GDYBL Home

Team
- Choose a Team
  - BOYS 5/6
  - BOYS 6
  - BOYS 7/8
  - BOYS 8
  - GIRLS 5/6
  - GIRLS 7
  - GIRLS 8
- Schedule
- Multi-Schedule

For full functionality of this site it is necessary to enable JavaScript. Here are the instructions how to enable JavaScript in your web browser.

How often did obama play basketball

Just how good was President Obama at basketball?

Charles Curtis

January 19, 2017 10:30 am ET

As President Barack Obama leaves office this week, the list of what he’ll be remembered for seems to grow every day.

One of the biggest pieces of his legacy will no doubt be his skills on a basketball court.

As we did with Prince, we’re going to dive into a question many of you must wonder about Obama: Just how good is he at the sport?

This is the same POTUS who’s laced ’em up with NBA stars and former college standouts throughout his political career. Even if his opponents didn’t foul as hard or worried about injuring the leader of the free world (one of his frequent teammates disputed that one, as you’ll see later), he had to be pretty good at a game he played regularly, right?

Let’s start all the way back in his childhood: In the late 1970s, Barry Obama played on both the J. V. and varsity teams at Hawaii’s Punahou School, eventually winning a state championship in 1979.

.@BarackObama's 1977 yearbook photo of his Honolulu JV basketball team. pic.twitter.com/YdkCyswjxK

— ThePostGame (@ThePostGame) January 11, 2017

How good was he back then? Here’s his former teammate Mark Bendix from an NBC story:

Bendix said, his old pal should have been a starter at Punahou — and insisted he was not just being loyal to an old friend.

“I loved his game,” he said. “He had a pretty good shot and really handled the ball well.”

And something in that same story on Obama’s work ethic from former coach Chris McLachlin:

“He would carry his books in one hand and his ball in the other,” he said. “He lived across the street from school and before classes he’d shoot baskets on the outside courts, then at lunch he’d shoot more baskets, then I’d have him for three hours, then he’d go home, eat supper, and then be outside again shooting baskets. ”

This 1979 photo provided by The Oahuan, the yearbook of Punahou School, shows Barack Obama as he takes a jump shot over a defender at the Punahou School in Honolulu, one of the state’s top private schools. Obama came off the bench his senior year to help the Buff and Blue win a state championship. (AP Photo/The Oahuan, yearbook of Punahou School)

He then took his game to Occidental College, where former coach Mike Zinn had this to say to the Los Angeles Times in 2008:

“He was really athletic, ran good, jumped good,” says Zinn, who left coaching about 20 years ago and is a partner in an Orange County sales agency. “He wasn’t a great outside shooter. In basketball terminology, he was kind of a slasher. He was left-handed. He went left well, didn’t go right that well.

“He had a nose for the ball, always came up with loose balls and rebounds inside. So if he got 10 points in a game, most of them were probably under the basket. He didn’t hit jump shots from 15 feet or anything like that.

“He was a good defender, definitely a good athlete.”

Now, we’ve established the skills of a young Obama — it sounds like the lefty was your above-average player, one who could perhaps be in a low-level college rotation, but who probably wouldn’t start on D-I team.

There isn’t much I could find on the president’s game between college and his eventual ascension to becoming the junior senator in Illinois in 2005, but there’s some video evidence of Obama on the court before he became president. Here’s some footage from a 2008 game in Indiana. You can see that aforementioned sharp passing eye and ability to drive to the hole:

Check out the end of that video: Obama absolutely drains a long jumper. It turns out his outside shot is pretty good. That’s the same Senator Obama who famously nailed a three-pointer — on his first try — in front of troops in Kuwait that same year while campaigning for president.

