an and one. He altered X-Men shots all night and even drilled multiple 15-footers. The 6-9 high-rising forward is showing he’s more than just a catch and dunk stud, and his all-around play Tuesday at Pro City is the main why Prime Time’s playoff hopes are still alive.
Millien shot 11-for-19, scoring 24 points and grabbing 6 rebounds, as James Ryan’s team defeated the X-Men, 127-121. Read More »
Defending champion PDG Queensbridge staved off a rally to win Tuesday night.
After a missed-shot and turnover-ridden last summer in which he was heckled relentlessly at Pro City, Memphis Grizzlies guard Marko Jaric seemingly would’ve received a warmer welcome at a Duke game wearing Carolina gear than on 68th Street and Lexington. Yet there walked Jaric onto the court at Hunter College Tuesday night, big smile on his face as if he was a singer performing in front of his home-town fans.
While Jaric was far from looking like an NBA star, the former first-round selection appeared more comfortable than he was last year, scoring 18 points to help lead Dyckman past Prime Time, 111-100.
New Jersey Nets forward Yi Jianlian showed great touch around the basket with both hands and paced Dyckman with 30 points. Donnie McGrath poured in 21. Read More »
DP connects on the game-winning free throw as Mookie looks on.
A player crashed into the fence. Another suffered a cut above his right eye. Two others got into a shoving match. The game between heated rivals Diamond and United Brooklyn at West 4th Street Sunday afternoon more resembled a wrestling match than it did a regular season playground game, but the capacity crowd, end-to-end action and no blood, no foul physicality served to remind everyone why we revere this sport so much.
In a game that even saw Darren “Primal Fear” Phillip barking at the officials, United Brooklyn rallied from 18-down to defeat Diamond, 95-93.
The former Fairfield star dropped 19 points and James “Stixx” Williams added 17 to help propel the guys in blue. Read More »
