Pickup Game

OVERRATED
West 4th Street
Want to see some spectacularly sloppy basketball? Travel to the corner of West Fourth Street and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, site of the famed asphalt outdoor court known as the Cage. Enclosed by a 20-foot-high chain-link fence, the Cage has been a popular spot for New York City pickup players—not to mention hordes of camera-toting tourists—for the past three decades. Yet because the Cage is only about half the size of a regulation court, the city game as it is played there has precious little artistry. Sure, you'll see a few breathtaking dunks during each game, but you'll also see a turnover on every third possession, plenty of one-on-four fast breaks and an NBA season's worth of bricks. Every New York playground player worth his hightops knows that reputations in the Big Apple are forged uptown—specifically, at Harlem's Holcombe Rucker Park—not downtown at the Cage.

UNDERRATED
Venice

To get to the grandest hoops playground theater in America, you must step onto Ocean-front Walk at Venice Beach in L.A. Stroll past the chain-saw juggler, past the turbaned man on roller skates playing electric guitar, until you arrive at the Venice Beach basketball court.

Framed by splintered wooden bleachers on the east and the azure Pacific on the west, this hoops paradise is as much a training ground for pros as it is a proving ground for pickup players. Members of the Lakers and the Clippers sometimes show up for a run in the summer; top female players, such as UConn's Diana Taurasi, also test their talents here. Even Michael Jordan took a break from filming the 1996 movie, Space Jam, to make a few runs at Venice.

Like the games at the Cage, those at Venice can take a maddeningly long time to get organized. But once the games start, the basketball is as pleasing to the eye as the sun-bathers basking on the beach nearby.