I’ll also submit this video for evidence that Obama’s jumper either improved with age or was better than previously thought — in 2010, he took down Clark Kellogg in a game of HORSE with a series of college threes (and some trash talk). Granted, it was without a hand in his face, but even that outside stroke paid dividends:

Obama’s famous pickup games over the years were a “who’s who” made up of former college players like personal aide Reggie Love (who played at Duke), ex-Illinois treasurer Alexi Giannoulias — a former pro player in Greece — and former Secretary of Education and Harvard co-captain Arne Duncan, who played countless games with Obama over the past few decades.

Duncan spoke to For The Win this week and noted how truly tough and competitive Obama was on the court. But he also used the word “cerebral” multiple times to describe the president’s game:

“He’s a fantastic defensive player. He’s long, he understands angles, he understands how to force opponents into their weaknesses. Offensively, he’s very crafty, very deceptive, will cut back door on you, has a very good crossover dribble. He’ll knock down a shot when he’s open.

“I don’t say this lightly. He’s a great teammate, he’s the kind of guy you want on your team because it’s all about winning, it’s all about doing whatever it takes to win. And that can be big stuff or tiny stuff no one ever notices.”

Duncan added Obama is “better going to the basket,” but that he can hit open shots from the outside. And when asked if anyone ever took it easy on POTUS, he replied, “Never.”

There’s also this tidbit he dropped that speaks volumes about Obama both on the court and off it:

“It was not infrequent to see him literally not shoot the ball all game and then would score the final basket or the final two baskets of the game. There are lots of guys who love to get shots up early in games, but when things get a little tight, they’d disappear.

“He was just the opposite. He wanted to take the big shot — he wouldn’t force one, wouldn’t take a bad one — but after passing and cutting and deferring, all of a sudden he would turn the corner, go to the basket and score, or pump-fake and knock down a shot.

“That part says so much about character. When games were close, when things were tough, he wanted the ball in his hands. He lived for those moments.”

That group has also expanded occasionally to include celebrities or former pros. ESPN.com senior writer Andy Katz has played twice with Obama, both on the president’s lucky Election Day games. In 2012, that group included Hall of Famer Scottie Pippen. Katz gave For The Win a scouting report this week:

“He is a solid player for his age. He likes the ball in his hands, is a much better passer than shooter and is much more of a selective shooter. He’s not a ball hog and not someone who’s going to constantly seek his shot. …

“He’s got quick bursts of speed, I wouldn’t say he’s the fastest end to end, but he can definitely cut and get to the basket.”

Katz added that no one on that day in 2012 said anything about how impressed they were with the president, but “it didn’t feel like anyone thought he was the weak link. He held his own.”

(AFP)

That phrase turns out ironic. It turns out Obama scaled back on hoops toward the end of his second term and turned more to golf. In 2015, he gave WTF’s Marc Maron a state of his game address (via CBS Sports):

“I used to play basketball more but these days I’ve gotten to the point where it is not as much fun,” Obama told Maron. “Because I’m not as good as I used to be and I get frustrated. I was never great but I was a good player and I could play seriously. Now I’m like one of these old guys whose running around.

“The guys I play with who are all a lot younger,” Obama continued. “They sort of pity me and sympathize with me. They tolerate me but we all know that I’m the weak link on the court. And I don’t like being the weak link.”

We’ll leave the last word to Obama: He was good, never great. But he played seriously.

Read more about Obama and basketball over at USA TODAY Sports.

Like this article?

Barack Obama and basketball: In his life and in his book

“That’s what I do… You don’t understand. That’s what I do,” Barack Obama’s hearty preening at Michigan’s Northwestern High School basketball court left a trail of chuckles at a Joe Biden campaign pitstop two days before the American presidential election.

Wearing a pair of dress shoes on the shiny wooden floor, Obama casually sunk the smoothest lefty three pointer from zero degrees, as the few witnesses, including (now President-elect) Biden whoa-ed their approval. It was hardly a fluke.

While Indians search for keywords — approving or disapproving of their political leaders — in Obama’s new book, A Promised Land, the tome on one of the USA’s most celebrated presidencies has devoted one of its finest chapters to the author and his enduring relationship with basketball.

