Ok. So, I just got back from Carpenter Rec and I have to say it was undoubtedly one of the worst experiences I've ever had playing pickup ball. I should clarify this by stating that I play in NYC regularly, I've played in LA, SF, Seattle, NC, and at other places in the Middle East and Asia. Carpenter Rec was the worst. Generally, when playing ball, even if you don't speak the same language as the other people around you, you can figure out how things work, get in a few games, queue up to play next, etc. I was at Carpenter Rec for 2.5 hours and was able to play one game of 4 vs 4 due to a combination of strange, useless, and manipulated rules used to exclude who would play in games. I got there with my FIL, warmed up, and shot around for a bit. After the FIL left to do his workout, I talked to some guys and they said that we need to sign up on these lists hanging up on the walls in order to play in a 4 v 4 game. So, we sign up and, after waiting a couple games, get to play a game. I am pretty good. I'm tall, strong, play D, and I can shoot. As the game starts, the guy I'm defending on the other team tells me that my teammates are not going to play D or play hard at all. I'm like whatever, this is just what happens sometimes. When we get the ball, I sink a 3 and on the next defensive possession, I steal the ball from one of the dudes on the other team. Turns out that the guy on the other team was right and 2 of my teammates didn't play D or hustle at all. End of the game, the score was 15 to 3. We lost, but again, whatever. This happens. So, I sign up on the list again. Looks like I'll be waiting a game to play which is normal. I'll be playing on a team with the 3 names above mine. After the game I'm waiting through ends, some guy comes up and says that people have been using the lists wrong and that on the weekends they only use one list. So, everyone on the list that I signed up on needs to be moved to the other list and, on top of that will need to wait for the people who have signed up on the other list to play before they can play. I'm a little pissed because we've been using both lists up til this point and, while I find this whole list system really really stupid, you typically just go with the flow for whatever court you're on when you're unfamiliar with the setting. So, these guys take about 20 minutes to figure out how they're going to move the names around because some guys have their names on both lists and other bullshit. Anyways, after they move everything around, the guys that I had signed up to play with on the wrong list were playing and had just picked up some dude whose name wasn't on either list. WTF?! My name hadn't been moved to what supposedly was the "correct" list and if I wanted to play I'd need to sign up again on this correct list and wait 4 flipping games before I could get on the court again. To sum it up, this place is incredibly unorganized (or maybe misorganized? or maybe they were just trying to exclude the guy they didn't know?). I don't know but I've never wasted so much time dealing with unnecessary BS on a basketball court. To top it off, the courts aren't even that nice, it's slick concrete and the side hoops haven't been spaced well, so people who are warming up are constantly running onto the courts where people are playing games to grab rebounds. They need to get rid of this list system and run games the way that they're run most every other place in the world.
TLDR; WTF Plano, get your shit together. read more
