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<\/figure>Then he walked away. <\/p>
Apparently trying to go for the world record in \u201cMost Dream Jobs Held In One Lifetime,\u201d Ellis announced at the beginning of the 2022-23 NBA season that he was leaving <\/a>No Dunks<\/a><\/em> to *Jules from Pulp Fiction<\/em> voice* walk the earth. Or rather, play pickup basketball across the earth. A lifelong lover of travel, Ellis is looking to use basketball as way of understanding and experiencing other people and cultures. The working title so far is \u201c20 Cities, 20 Countries, 20 Games,\u201d and it\u2019s being documented on Ellis\u2019s YouTube<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, and Twitter<\/a>. There, you\u2019ll find Leigh playing pickup basketball, getting schooled in trick shots by Maria from Serbia<\/a>, drinking a postgame Rakija with former NBA player Damjan Rude\u017e in Croatia<\/a>, or asking Sa\u0161a Don\u010dic if he\u2019s ever lost a game to some guy named Luka<\/a>. Leigh was kind enough to sit down with me and talk international hoops, differing pickup styles, and the connections you make with people beyond the court. <\/p> Note: this interview has been lightly edited for clarity. <\/em><\/p> You often tell a story about the 1987 All-Star game being seminal to your NBA fandom<\/a> as a kid. Obviously the game and the league is more global than it was when you were coming up, kids today have the internet, it\u2019s easier to find basketball. Still: has it occurred to you that you could be some ten-year-old kid\u2019s Rolando Blackman doing this?<\/strong><\/p> Interesting, yeah. I often think about how, if I met that 10-or-11-year-old kid today, who saw that All-Star Game for the first time and had these dreams of like, \u201cman I would love to be in America. Following the NBA, covering the NBA and being a part of it\u2014I reached that. The funny thing is, I used to be a little bit embarrassed to say this, but I had dreams of making the NBA. In the traditional sense, become a player and a star. Like a lot of kids do. Whether that\u2019s basketball, football, baseball, whatever\u2014most kids, boys and girls have a dream of reaching the highest level. Physically, [laughs] <\/em>genetically, I didn\u2019t quite get there as I envisioned. <\/p> But I did eventually make it to the NBA on NBATV and so for me it wasn\u2019t any less of an experience because that was something that I also dreamed of. When I was a kid, I was like the school sports journalist. I had all the scores, all the stats. People used to come to me and say, ask a question\u2014you know, they\u2019d tease me in a way, but I didn\u2019t care, because I loved sports. So, you know, I think what is important is that we all do have those dreams and maybe they don\u2019t quite come to fruition in the way that we thought or hoped as a kid, but you can get sorta close to it anyway. <\/p> So for me, that game really did symbolize a big, important moment in my life. It took me on a path. Now, that path wasn\u2019t conventional by any means and it certainly wasn\u2019t in a straight line, but I sort of followed it anyway. And eventually got to a point that I was, you know, I was in the NBA. I was able to realize that dream, in a slightly different way than being on the court and being Michael Jordan, but being pretty cool as well, being in the NBA for six seasons\u2014officially in the NBA for six seasons, I\u2019ve been podcasting around that, of course\u2014but to be on NBATV was an awesome experience. <\/p> That is an inspiration. I mean, I had the same NBA dreams as you and the same genetic predisposition, I think. But basketball never stops! That\u2019s kinda echoing with your current project, keep being around the game and see what happens.<\/strong><\/p> Yeah, like you said earlier: it wasn\u2019t a global game in the late 80s, the same sense. Certainly that it is now. I mean, there were the odd international player, but now, you only have to look at the last four MVPs\u2014and there\u2019s a good chance it\u2019ll be five years in a row\u2014that it\u2019ll be a non-U.S. player who wins it again this year. But also, just the exposure. Like you said, internet, cable TV, we can watch games anywhere in the world now. There\u2019s so much more access to it. I think that\u2019s a huge, huge part of why the game has become so popular internationally, is that people can watch it now. Not only that, but you have really strong leagues in Europe and South America. Even the Australian league, I mean, financially, the Australian league is tough to compete with some of the bigger European leagues and the Asian leagues. But certainly the quality of basketball is very good. We saw a team from Adelaide, you know, preseason, friendly, exhibition game, they went and they won against an NBA-caliber team in Phoenix at the start of the season. So the game itself has really risen around the world. <\/p> Absolutely. Three of the best five players in the world right now are European (obviously Giannis is African-European), something that was hard to imagine even less than 10 years ago. I think when you were on NBATV, that was hard to imagine. Do you see this trend continuing? You talk about other pro leagues. Do you see the potential for basketball, not just the NBA, but basketball\u2014to be as big as, say, soccer internationally?