Shoot your shot. https://t.co/XdZz4dh82T pic.twitter.com/elpBmzu6hV

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) October 31, 2020

Describing his early days in the presidency, when he was beset by a multitude of stressful situations, Obama says he liked a game of pool with the assistant chef of the White House to de-stress. This was also when he could sneak out for a smoke — Obama recalls, though, the day his daughter Malia smelt tobacco on his breath and asked him about it. He quit smoking to coincide with the signing of The Affordable Care Act, and started to carry around nicotine gum.

But it was basketball that offered him his “reliable refuge”. Obama’s personal aide Reggie Love would organise weekend games at an indoor court at the Fort McNair army base, the FBI headquarters, or the Department of the Interior. Former Division I college players in their late 20s or early 30s would form the regulars. And although he wasn’t the best player on the floor, Obama settled into the familiar flow and camaraderie of holding his own by setting picks, feeding the hot shooter that day, hitting a jumper and running the break.

“Those pickup games represented continuity for me, a tether to my old self, and when my team beat Reggie’s, I’d make sure he heard about it all week,” he writes.

Court exploits in school

The American media has reported that Obama played on both the junior and university teams at Hawaii’s Punahou School in the 1970s, and eventually won a state championship in 1979. “Barry Obama”, an NBC report quoted former teammate Mark Bendix as saying, ought to have been a starter at Punahou. Bendix says: “He had a pretty good shot and really handled the ball well. ”

Former coach Chris McLachlin told NBC: “He (Obama) would carry his books in one hand and his ball in the other. He lived across the street from school and before classes he’d shoot baskets on the outside courts, then at lunch he’d shoot more baskets, then I’d have him for three hours, then he’d go home, eat supper, and then be outside again shooting baskets.”

There’s a 1979 picture of Obama, wearing a rich mop of afro on his head, taking a jump shot over a defender at the Honolulu top private school. He’d come off the bench and help them win a state championship in his senior year.

Coach Mike Zinn at Occidental College recalled to The Los Angeles Times in 2007: “He wasn’t a great outside shooter. In basketball terminology, he was kind of a slasher. He was left-handed. He went left well, didn’t go right that well. He had a nose for the ball, always came up with loose balls and rebounds inside. So if he got 10 points in a game, most of them were probably under the basket. He didn’t hit jump shots from 15 feet or anything like that. He was a good defender, definitely a good athlete.”

Barack Obama during his senior year at Punahou School, Honolulu. Seth Poppel / Yearbook Library

Both cheerleader and coach

Obama would also be courtside, his memoir says, rooting for daughter Sasha’s fourth-grade rec league team — with all the attendant thrill and stress of being an athlete’s parent.

“They called themselves the Vipers (props to whoever thought of the name), and each Saturday morning during the season, Michelle and I would travel to a small public park field house in Maryland and sit in the bleachers with the other families, cheering wildly whenever one of the girls came remotely close to making a basket, shouting reminders to Sasha to box out or get back on defence, and doing our best not to be “those parents”, the kind who yell at the refs,” Obama recalls. 📣 Express Explained is now on Telegram

Maisy, Joe Biden’s granddaughter was the star of the team, he writes. While the coaching couple who by their own admission didn’t consider basketball their first sport, did a reasonably good job, the former President and Reggie, a former Duke hoopster, helped draw up some plays and volunteered to conduct a few informal Sunday afternoon practice sessions with the team.

“We worked on the basics (dribbling, passing, making sure your shoelaces were tied before you ran onto the court). When the Vipers won Reggie I celebrated like it was the NCAA finals,” he writes about enjoying the normal “dad stuff”. Rival parents would raise a stink though about these “special sessions”, complaining their kids weren’t extended the same privilege of being coached by the President. So Obama would go back quietly to being a regular noisy dad fan.

