Calling all Bonner County ballers at 2018 Hoopfest

SANDPOINT — Attention all Sandpoint, Clark Fork and Priest River basketball players heading over to Hoopfest this weekend in Spokane: Don’t forget to snap a team pic and send it in for publication in the Daily Bee sports page.

Hoopfest started in 1990 with 2,009 players on 512 teams hooping it up on the downtown streets of Spokane. This year, more than 225,000 people are expected to descend on downtown Spokane to watch more than 6,000 players on 450 courts. They don’t call it the largest 3-on-3 outdoor basketball tournament on earth for nothing.

Streetball historians always point to Harlem’s Rucker Park as the shrine for pickup games, with legends like Dr. J, Connie Hawkins, Earl “The Goat” Manigault, Earl “The Pearl” Monroe, Herman “The Helicopter” Knowlings and more recently, Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant, all running game on the famous court.

With the recent proliferation of AAU programs and high school teams playing in-doors year around, pickup street basketball has waned in recent years. Long gone are the days of having to wait two or three games just to get on one of the Coeur d’Alene City Beach courts, which featured some of the area’s best high school and college players mixing it up in gritty, competitive games.

But the essence of streetball — the toughness, the flair, the lack of refs and structure, remains alive and well at Hoopfest. Scores of Bonner County ballers of all ages will once again be vying for bracket supremacy. Sandpoint teams have won brackets in the past, and figure to continue the trend this year.

Come Monday, send any Hoopfest pictures, with team name, player names and final results, to “eplummer@bonnercountydailybee.com. Any and all submitted pics will run in a future Bee.

Check ball.

And one.