I used to play for a traveling basketball team called the Harlem Ambassadors.

The Ambassadors were billed as a “show basketball” team, similar to the Harlem Globetrotters (but the COSTCO version). We traveled to small, obscure cities all across America, the kind of places where locals would never see live NBA games. We brought our team, and the local organization that had hired us would assemble their own team of retired players, school teachers, mayors, weathermen, and other local small town celebrities.

Though we were playing basketball and (mostly) following the rules of the sport, our main goal wasn’t to win each game; the goal was entertainment and fun for the audience and opponents. We played, at the most, one full quarter of actual competitive basketball, followed by three quarters of choreographed skits and dances that involved ourselves, young kids pulled out of the audience, and in-on-the-joke opponents with some basketball mixed in. We had planned routines at the end of each quarter that ended in sure slam dunks to ensure actual basketball excitement as well.