OG Mike B

Five years removed from the league, former NBA point guard Mike Bibby has made a seamless— and successful—transition into the high school coaching ranks, where he works with kids to ensure they’ll be ready for the next level. 

- Yaron Weitzman

IT’S A HOT Friday afternoon in New York City, the kind of summer day that makes you dream of winter, and the only thing thicker in the air than the humidity is the nostalgia. After all, it’s a longing for the past that’s brought so many former NBA stars—and not-quite-stars (we see you, Moochie Norris and Lee Nailon)—to this space along the Western tip of lower Manhattan for the BIG3’s Media Day. It’s exactly what Ice Cube’s new 3-on-3 league is built to traffic on: The notion that there’s nothing the basketball world—players, fans, sponsors, media— loves more than reliving previous glories.

For many of Ice Cube’s new employees, the BIG3 offers a chance to temporarily sip from the Fountain of Youth. They can put on official looking uniforms and field questions from the press—like they are on this day at The Sunset Terrace at Chelsea Piers—and play ball in front of a packed arena, in this case Brooklyn’s Barclays Center.

Mike Bibby’s situation is a bit different, though. Bibby, now 39 and five years removed from his last NBA game, is a guard for the George Gervin-coached Ghost Ballers and might be trying to tap into a bit of nostalgia by being a part of the BIG3. But since stepping away from the NBA, the No. 2 pick in the ’98 draft has stayed in shape, unlike so many of his peers. He doesn’t go on the radio and talk about how soft the game is, or how his team could have destroyed the Warriors, or how players are now launching too many threes. There are no Charles Barkley-esque get off my lawn takes.

Instead, Bibby’s dedicated his life to helping bolster the future of the game. For the past four years, Bibby’s served as the head basketball coach for the boy’s varsity basketball team at Phoenix’s Shadow Mountain High School, his alma mater.