I didn’t take that many pictures because I forgot to recharge my camera battery. This is from one of the courts farthest away from the center of downtown. Other games had the Davenport Hotel or Riverfront Park as backdrops. The whole idea is crazy: What kind of city completely closes off its downtown so out-of-shape dads, shirtless high schoolers and little kids in pigtails can play 3-on-3 basketball in the streets?

I guess that’s part of what makes Spokane unique. It’s pretty cool, same as Bloomsday, because a bigger city couldn’t bother coordinating such an invasive citywide competition and smaller cities couldn’t support the influx of competitors.

It was really hot. People were eating snow cones by 9:30 a.m. (though they probably would have done that anyway” and the medic tents were passing out corny heart-shaped fans with the slogan “I’m your biggest fan!” I went to Hoopfest in the first place because Nick was reporting, so we arrived around 8:30 a.m. and were plenty happy to leave around noon.