“A Promised Land,” by former US president Barack Obama, released on November 17. Image: Penguin Random House

The one-shot President

With a sharp passing eye, long jumpers drained to perfection, and a swell passing game, Obama aced what Americans adore the most in sport: an ‘assist’. Old footage shows his outside shot sharpening up, and finding new admirers. The breezily sailing three pointer at the Biden rally wasn’t a freak — back when he was Senator Obama of Illinois, standing out in black tracks and his accurate jump-passes, he had famously nailed a three-pointer on his first try; and a repeat was to follow in 2010 in front of troops in Kuwait, according to a report by USA Today.

Playing a game of ‘Horse’ with basketball legend Clark Kellogg, who had been invited to the White House backyard, Obama would quip, “I have a few other things on my mind, but I will not be humiliated on national television.” He would chortle away to make up the lead, finding his range with 3-P shots.

While special assistant and personal aide Reggie Love played at Duke and was the perfect Friend Friday, Obama’s other high profile playmates included Illinois ex-treasurer Alexi Giannoulias — a former pro from Greece — and the mightily competent former Secretary of Education and Harvard co-captain Arne Duncan, who could more than drive in and throw.

Duncan, who described Obama as “cerebral”, would tell ‘For the Win’ that the former POTUS was offensively very crafty and deceptive, with a very good crossover dribble. “It was not infrequent to see him literally not shoot the ball all game and then would score the final basket or the final two baskets of the game. There are lots of guys who love to get shots up early in games, but when things get a little tight, they’d disappear. He was just the opposite. He wanted to take the big shot.” Not a ball hog and great at passing assists was the common verdict.

Near the end of his presidency in 2015 though, Obama would switch to golf — and candidly admit to his depreciating powers. “I used to play basketball more but these days I’ve gotten to the point where it is not much fun. Because I’m not as good as I used to be and I get frustrated. I was never great but I was a good player and I could play seriously. Now I’m like one of these old guys who’s running around. ”

' >

The connoisseur of greatness

Widely considered to be one of the wittiest speech-giving Presidents, Obama saved one of his best for the citation to Michael Jordan when awarding him the President’s Medal of Freedom. “Michael Jordan is more than those moments. More than just the best player on two greatest teams of all time. The dream team and the 1996 Chicago Bulls. He’s more than just a logo. More than just an Internet meme. More than just a charitable donor, a business owner committed to diversity. There’s a reason you call somebody the “Michael Jordan of …”. Michael Jordan of surgery, or of rabbis. Michael Jordan of canoeing. They know what you are talking about. Because Michael Jordan is the Michael Jordan of greatness. He is the definition of somebody so good at what they do that everybody recognises them.”

He would brag on behalf of Kareem Abdul Jabbar at the same ceremony: “Here’s how great Kareem Abdul Jabbar was. 1967 he’d spent a year dominating college basketball. The NCAA bans the dunk. They didn’t say it was ban Kareem …but it was (wide grin) ban Kareem.”

In the recent docu-series ‘Last Dance on Jordan’, controversy would erupt around Obama being organically described as a “former Chicago resident”, following the Bulls in their glory years. But it was his contextualising of Jordan — appreciating his greatness while stating plainly that he hadn’t quite spoken up on diversity issues back then — that added value to the testimonial as more than just a famous voice.

Also read | ‘Spent part of my childhood listening to Ramayana and Mahabharata’: Barack Obama in new book

Most recently he would come to the aid of LeBron James amid nationwide protests following the shooting of Jacob Blake in August, when the infuriated Lakers were on the verge of calling off the season to focus on fighting for reform.

James would say: “I’m lucky enough to have a friend, you know, the 44th President, that allowed me and allowed [Chris Paul] and allowed us to get on the phone with him and get guidance. You know, when there’s things going on, when there’s chaos where people don’t know which move to make or how to handle a situation, the best thing you can do is have someone that you can talk to and give you guidance and have that type of leadership….and those words of saying ‘OK, this can be plan of action. This can be something that you guys can ask for, and if we can get that then we can continue to push the needle and you guys can also continue the season as well.”

