I last saw the HG’s about 3 years ago and we really only went because a friends daughter was performing at halftime. Yeah, the G’s let kids perform at their halftime shows. But thats 50 -150 guarnteed tickets sold.
It really was a sad shell of what they used to be back in the days of Meadowlark Lemmon. The basketball play was so-so. These guys didnt have near the ball handling or shooting skills as the old ones did. The jokes and gags were weak. I swear the new version of the Washington Generals looked like overaged college rejects.
I saw them in 2003 playing against Syracuse. No jokes, just straight basketball. The Trotters crushed the Orange.
They might be suffering because of additional options for marginal players. It used to be, if you missed out on the NBA, they were a good place to go, but now the European leagues are able to pay more.
I saw them play just last year and it was a fun show! My three boys especially loved it. Most of the jokes were corny and made to appeal to the kids, but weren’t they always? The Washington Generals are gone. At our game, the Trotters played a team called the “World All-Stars” which seemed to be made up of recent college players and international players. They too, were quite good incidentally, making lots of alley-oop dunks and 3-pointers.
What the Trotters have now that they didn’t have in the old days is amazing dunkers. A couple guys do fantastic dunk-contest worthy dunks within the context of the game and it is spectacular. They also do a great job of incorporating people in the crowd into a lot of their plays and gags and that was a lot of fun.
The part I think they need to scrap is the 3-man weave. Nearly every play starts with a 3-man weave up near half-court before they make a drive for the hoop which turns into a dunk or a kickout for a long 3 (or 4) pointer. They have a couple spots on the floor about 8 feet beyond the arc designated as 4-point zones. More no-look and bounce passes around the paint should replace the 3-man weave and the game would be much improved.
What’d you expect, for Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal to live forever? Not only are there many more options for marginal players than there were before, but remember that the Globetrotters came into existence in a time before basketball was integrated; before there was even an actual basketball league (they preceded the NBL, the predecessor to the NBA, by a decade). Nobody in this day and age, is passing up millions of dollars to be an ambassador of basketball.
You know who’d be a great Globetrotter, though? Stephen Curry.
I am a teacher and my school had a group called “Harlem” something basketball come and visit us. They dressed similar and brought multi-colored basketball, but it was…somewhat of a scam.
They hardly played basketball, talked about being good in school, and left with.
There’s no way to attract the talent they once had in the modern world of basketball. It’s been half a century since the Globetrotters were what they used to be. The original Globetrotters helped basketball become an international sport that makes millionaires out of talented players now, the Globetrotters made a good living before that happened, but they mostly played in high school gyms and low rent arenas here and around the world, it’s not the attraction it once was. It might be nice for retired big time cagers to put on shows like the Globetrotters did, they could do charity events and maybe improve the NBA’s image.
The Druidess scored free tickets, so we went a few months ago. It’s a different show than what I remember. The other team and especially their coach play over the top pro wrestling style villains and there’s a storyline involving shenanigans to disqualify all the Globetrotters to force a forfeit. They didn’t draw very well that night. The arena was only half full, if that.
Apparently they have several different teams touring at the same time now.
they are geared to kids who haven’t seen them before. They have 2 teams now.
As a college student I saw a woman washing one of their uniforms in a laundromat. It belonged to a local guy who played for them , Twiggy Sanders. I assume it was his wife and an old uniform.
“From 1953 until 1995, the Generals played exhibitions against the Globetrotters, winning only six games, the last in 1971, and losing more than 13,000. Klotz eventually “disbanded” the Generals in 1995, forming a new team, the New York Nationals, which also has achieved an impressive losing streak.”