I’d recommend playing in a league. I prefer www.recbasketball.com, but there’s also www.portlandbasketball.com. I haven’t played in the league for about a year, but we played for a solid decade before that. Dogg Pound for life.

As far as open gyms go, they always seem to be hit and miss. I’ll find one and play for a while, then they stop. It’s a vicious cycle…….

Laurelhurst park is good, only problem is, the weather won’t be nice for awhile. Most of the time though, the comp is pretty good.

good gym , ballers there too and its pretty close to everywhere.

Sophia

Sophia

I’ve tried for years. This is what I’ve found…

While at University of Portland, that was the best bet because it was flexible. Doubt they’ll let non-students get a membership or day pass, but you could try.

Community centers have the ridiculous schedules you mentioned. The nice thing is some have great games EVERY week. Other places can be real hit and miss.

There are places like 24 hr fitness, but as you mentioned there expensive.

You could look into The Hoop, or The Courts. These are full-time bball facilities, but I’m not sure you would get what you want there. Typically they have games, clinics (especially youth clinics), and other stuff… don’t see too many pick-up games there when I go for a rec league game.

Otherwise the best outdoor courts, which won’t be available for much longer are (no particular order):
Laurelhurst (caution: shouting matches will last longer than the games)
Colonel Summers (can be packed, competition is sometimes weak)
Edwards Elementary School (my favorite, good guys, hard games, decent skill level)
Irving Park (lots of kids, but three full courts, so plenty of room…good games when the ballers show up)
And on the weekends, some park on NE Dekum and 10th…caution, a few weeks ago I saw someone drop-step-dunk like it was no big deal… I laughed and was thankful I wasn’t guarding him…

every time you wanna play basketball, just get a membership at 24 dude. they ALWAYS have some kind of deal going on, and if they don’t want to give you one, just wait a month or go to another one/salesperson. outdoor courts aren’t going to be available (weather) much longer anyway. I used to play at this catholic school downtown. like a dusty old middle school gym but nice backboards and good players who don’t argue every other call. it was invite only because they wanted to keep the numbers down but if you can find/organize something like that its awesome. shoot, you could start a blazersedge league.

Since I stopped playing in city league that is what I’ve done. I’m not in Portland though.

lucky huh

I played (okay, got repeatedly dunked on by) Freddie Jones many years ago.