Subscriber Only Stories

View All

Subscribe now at less than Rs 4/day

The NBA announced its plan for a social justice coalition soon after.

"While Barack Obama was playing basketball, Russia took over Crimea." The 44th President of the United States loves the game - he even got his face smashed on the court , also finished off this three-pointer and this "That's the only way I do it."

Obama again came up with trump cards: at the peak of his political career, basketball was an important part of his campaigns and his image.

No American president (well, maybe Dwight Eisenhower, who always hangs out on the golf courses) has been so associated with a particular sport. The former Illinois senator spoke about Jordan and Chicago, regularly appeared at Washington games, showed a deep knowledge of the game even in those witticisms that accompanied receptions at the White House, became close friends with LeBron James and Steph Curry, collected NCAA brackets, coached his daughter's school team ... And there is a very strong suspicion that it was thanks to his efforts that the NBA abandoned all apoliticality and turned into a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Characteristically, even after he ceased to serve as President of the United States, Obama further strengthened relations with the NBA: he helped with the African League project and resolved the recent catastrophe with the boycott.

And, more importantly, Obama has always played a lot himself: often invited former NBA players to the White House court (he had to rebuild the space where tennis courts used to be), retired to basketball halls during voting days, constantly glowed with a basketball. At the end of his second term, Sports Illustrated journalist Alexander Wulff published an entire book on the subject: in Insolence on the Court: Basketball and the Obama Era, he talked about how the game helped the president "dispel all Republican speculation that Obama is an outsider, suspicious, and generally "hinging with terrorists" .

And, in fact, this viral throw in support of Biden already had a predecessor. A few months before the election in 2008, Obama spoke to the military in Kuwait, after which he took the ball and put it from behind the arc on the first attempt. A rather risky maneuver for a politician (his assistants at that moment were yelling: “No, no” ...) more than anything else spoke of supernatural self-confidence and endless charm.

Republican publications denounced that moment as typical rock star foppishness, and on Fox they could only make fun of their passion for basketball like this: “While Obama was filling the NCAA tournament bracket, Russia captured the Crimea.”

***

Obama has a rather complicated relationship with basketball.

While living in Hawaii in the 1970s, he played for the high school team that won the state championship. At the same time, adored basketball and was worried that he could not break into the starting five, and at the same time tried to quit basketball because of stereotypes linking the game and skin color .

His classmates interpreted it as comical.

“Obama is half black, half white, but no one cared about it: only he saw racism everywhere,” one of them recalled. “When he decided to break up with basketball, his father told him: “No, Barry, it's not that you're black. The thing is, you missed two shots in a row. ”

In his own, everything is extremely serious.

In Dreams of My Father, Obama recalls how he lost his temper when a white woman he didn't know in a supermarket asked him if he played basketball, even though he naturally played basketball. But then he increasingly paid attention to the fact that sport not only draws boundaries between people, but also erases these boundaries: his white friends all wanted to play like Julius Irving. “At least on the basketball court, I was able to find a circle of close people. Just where being black was no disadvantage, I found 's best white friends."

Approximately the same hesitations Obama experienced when choosing between the names Barack and Barry (or Barry Bombardier, as the basketball players called him).

The playground was a place where everyone got what they deserved, and at the same time a space where it was impossible not to think about racial differences.

***

Basketball became part of Obama's political career as if by accident. While fighting for the Democratic nomination, he suddenly realized that the game is the best way to get rid of stress.

“He called us the night before the Iowa Democratic congressional vote,” said Alexi Janoulis, a former Illinois treasurer. - He says: “I want to play tomorrow. Can you find the hall? There shouldn't be anyone there. At the same time, so that you don’t have to go anywhere.” I answer him: “How do you imagine that by the morning I found you a gym in Des Moines, Iowa? You want me to find you a basketball gym a few blocks from here in a state I don't know anything about…” And he says, “Yeah, can you do it?” "Of course not".

