Losing The Bunt Jam — A Court-Level Perspective

📝 Words by Zach Baker

Saturday morning — or afternoon, rather — I woke up in a Hyatt Regency on King Street in downtown Toronto. My forehead had a lump. At the foot of the bed were yesterday’s blood-soaked socks. I read texts through one eye as I tongued a chipped front tooth that I swore was perfectly fine a day ago.

As a family, we moved every couple of years because my dad was a college basketball coach. He was an agent for a second, then coached the Harlem Globetrotters for two years, went on to scout for the NBA for a while, and now, he’s an assistant coach for the NBA G-League Ignite, a team without a hometown, constructed to serve the NBA’s development league and currently stationed in Henderson, Nevada. They had the most picks out of any single organization at this year’s NBA Draft. It’s kinda cool and pretty weird.

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The New Blue Park Obstacles Make Their Rainy Debut Today

You might recall the panic siren going off on Instagram a few weeks ago when they first fenced off Blue Park for construction. (To be fair, there’s precedent for panic over there.)

The park reopens today, on this obvious torrential wash-out of a Sunday, with a handful of new obstacles built by The Skatepark Project (formerly known as the Tony Hawk Foundation), and Vans.

The new stuff includes:

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Newark D.I.Y. Day With Zion and Crew

A bunch of the Vans crew was out here for the launch of Zion Wright’s Zahbas shoe last week. We had plans to take them around skating the next day, and given their spot sensibilities, we opted to tap in with the [formerly] Shorty’s crew in Newark and skate some of the city’s constantly evolving D.I.Y. spots built under their watch. (This one is only about a week old, but we didn’t get a chance to make it there.)

Zion was unfortunately hurt and ended up sous chefing the grill. Features Ronnie Sandoval, Tyson Peterson, Roman Pabich, Pedro Delfino, John Cruz and Bob LaSalle. Edit and filming by Justin Stout.

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Zahbas in LALA — Stafhon, Coles & Zach for Alltimers x Vans

To celebrate the launch of the Alltimers x Vans Zahba shoe, Justin Stout (of Rascal video fame) whipped together this quick L.A. trip edit of Stafhon Boca, Coles Bailey and Zach Baker — shot between the bomb cyclone in the northeast and the gnarly January rain out in California. (The shoe itself feels like a legit version of the Vans Air Force Ones that anybody who visits Japan for the first time absolutely loses their shit over. Something for the cup sole heads.)

Also heard that John Choi was on some of these sessions, but that footage is being kept top secret until the time is right ❤️

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