<\/strong><\/p> I mean, I think it\u2019s going to continue to get bigger, I don\u2019t know if it can ever reach quite the levels that we just saw with the [FIFA] World Cup, where basically the whole world is engaged at some point. But I don\u2019t think it needs to be, and I don\u2019t think it means it\u2019s a failure if it\u2019s not. I just think that basketball is still\u2014its strength is that it\u2019s the cool sport. We all love it when a guy, you know, breaks someone\u2019s ankles, steps back and hits a three, goes up for a dunk, dunks it on someone, you know, Giannis has this incredible ability to come down the lane and all of the sudden he rises up with his left hand and just crushes<\/em> a dunk. But then he might get dunked on at the other end as well! So, basketball\u2019s a great sport for show-offs. It\u2019s a great sport for people to be like, \u201cwatch this trick I can do.\u201d It has that appeal. <\/p> And it\u2019s great for both sexes right now! The WNBA has really taken off in the last few years. So boys and girls everywhere are really starting to see basketball as a way to show off their artistry, creativity, you know, the spontaneity of: in-the-moment you can do something really cool that might be viral around the world in seconds. So I think basketball is only going to get bigger and bigger. <\/p> When you see international players having legitimate success\u2014not just being role players, not just being end-of-the-bench guys or anything like that, but MVP, Most Improved, Defensive Player of the Year, winning championships, really showing, like Giannis. When he won the championship two seasons ago as MVP\u2014Finals MVP\u2014that was just an incredible moment. We\u2019ve seen it before: Dirk won a championship, of course, Hakeem Olajuwon going back. But it feels now that, man, it could be Don\u010di\u0107, it could Joki\u0107, it could be Giannis again, you know? <\/p> And look, that\u2019s not a knock on any American player. It\u2019s just the strength around the world now, these athletes. And they\u2019re not conventional. I mean, it\u2019s funny when you compare Giannis to Joki\u0107. Giannis is a Greek god, his body doesn\u2019t look like he has a pound of fat or wasted skin on him, whereas Joki\u0107, you know, looks like he hasn\u2019t been in a gym much his whole life. Same with Luka Don\u010di\u0107, Don\u010di\u0107 isn\u2019t a chiseled athlete, the same as Giannis is. But they\u2019re all equally effective, because to me, ultimately, they\u2019re just basketball players. That just shows that there\u2019s not one<\/em> way<\/em> that works. You might be that Giannis type, but you don\u2019t have to be. If you\u2019re a basketball player and you\u2019ve got finesse to your game, like Don\u010di\u0107 and Joki\u0107, you can be just as impactful as Giannis, who is a physical specimen. <\/p> That\u2019s something I really love about basketball as well, that there are multiple styles and multiple flavors, and I think that the international aspect of the game as we\u2019ve seen it increase in the 21st century has only contributed to that. There was a term I liked in Josh Coyne\u2019s writeup of you<\/a>\u2014\u201cthe language of basketball.\u201d That\u2019s something I\u2019m really interested in, you talked about the different styles that people play. I wanna shift to pickup for a second. <\/strong><\/p> I feel like there are certain universalities in the language of basketball\u2014like, warmup shootarounds are \u2018make it take it,\u2019\u2014and what I like to call \u2018dialects\u2019 in the language of basketball\u2014like whether you\u2019re playing ones and twos or twos and threes. Have you noticed any customs playing pickup in Europe (or Australia) that might be surprising to Americans?<\/strong><\/p> It\u2019s basically varied in almost every city I\u2019ve been to in some way. For example, in the Balkans, in Slovenia, there were a lot of guys who turned up to my run, probably 10-15. So I just assumed let\u2019s play full-court fives so every can can play, and they were like, \u201cno one pays fives down here. No one plays full court, it\u2019s all 3-on-3.\u201d And I was like, \u201cwell, let\u2019s play that, then,\u201d and they were like, \u201cno, it\u2019s fine, you wanna play fives, let\u2019s play fives.\u201d I just want everyone to feel involved. If you come out to one of my runs, I want you to play. I don\u2019t want anyone sitting on the bench. So we did play, but they were like, \u201cno one ever plays [5-on-5], it\u2019s all 3-on-3.\u201d <\/p> What I noticed, especially about that run, was\u2014when I play in America here, there\u2019s a lot more iso. A lot more 1-on-1, guys just come down, maybe one pass, then it\u2019s going up. There\u2019s not a lot of ball movement. Well, in the Balkans, especially in Slovenia, that ball was zipping around all over the place. And I was, like, playing defense, and my man\u2019s doing backdoor screens and cuts and I\u2019m like \u201coh my God, what\u2019s going on here? I\u2019m gonna look as if I\u2019m some guy who doesn\u2019t play defense, this guy\u2019s turned up to play basketball and he doesn\u2019t play defense, doesn\u2019t watch his man, he gets scored on every time.\u201d So that was a real shock. I think I only scored one or two baskets in the hour that we played because it was like, the ball as well, on offense, it just moves around. If you pass it, another guy passes it, and another guy moves it, and so many times, it either got an open look or an easy layup. Like, wow, this is incredibly high-level basketball. <\/p>![](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/6ab55fe3-ad4a-4c4a-bab9-139db083b7ed_512x341.jpeg\"\/)
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