What if the NBA could have its ‘Field of Dreams’ game on ‘Hoosiers’ floor? | Opinion
Rucker Park and Venice Beach will be great, but there is no better location for the NBA to hold its Field of Dreams game than the place where if you wait long enough Jimmy Chitwood will walk in to bury a few jumpers.
The Hoosier Gym in Knightstown, Ind., is a working museum to the classic movie Hoosiers, and an active basketball court.
This is the gym made famous as the home floor for the fictional Hickory Huskers, the school based on the Milan team that won the Indiana state high school championship in 1954.
It is all right here, in perfect working condition for another game.
The 2021-22 NBA season is underway, and the league’s hope of adopting the NHL’s and MLB’s concept of a holding a regular season game in a charming location is still in the discussion phase.
There is but a 0.0000001% chance the NBA can do the Hoosier Gym for anything other than an exhibition, or maybe a practice.
To steal a lesson from the movie that celebrates its 35th anniversary this year, the size of the rim and the backboard may measure to NBA standards but little else here does.
It is the quintessential old-school basketball gym; a time warp to the movie and 1950. The floor is pristine, the stands seat about 600 people, the court is 12 feet short of a high school regulation standards; NBA players Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kristaps Porzingis could be end-to-end in six steps.
But those aren’t even the real problem areas. The issue is the sidelines, where there is only about three feet between the lines and the where the stands begin.
An ambitious type could easily do some removal to essentially widen the spaces, however, those who run the gym have no interest in making such dramatic alterations.
The closest this gym has come to doing anything with the NBA is the Indiana Pacers wearing the “Hickory” jerseys for select games over the last few years.
There are currently no discussions between the NBA and that gym for an event.
Years ago the gym was saved from demolition by a benefactor, and has since become a favorite spot for high school basketball games, and sports movie dorks (guilty as charged).
Former TCU guard and current Memphis Grizzlies player Desmond Bane played on the floor. One of the backboards is called, “The Desmond Bane Backboard” because of an alley oop dunk he crushed here as a high school player.
As far as the NBA kicking around places to do its Field Of Dreams game, that’s still a possibility, but hardly imminent.
The NHL started the trend of playing a regular season game in unique destinations. It took the idea from the 1999 movie, Mystery, Alaska, in which the New York Rangers played against a small team in an outdoor rink in Alaska.
The outdoor game has become a staple of the NHL calendar.
MLB became the second league to do this when it constructed a small stadium in Dyersville, Iowa, adjacent to the field built for the movie, Field of Dreams.
The initial MLB Field of Dreams game played this summer was such a success the remaining leagues began contemplating how they could do a version of their own.
Ratliff Stadium in Odessa, home to the Permian Panthers made famous in Friday Night Lights, would be a fun option for the NFL. But with only eight or nine home games per season, the NFL doesn’t have the same sort of opportunities as the NHL or MLB.
Similarly, with 41 regular season home games, the NBA has plenty of inventory to try this. The question is where.
Located approximately 40 minutes east of downtown Indianapolis, the Hoosier Gym in Knightstown is visually ideal, but it just won’t work for the aforementioned reasons.
Select high school games are played here, and a Division III college game is on the schedule, too.
The other potential candidates for an NBA Field of Dreams game have mostly focused on Rucker Park in New York City and the Venice Beach courts in Los Angeles.
NBA players have played on both courts, both of which are blacktop. Venice does have one “showcase court” that features a sport court material.
A wood floor with stands would have to be built at either spot. The concept of playing on a floor in front of a small live audience at the famed Harlem courts at Rucker is undeniably appealing but the weather makes it risky.
Located just off the beach, Venice is the safer pick.
Of course, if the NBA elects to build a temporary court/venue it can have its Field of Dreams almost anywhere the imagination goes.
But playing an actual NBA game in the gym where Shooter ran the “Picket Fence” is beyond the imagination.
