It's that time of the year again- basketball season. The middle of the NBA season, college basketball is starting to get into conference play, and high school teams across the country are past the halfway point of the season.

But when you are still in love with the game, the season never ends.

It is going to happen to everyone at some point. Whether it’s in the pros, college, or for most of us your senior year of high school, you will have played your last official game of basketball. And that is a gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, feeling for some players.

But when you are still in love with the game, the heart never fully recovers.

Yeah sure, there is always going to be pick-up games and intramurals and all of that, but nothing will satisfy your craving to go back in time and play in your finest moment. All of hoopers have one. That moment you think about every damn time you pick up a basketball and the replay start going through your mind about how you want that moment back…

But when you are still in love with the game, that pain never goes away, you just become numb to the feeling.

You are going to go to all of your universities or colleges home games, just to watch that sweet, fluent poetry that few people understand. The whole arena is going to see the highlight reel dunk,

But when you are still in love with the game, you will be one of the few who noticed the ball fake right before the bounce pass that got the ball to him.

We are all going to have that one coach too, that is going to be way more than a coach to you. To everyone else they just the work he puts in on the court. You see the insane amount of effort and dedication they pour into the team. You go visit coach in their office and see the double-sided whiteboard filled with potential schemes and play. You talk to them about more and more basketball not because it is the only thing you have in common, but because you two have that same undeniable passion and fire for the game.

But when you are still in love with the game, that relationship develops into a lifelong connection and friendship you would not trade for the world.

Going with that coach, there’s going to be a team that lives on in your mind. That team where it wasn’t all about winning, but it was all about having fun. Nothing will ever replace all of the memories you have with them, and the bond you shared will never be broken. In that season, you realized that basketball was much more than a sport.

But when you are still in love with the game, you will never quit the game. No matter the painful memories of losing that heartbreaker or getting hurt, basketball was one of the greatest things that ever happened to you. Anyone that truly loves the game would run it back in a heartbeat.