Sibu X-Ball Challenge 2010 @ Sibu Town Square

Xball Challenge is an annual event organized by a group of local youngsters who called themselves X4 Generation. They were also the organizer for Sarawak Cub Prix Sibu series which had been held at the same venue about a month ago.

This year the X-Ball Challenge event was held on 5th and 6th of June at car park of Sibu Town Square. There were 4 categories for this competition: Male 16 and below, Male 22 and below, Male 30 and below and also Female Open with no age limit.

The event had attracted a lot of basketball lovers to participate as well as witness the competition, but most of them were from the youth group. It is an healthy program for the youth and should be encouraged.

Besides the street ball challenge, other events such as slam dunk competition and shooting at the spinning basketball hoop competition also being held to make the event more attracting and interesting.

Basketball Court Drawing DIY Project

This evening I was invited by a buddy of mine to a Basketball Court Drawing DIY Project at his place. It was a private initiated project with the goal to draw a half court basketball court line at the end of the day.

This was my first experience doing this kind of task. Before this I just knew how to play basketball on a basketball court but not how to draw a court with my own hands. Certainly it was not an easy task.

First, you need to prepare the measurement of the court. Not sure about the measurement? Just googling it! The one we used is the FIBA standard measurement. Some other necessary tools for the job are measuring tape, white chalk, rope, masking tape, hammer, nail and also the paint.

To start the task, we first measured the area with measuring tape. Then we marked each important point with the white chalk. For rounded area, we used rope tied to a nail acted like a compass.

After marking the necessary paths with white chalk, we then used masking tape to mark the boundaries of the straight lines to ease our paint job later.

Ok! It was painting time! My friend bought a Road Marking Paint for this purpose. This was the "smallest" tin he could get as usually marking road will use quite a big volume of paint so no small tin is available.

Painting the straight line seemed not to be too hard as we had masking tape guided along the boundaries but not the curve. That's why for the curving area, we needed to show a bit of our "artistic" skill and talent to make the curve look rounded.

After painting the free throw line semicircle, we then continued with the other part of semicircle to form a circle, but this time it was a broken line. This was a bit challenging as we need proper measurement to make the broken line look balance on both side.

After refering to the drawing plan, we did some marking first with white chalk before applied the paint onto it. This was the result, it looks good!

Last but not least, we measured and painted the lane places and neutral zones along the both side of free throw lanes.

This was the end result! The basketball court was in shape!! Both of us were very satisfy and proud with our 2-hour hard work! Doesn't it look awesome? Gosh! I just love it! If not because of some technical problem, we would have drawn the 3-point line as well and the work would be perfect!

Anyway, it was considered as mission accomplished!! The project was a success and I really enjoyed it! It was a great experience!

X-Ball Challenge 2009 @ Sibu Town Square

X-ball Challenge is an annual event in Sibu. It was organized by a local group called X4 Generation who specialized in organizing such event. Basically it was a 3 0n 3 street basketball competition but this year, street soccer had been added into the competition.

The event had been held from 6 - 7 June this year at Sibu Town Square car park area. I was at the scene to see the excitement of 3-on-3 street basketball competition as basketball is one of my favorite sports. I played basketball almost everyday when I was study in university but after that because lack of "kaki"(companion) and court, I have no choice but to give up the game.

I would not elaborate much in this post as the photos are self-explanatory. Enjoy the photos!


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Some guys' action
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["This is an easy layup for me......"]

["Watch up! I gonna block you!"]

["I wanna dunk like Kobe Bryant!"]

[It was a bad dunk!]

[Errr... I think you still need to jump few inches higher in order to dunk...]

["I am too tired! Can I sit down to take a rest?"]

["I believe I can fly!"]

["Yeye!! The ball is mine! Nobody can take it!"]

["Don't you ever try to grab the rebound from O'Neal's hand!"]

[This is what happened when you let Shaquille O'Neal doing the shooting!]

["Hey!! Don't pull my pants!"]

["Ah Beng! Don't let go the ball! Come on!"]

[Tango in the air]

["No more Tango this time! I use monkey fist!"]

["Hey! Please raise your hand before you start dribbling!"]

["HAHA! You see he is always shorter than me!"]

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Here are some girls' action
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["Who said girls cannot play street ball?"]

["Somebody please help me! This girl keep stare at me and try to touch my butt!"]

["I am a netball player"]

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Some referees in action
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["I am the referee from Pirates of the Caribbean!"]

