I truly enjoyed and related to your story; thank you for sharing it, and you are blessed for living it.
I also grew up on courts and pick-up basketball that began as pre-adolescent through teenage years, HS, college, adult life, 20's, 30's... still going now. In the beginning was best, summers in between HS years, small town America, most warm summer nights, lights went off at 10pm when park closed, a friend of mine knew how to break into the electrical box to turn the lights back on and wait to do so until the police squad car drove by at closing, we'd go another hour or so, occasionally getting chased away by the police.
In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, when we were all so emotionally impacted, the story that I related to the most was a group of guys got together early morning one day a week near the WTC and played pick-up, a core group of the guys worked in the WTC and perished. They had played earlier that morning. I related to this tremendously for it spoke to me they were just like me. Got together regularly to play pick-up, celebrating life, had their life snuffed out.
All best. Keep playing pick-up and celebrating life with friends. We all give each other strength.