I ended up calling literally the only dude I knew in Iowa. He told me: "I know a great place."

And so we come to this hall - there is a dusty floor, it is terribly cold. We don't even have ten people, so we had to hire a guy who let us in there and swept the floors there. We ran, and in a state where 92% of the population is white, he won.

Then we didn't go to the New Hampshire site. And there he lost.

After that he said: “That's it, this will be our tradition. We will play every election day" .

***

When Obama moved to Washington, the playground in the White House was converted into basketball especially for him.

It was a legendary place for sports.

“We came to the White House after winning the NCAA championship in 2009,” Maya Moore recalled. - Everyone is so smart, in shoes, dresses. And here he leads us somewhere along the alley. We do not quite understand where, and then bam - a basketball court! We look around, and there is an agent behind every tree. We all think: “What is going on?!” I don't remember who came up with it, but I suspect that he himself, since he is famous for his trash talk. In general, he made us play three points with him. I never look for excuses, but I must say that he was on his home court and we played in heels. Throughout the entire season in 2009, we did not suffer a single defeat, and he took and beat us . I'm still mad at him. He set it all up on purpose! He congratulated us, reminded us of our achievements, and then took us into the yard and beat us. And then I go and think: “Are we really so fooled now ?!”

One of the most famous games with Obama took place there. LeBron James, Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Joaquim Noah, Shane Battier, Alonzo Mourning, Magic Johnson and Maia Moore gathered at the White House for his 50th birthday. They were watched by Kobe Bryant and Bill Russell.

“Chris Paul defended against the President in the first possession. Obama took a few steps to the right, then switched the ball to his left hand, walked and passed behind him to Pau Gasol, said Obama campaign treasurer Marty Nesbitt. – It was amazing. I teased Chris about it after that. He replied: “Listen, I'm the best steal in the NBA. If I wanted to, then…” And I told him: “Of course, but you didn’t expect him to be so good, right? He surprised you." He didn't expect Barak to play so well."

“Kobe Bryant was then recovering from injury and not playing,” adds Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod. But he was sitting on a bench. And the president did everything then, he was allowed to do what he wants. Then Kobe called Chris over to him: “You are the most mischievous little motherfucker in the entire league, and you are afraid to approach this dude two meters. Play basketball! Take the ball from him."

***

Obama's charm worked for everyone, so that over time, in the stories of eyewitnesses, his basketball skills appeared more and more advanced.

Former NBA commissioner David Stern was quick to reassure everyone: “ I'm a Democrat. Moreover, I am a fierce supporter of the Democratic Party. But Obama is not as good as everyone says .”

We know how Obama looked at school.

“He was very athletic, great at running and jumping,” explained former coach Mike Zinn. – He didn’t attack very well from behind the arc. Speaking in basketball terms, you can say that he played like a "slasher", played from the pass. Moreover, he is a pronounced left-hander; he cannot pass to the right side.

And he had a flair - he always won controversial balls, took rebounds. If he scored 10 points in a match, then most of them were scored from under the basket. He also defended very well."

Even if we take into account that with age Obama has added to the throw, his other skills have remained at the same level.

"He's fine for his age," ESPN writer Andy Katz analyzed his performance. “He likes to hold the ball, he passes well, and he approaches shots with great care. He doesn’t carry the ball, nor does he always try to attack…

It's quite harsh. I would not say that he runs fast from ring to ring, but in attack he can get away from the guardian and get the ball under the ring.

Most importantly, I didn't get the feeling that he was the weak link. He tries not to let the others down."

Well, Obama also has some complexes connected with his legs. He always plays in pants - as they suspect, he is afraid to show limbs that are too skinny for a basketball player, “chicken legs”.

***

The most important thing is, of course, not Obama's skills themselves, but the emotions that accompanied his game. The President - according to stories - did not tolerate when they acted half-heartedly with him, brought his rivals with trash talk, was too worried about the results and repeatedly received from too tough rivals.

