I echo Bill Simmons' sentiments:
"I played hoops until I was 33 years old and my back gave out. The best thing about basketball -- really, the single best thing, what I miss over everything else combined -- is the interaction between players. I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours playing pickup in college; to this day, I can rattle off an extended list of everyone I loved playing with. Basketball is about connections. You connect with teammates, reach an advanced form of ESP with them, start moving in rhythm, and then it's magic. The more you play with someone, the better you know them. Same goes for opponents. Play with someone enough and you learn every head fake, every stutter step, everything. I played with my buddy Bish so many times in high school that we just started swallowing up each other's favored moves. That's basketball. It's like chess crossed with ballet."
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/090528&sportCat=nba