"Not a game"

While icing my ailing back, the flipper stopped on a channel listing that said "High School Basketball".

Of course, I'm thinking "what's this." Even for taped coverage, late May seemed a bit off the grid for schoolboy hoops.

"This" was the "King James Shooting Stars Classic", an AAU tournament. The tournament was fine. Putting it on television makes it only the lastest iteration of our national need to exploitate young athletes.

I'm not outraged or anything. In fact, I'm laughing at the thought. Allen Iverson's infamous "We're just talkin' 'bout practice, not a game" came to mind when I was taking this in. And that also made me think of the recent track on Jazzy Jeff's compilation that looped Iverson's quote.

At the same time, I do find myself wondering if there's a line at which it's too far, the Little League World Series notwithstanding.