“The first time we played with him, I had to hold him,” recalled Arthur Jackson, founder of One on One Basketball Inc. - The game was very tough: we won two matches, they won two. I will never forget how the president says here: “So, no one goes home, we play to win.” We cut further, the score was 18:15, and we played until 21. And then we scored a three-pointer - it felt like we had become the champions of America. Everyone jumped for joy. When I turned around, the president came up to us and said, "Congratulations guys." He shook hands with us. And he added: "But let's play again."

“One time he sprained his ankle, and everyone was like, “E-mae,” and sort of went around,” said actor Don Cheadle. “And he looks around and says, ‘So, what’s going on? I didn't say you could stop. Let's play on."

The first time I played him, Grant Heslov was defending against him, and he didn't really defend against him. I did not think that it was necessary to cut him without fail, but I told him so: "Foli on him." "But it's the president himself." I told him: “What are you talking about? He stepped onto the platform. He wants to play. Do you want to change?" "No, everything is fine." “Then act! Foley on it!" Obama laughed. Then we crossed paths with him at some event. He comes up to me and says to my wife: “The last time I saw Don, he pointed at me and said to the guy: “Fole on him!” “That's right, Mr. President. That's exactly what I said." "Yeah, it's a pity he didn't do anything."

“We were playing in the FBI building one morning,” Obama adviser John Rice said. “And then comes journalist Michael Lewis. Everyone thought that he would just watch, because he hung out with the president for several days. But he went out on the floor. And so he throws out a “draft”, shrugs his shoulders, apologizes. The other team picks up the ball and scores from under the basket, and then the president ... explodes - not the right word, but he was wildly furious because Michael did not run to the defense. He started yelling at him for not fighting and letting everyone else down. Not because of the "draft", but because it exacerbated the error. And the guy at the same time wrote an article for Vanity Fair about the president, but he did not give him a descent.

“We had the opportunity to play with Durant just as he was the World Championship MVP,” Arthur Jackson recalled. “They came along with James Harden and Eric Maynor. Manor and Durant played for the president, Dantay Jones and Harden were on Reggie's team. After four matches the score is 2-2, we are playing the fifth one. We're running 19:11, here Obama changes. Suddenly Harden starts bombing from the center - three, three more. Here the score is already 19:19. What to do in such a situation? Naturally, they gave the ball to Durant. He remains one on one against Harden, starts to beat him - but Harden takes the ball away, runs away, puts a lay-up. We lost. Then I lost for the first time, speaking with the president for one team. Everyone is in shock. Obama comes out and says, "When I left the court, we were driving 19:11, we only needed one ball, we have an MVP on the court, and we couldn't win? Is this some kind of joke?"

“In that 50th birthday game, Obama pissed Noah off,” said David Axelrod. - He teased him because of the throw, let's say, an unorthodox form. The President said: "Who taught you to throw like that?" "I've never seen anything uglier in my life." At some point, Noah decided: "Yeah, let's see how you throw" . And he just strangled the president in defense - he couldn’t take a step at all.”

***

The most famous moment in Obama's basketball career, however, was playing with his family and close associates in 2010. Then he abruptly turned around to quit, and rested on the elbow of Ray Deserega, director of programs at the Institute of Political Science of Latin America.

He received 12 stitches in his upper lip. And the news spread beyond sports sites.

“I was trying to win space. And then I look: the blood of the President of the United States is on my elbow,” the offender explained. “Before my elbow went into his face, I thought it was a defensive foul. After that, I only thought about the fact that the president was bleeding. The Secret Service did not knock me down, there was nothing like that, but they surrounded the president, and one of the agents looked at me so expressively. Like, “Do you even understand what you’ve done?!” Yes, I understood” .

There were several such situations in the president's career: he was severely stopped and thrown to the parquet, he was beaten on the ribs ... But it came to blood only once.

***

Obama became president when he was not yet 50. By the end of his term, he went out on the floor less and less.