["I am the smallest and cuttest referee on earth!"]

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Shooting Star challenge
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["This is the correct way to shoot the ball, got me?!"]

["This distance is too easy for me!"]

["I am a girl! This is too far for me!"]

["I hate the obstacle! "]

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Street soccer
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["I am a paparazzi!"]

["Hey! Referee! He fouled me!"]

["Dribble like Ronaldo!"]

["This is police traffic! Go that way!"]

["Mak! King Kong datang!!"]

Superman Dramatic NBA Slam Dunk Contest 09

NBA All-Star Game 2009 in Phoenix was over around 2 weeks ago. Suddenly I felt of writing something about it especially about the Sprite Slam Dunk competition as it was the most dramatic, interesting and full of entertainment ever since I started to pay attention on this contest about a decade ago.

There were 4 participants for this contest this year

1. JR Smith from Denver Nuggets who replaced Rudy Gay from Memphis Grizzlies as the latter was injured before the all-star weekend started.
2. Rudy Fernandez from Portland Trail Blazers who is a rookie from Spain.
3. Nate Robinson from New York Knicks, 2006 slam dunk champion with only 5-9 of height.
4. Dwight Howard from Orlando Magic, defending champion for this competition.

Nothing special about the 1st round. Everybody played safe. The dramatic moment only started in the 2nd round when Dwight Howard walked into a specially prepared phone booth outside the court and then walked out with a Superman's red cape and Superman's music accompanied! The audience including some NBA superstars almost went crazy with this surprising and creative act!

Source: NBA.com
[Superman Howard came out from phone booth with Superman's cape]

The Superman idea actually came along in last year's contest where Dwight Howard with his Magic's blue road jersey similar to Superman's costume blue color suddenly wore a Superman's cape and then made a dunk jumping from free throw line. Although he couldn't reach the hoop, but luckily the ball still made into the net. That dunk brought him the champion.

[Dwight Howard champion dunk in Slam Dunk contest 2008]

This year Dwight further embedded Superman's character into his dunk show. Instead of flying far as last year, Dwight chose to fly high as Superman! After mimicked Superman changing scene, He then dunked on a hoop about a feet higher than a normal NBA hoop. Although it was an ordinary two-hand dunk, but I think his efforts, creativity and the height of the hoop had given the audience as well as the judges a very good impression. Thus he won perfect of 50 points for that.

As expected Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson gone into final. Now it was Nate's turn to show! He first came out with his all-green Kryptonate t-shirt. Yeah! Combination of the word Krypton and Nate! Even his New York team jersey, his arm band, shoes and basketball were all in green color.

[The Krypto-Nate]

Some might think, why green? New York Knicks suppose to be blue! Maybe just to attract more attention? No, it is wrong! If you know Superman's story in details, Superman is most vulnerable to green Kryptonite, a mineral from planet Krypton where Superman origin from. Nate's idea was to treat himself as a kryptonite that could weaken or even nullify Superman's super power! In this case, Dwight Howard was the Superman and Nate wished to defeat him! The word Kryptonate was chosen to mimic the word Kryptonite!

Wasn't that creative? A well-known Superman's story could be applied to a slam dunk contest?! Do you ever think of that? Isn't that amazing? That's why I said this year's contest was the most creative and dramatic ever!

[Kryptonate over Superman!]

Nate then invited Dwight to wear his Superman's cape again and be his final dunk's prop. Dwight showed his gentlemanship by standing under and facing the hoop. Nate carried his green basketball, made a run and jumped over Dwight Howard to make a one-hand dunk! Kabummm!! A 5-foot-9 guard springboarded a 6-foot-11 center to dunk! Can you believe it? Yeah, the Krypto-Nate really could win over the Superman-Howard!

[5-foot-6 Spud Webb dunk]

At the end of the competition, Nate Robinson won against Dwight Howard with 52% of fan's votes! He was declared as the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest Champion 2009! This is his second title. The first one was won in year 2006 when he leaped over Spud Webb, a 5-foot-6 former Atlanta Hawks point guard and also 1986 NBA slam dunk contest winner to make a dunk. Both Spud Webb and Nate Robinson are among the shortest (below 6 feet) players who won the slam dunk contest in NBA history.

[Nate Robinson jumped over Spud Webb to win 2006 slam dunk champion]

Detail stories: http://www.nba.com/allstar2009