Why Are You Not Playing

You’re tall, why are you not playing basketball?

Somebody said that to Jayson once. It is the kind of thing that gets said to tall men all the time, and most of them let it pass. Jayson took it as instructions.

He is 6’6" and 115 kilos, from Anambra, twenty-six years old. There is no angle from which he does not look like a basketball player. The question he was asked was not really a question. It was an observation that the game had already made a decision about him and was waiting for him to catch up.

He caught up. He has been playing for six years. But six is not the number that tells you who he is.

“Six years. Been on hiatus for nearly two years.”

Nearly two years away. And then back.

Here is what most people do not understand about a hiatus: coming back is harder than starting. When you start, you have no idea what you are missing. When you come back, you know exactly. You remember the version of yourself that had the timing, the wind, the touch, and that version is not the one lacing up. Every rep is a comparison. Most people who stop for two years do not come back, not because they cannot, but because they cannot face being worse than they were.

Jayson came back. And he came back into a knockout 1v1 bracket, which is the least forgiving place in basketball to test whether your game is still there. Nowhere to hide a slow first step. No teammate to cover for lungs that are not yet all the way back. One ball, one basket, one opponent, and nothing else to talk about.

He entered anyway. That is the fact that tells you who he is.

The size will matter on the night. In 1v1, a big body that knows how to use itself is a problem that does not go away: an opponent can be quicker than 6’6", but cannot be taller than it. But size is what he was given. The return is what he chose.

His dream for the sport is not about himself.

“To see it grow and get more coverage here in Nigeria.”

It is the kind of dream that makes particular sense from a man who has been outside the game and come back into it. He has seen it from both sides: the person playing, and the person in the country watching, or trying to. He wants more people watching. He wants the game here to be visible enough that the next tall boy does not need a stranger to point it out to him.

Somebody once asked Jayson why he was not playing basketball. Six years later, two of them quiet, the answer is that he is. And he would like it to be on camera.

6’6". 115kg. Twenty-six. Anambra. Number 99.