“I got to the point where basketball stopped being fun,” he explained. “I’m not that good anymore, and it’s frustrating. I never played really great, but I played okay and took the game seriously. And now I just turned into an old dude who is trying to get somewhere in time. I play with guys much younger. They pity me, sympathize with me. They tolerate me, but I know I'm the weak link on the set. And I don't like being the weak link of ."

Obama left basketball and discovered golf.

But that was after.

***

His presidency is unthinkable without an orange ball.

In his book, Alexander Wulff insists that basketball is one way for Obama to show himself as real, to show himself as he really is. And his history of relationship with the game - from rejecting racial stereotypes to finding himself in it - is quite revealing.

He liked to talk about it himself.

“It seems to me that you can tell a lot about people if you see how they play basketball. For example, there are those who throw and throw, although they do not know how to do it at all. By this tendency to self-deceive in the game, you can reveal something in the person outside the game.

His associates also liked to talk about this.

“He plays very smart. Quite often it was the case that he did not attack throughout the game, and then took over the final throws. There are guys who like to leave at the beginning of matches, and then, when it smells like fried, they disappear. But he's just the opposite. He is ready for the decisive throw - he does not force it, he will never throw from a difficult position: but after combinations, after jerks, after trying to play a partner, he will suddenly open or go into the passage after a feint.

This seems to say a lot about his character. When a point-for-point game is in progress, he tends to get the ball in his hands. Loves moments like this .”

Photo: globallookpress.com/UPPA/ZUMAPRESS.com, UPPA/B66; Gettyimages.ru/Mark Wilson, Yuri Gripas-Pool, Pete Souza/White House

The Obama family: vegetable garden, basketball and Beyoncé

Today is a real holiday in America. Star tweets are full of messages full of happiness and joy: Barack Obama has been re-elected to the presidency. Well, while the president himself and his family are celebrating this significant event, we will join their peaceful family life and see how their home is different from everyone else.

Barack Hussein Obama II and Michelle Robinson met in 1989, and at first the future president was denied dates. A few months later, Michelle finally gave up and fell into the secure arms of a persistent friend. Three years later, the couple officially sealed their union, and in 1998 their first daughter, Malia Ann, was born. Three years later, another replenishment happened in the family - a second girl was born, who was named Sasha.

The Happy Family of Barack Obama

It's no secret how important the image of a family man is for a politician, and in this sense, Barack Obama has everything he needs. Over the past year, for example, his wife Michelle has become almost more popular than the president himself. An excellent sense of style, good taste and natural charisma provided her with the love and support of America. In July 2007, Vanity Fair named her one of the ten most stylish people in the world.

By the way, most often Michelle wears outfits from Calvin Klein, Isabel Toledo, Narcisco Rodriguez, Donna Ricco and Maria Pinto, and her style is often compared with another famous US First Lady - Jacqueline Kennedy. In 2009Michelle Obama appeared on the cover of the March issue of Vogue, and in 2011 graced the front page of a completely different edition of Better Homes And Gardens. By the way, the First Lady stands up for a healthy lifestyle and healthy eating, and even set up her own garden near the White House, where she grows wonderful vegetables.

Barack and Michelle Obama

Barack and Michelle Obama with Queen Elizabeth II

Barack Obama himself, like an ordinary husband, also has a hobby. He loves sports and even plays basketball himself. The president is a fan of the Chicago White Sox baseball team and the Chicago Bears football club.

Michel and Barack recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. Moreover, behind all the worries, the President's wife forgot about this date.

He asked me, "What shall we do on Saturday?" I say: "What will happen on Saturday?". Turns out we were getting married on Saturday.

During the four years of ruling the country, Barak never forgot about his family, and tried to appear at all public events in full "family" composition. Today, his daughters are no longer the little girls we saw at the last inauguration. Now dad is congratulated by 14-year-old Malia, who has already moved to high school, and 11-year-old Sasha, she is in the sixth grade.