Despite the popular notion that asserts otherwise, I dont think BO is particularly athletic, or even particularly fit. I mean, yes, he is skinny but skinniness is not a barometer of fitness. Plus, did anyone see the first pitch he threw out for a MLB game a few years ago? I know baseball isn’t Obama’s sport but he threw that pitch in about the most unathletic, awkward manner possible. There is no way to watch that and believe that the Pres is athletically gifted in any way.
To the extent that that was directed at me, my statement was based more upon an assessment of my own athletic abilities than on Obama’s. He’s probably around average in most athletic endeavors, while I know that I’m below average. I have no idea how we’d compare in, say, chess (I’m probably better at chess than the average American, but worse at it than most people who have it as a hobby).
LOL. Haven’t even heard anybody else address it, other than Doonesbury, but, nobody I know really gave a fuck, didn’t care either way, or wasn’t speaking to me, and, I don’t read news sources when I can avoid it.
Funny, people eat this shit up.
Jesus. Yes, that is what it is. This is all an effort to make a president in his 8th year as a lame duck sound impressive because he likes to play basketball.
Someone posted a vanity fair article, that may have been where I originally heard that Obama plays with ex college and professional basketball players. It sounds like the same article (although what I heard was on the radio or a podcast, not something I read).
Anyway, the article does verify he played with ex professionals, but he said the professionals played overseas, not in the NBA. I’m going to assume that those kinds of players are better than college athletes, but not as good as NBA players.
Why do some of you think this is propaganda, and were so quick to dismiss it? This is a factual question with a factual answer, and I was right. What exactly is the problem?
Are you actually asking that?
That said…yeah, “useful to the team” doesn’t sound out of the question.I’m sure you could place a lot of guys here with 9 other ex-professionals and one could manage to be useful.
George w bush had a resting heart rate of 43 bpm. That is about the same as well trained athlete, but a person can ask questions about it without bragging.
Nixon supposedly had an iq of 150.a person can ask questions about that without it being a stealth brag by proxy.
IM not bragging. Like I said, my six year old can outrun me. I’d be useful drawing charges cause by the time I got to half court…the other team would be breaking on us.
The OP was “can he hold his own against retired pros”…that gives a different image than “can he play a zone and pass the ball without spazzing out”
And fwiw…didn’t he throw like he’d never seen a baseball when he threw out the first ball at a white sox game? Not the same skill set but still
I don’t think it’s propaganda, and I wouldn’t care if it were, but it’s not a factual question. It doesn’t appear “holding his own” has provided an accurate description of what’s going on out there.
I could “hold my own” in a game against former pros and collegiate players (i.e. great players, compared to normal people), in that I could also make open shots, set picks, pass the ball around, and stay vaguely in front of the person I was guarding on defense. But I’d be by orders of magnitude the worst player on the court, and I would be killing my team as compared to somebody who was also a great player, because that’s how sports work and what being a great player means, so to the extent anyone made a point of how I was holding my own, they’d be misrepresenting the situation. If holding your own only means being generally aware of what you’re supposed to be doing and not just giving the ball to the other team half the time (“doing little things well”), then I’m sure the president holds his own, but that also means it’s a statement with no value other than to say the president has played some basketball and is pretty OK for a regular guy.
Alonzo Mourning is, as you say, well past his athletic prime, and he also had some kind of serious kidney disease, as I recall. If he competed directly against the president in a game of basketball, the result would be that he had as many points as he wanted to have, and the president also had as many points as Alonzo Mourning wanted him to have.
Don’t feel bad. I’m pretty sure FDR could have kicked my ass in basketball.
Helen Keller could have kicked my ass in basketball.
Really? When I hear the term, I don’t imagine him dunking on people or being the star player. I see it as him being able to play without being an hindrance, or looking too out of place given the context. It’s the last thing that matters. The context of most of these comments is that the person is talking about a middle-aged man who has a bunch of other responsibilities playing a non-serious pickup game against former great players. I don’t think any of them are playing their hardest or are out to embarrass the other players, so the obvious actual ability difference is not going to be quite as stark.
True, but oddly, a decent number of basketball players are bad at throwing the first pitch. Notably bad were John Wall, Charles Barkley, and Jabari Parker.
Barack Obama once got stabbed by a knife, and the knife started bleeding.
Russia used to border the United States until Barack Obama kicked it away.
Barack Obama plays basketball with a wrecking ball.
Stranger
You guys are making this thread extremely hard to masturbate to.
I remember when Mario Cuomo was governor of New York. He played basketball with the state police and did pretty well.
Though anyone who showed him up was sent to the far reaches of the Adirondack Park to count bears. 
Obama wasn’t even good enough to start for his high school team when he was in his athletic prime. How could he possibly “hold his own” against professionals now that he’s as old and out of shape as I am?
To use an analogy, Kevin Costner played a little high school and college baseball, so when he starred in Bull Durham, he actually looked and acted like a real baseball player. He was hitting very well during practice- too well to suit director Ron Shelton, who thought Costner was getting a little cocky. So, during one scene, Shelton had the pitcher (who was an actual minor league pitcher) throw a very hard inside fastball. Naturally, Costner ducked back, and started to yell, “What the hell…” But a moment later, Costner nodded to the pitcher and said, “Okay, I get it. That was the real thing, wasn’t it?” Costner finally grasped that, while he was a pretty fair hitter for an actor, he wouldn’t and COULDN’T get around on a real major league fastball.
Obama is undoubtedly a perfectly fine guy to have on your side in a pickup shirt-and-skins game among middle aged duffers. But even a scrub from the Nets could make Obama look mighty feeble in a hurry, IF he wanted to give the President a taste of “the real thing.”
For what it’s worth, Cuomo was a pretty fair athlete in his youth, and played in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ minor league system for a few years.
Who is the last sitting President about which anything comparable could be said, with respect to any significant sport?
Since when are you in your athletic prime as a high school teenager?
You do understand we are talking about a non-serious pickup game, right? I don’t think anyone was literally arguing he was/is better than even a mediocre former player. What most seem to have said is that they were surprised that a middle aged politician was able to not make a complete fool of himself when playing with larger, formerly dominant athletes. Again, look at the context.
Gerald Ford was the center on two national championship football teams at Michigan in the early 1930s. I don’t think Lawrence Taylor or anybody took him on in a pickup game while he was President though.