It’s March 2023 and a Los Angeles-based photographer who goes by the name Xavier Luggage is in the middle of his first basketball game at the Poinsettia Recreation Center.
The park usually fills up around 6 pm with people arriving to watch the games. But it’s about an hour before when the players’ attention turns to the side of the court.
Everyone sees him warming up, seemingly out of nowhere.
“I thought, damn, he looks like Adam Sandler,” Luggage told ESPN.
His friend thinks the same and gets scared. He runs at Sandler and hits him mid-play.
The comedian has a simple answer: “I’m next.”
SANDLER’S RESUME INCLUDES nine People’s Choice Awards, three Grammy Award nominations and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His films have grossed more than $3 billion worldwide. In 2023, the Kennedy Center awarded him the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.
But when he’s not on the clock, Sandler is just another shooter, and he might just show up at a basketball court near you. Sure, the comedian could presumably play with big names wherever he wants, and he has, but he prefers to play with the locals.
Sandler (who declined a request to comment for this article) has said in previous interviews that he plays basketball several times a week. During filming, a location scout who finds sets for the film also locates clues for him. Sandler will get text messages like: “Five minutes on a good court” so he can play between shots.
He has played with several nba stars over the years, participating in a 2021 run with Trae Young and Tobias Harris, among several pros. In 2010, Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal called the comedian “a very good player” who knows the game.
But local courts are where he hones his craft.
Sandler appears without an entourage wearing his trademark brightly colored oversized polo shirts and baggy shorts. Look to make the extra pass. He delivers as many praises as assists, regardless of whether he’s on your team, and competition reigns supreme.
Adam Sandler shows his skills on the court
Adam Sandler warms up on the court before the start of Arizona-Colorado.
Ask the guys who have played against him.
“It’s like that random older guy that comes on the court and you’re like, ‘OK, he’s whatever,’ and then you pick him up and he makes the craziest passes,” Luggage said. “He doesn’t move too much, he doesn’t do as much as possible. But he just has the original game like he’s been playing it forever.”
Luggage recalled an exchange with Sandler when the comedian acted as his defender.
“He came up to me and said, ‘Oh man, I hope you’re not quick,'” the photographer said. “And I looked at him like, ‘Oh man, you fucked up.'”
In retrospect, it might have been Luggage who was wrong to underestimate Sandler’s basketball skills.
“He intended to play. It’s not like he just came to fuck around, you know, like he wanted to win for sure…” Luggage said of their encounter in Los Angeles. “Honestly, it was pretty magical, bro.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by Patrick Quinn, a comedian who played two games with Sandler in 2019.
Quinn and her friends met up with the comedian in a park in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles. After engaging him in a brief conversation at a water fountain, the group walked away as they did not want to disturb him.
Sandler caught them before they could get far and asked, “Do you mind if I play with you?” Moments later, Sandler was yelling plays on the court.
Quinn played against Sandler in one game and then they teamed up in the next. Sandler became competitive, putting his body against the players and boxing. His skills took Quinn by surprise.
“He’s essentially an influencer in other ways, I wouldn’t expect him to make these plays where it seems like you have to play a lot to do something like that,” Quinn said. “And he was nailing them.”
Sandler, as expected, sported bright colors and an oversized T-shirt, his signature style for pick-up games.
Quinn said Sandler’s outfit was captivating, highlighting his theory that the actor does it on purpose so “you don’t think he’s going to absolutely dominate the court.” But he did it that day.
“He was playing points, calling plays, taking shots. He was making no-look passes,” Quinn said. “I was creating shots and going up and down the court. I was up and down sweating, working a little bit… I was very impressed.”
Quinn had an open mic event in 20 minutes but didn’t want to stop playing with his idol. Sandler forced him off the court and warned him that events like these are the way Quinn would learn and grow.
Two years later, Quinn ran into Sandler at a coffee shop in Malibu, and when he mentioned that they had played together, Sandler remembered Quinn, calling him by name.
“It was really cool to see someone like that,” Quinn said. “And recognizing that someone like that, who is so great and synonymous with comedian and funny and blah, blah, blah, can also be so genuine and so kind.”
DJ FOSTER SHARED A similar experience with Sandler.
Foster, a former assistant athletic director at Aquinas College, a small private Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, played with Sandler in June 2019. Their game took place while the comedian was in Grand Rapids for a stop on his stand-up tour.
Two months before his visit to the city, the school’s athletic director received a call asking if Sandler and his team could play basketball at Aquinas. They did, and Sandler arrived to play with members of his team, including Jonathan Loughran, his longtime assistant.
They dressed for five games straight with Foster and others from the Aquinas athletic department. Foster played alongside Sandler and his team lost the first two games.
That’s when Sandler spoke up and told the team, “Come on, we have to win this,” according to Foster. And they did, winning the next three games to clinch the series.
Adam Sandler chose to play basketball in @AquinoCollege this afternoon before their show at Van Andel Arena tonight! Great day to be a saint! pic.twitter.com/hDL9bilk2g
– Aquinas Athletics (@AQSaints) June 6, 2019
“That fifth game was pretty competitive and we were trying to win it so we could brag and have that story to tell for the rest of our lives,” Foster said. “[Adam] “He definitely had a competitive side.”
What caught Foster’s attention about Sandler’s game is what Shaq and others highlighted: He knows the game and passes frequently.
When Foster and other members of Aquinas’ athletic department finished playing with Sandler, Foster introduced the comedian to his wife and the couple expressed their excitement at seeing him perform that night.
Sandler then asked the rest of the group if they had tickets to the show. Most didn’t… but not for long. Sandler passed along a phone number to contact one of his assistants and left a dozen floor-seating tickets at will for the group.
The Aquinas athletic department, including Foster and Ryan Bertoia, the school’s men’s basketball coach who was also in attendance, filled the first five rows of the crowd that night.
“The Adam that you see on late night talk shows and in all these interviews is the one we saw that day,” Foster said. “He’s just an average guy, a really good guy, complimentary… that made the experience even better.”
JOSHUA JACKSON WAS playing at an LA Fitness in Georgia in December 2019. Sandler arrived in similarly calm fashion, accompanied by some friends who wanted to play basketball. Jackson told ESPN that Sandler’s entrance froze time, punctuated by the comedian’s “alarming outfit.”
“I had to be wearing something from a decade ago. Like 3XL pants, a big and tall wrinkled shirt,” Jackson said. “I definitely had clothes that would fit a 6-foot-8 linebacker.”
But none of that mattered once the ball started bouncing.
Jackson, 31, teamed with Sandler for two 5-on-5 games. He stressed that he would “for sure” play with Sandler again, noting his high IQ. Jackson said he held up very well for his age, and described Sandler as a pass-first point guard.
There isn’t a single moment that emphasizes that more than Jackson’s viral post about When Jackson turned around, what looked like a rocket flew into his hands.
“I literally just turn around[ed] “It was around and it was in my bread basket,” Jackson said. “It was a perfect pocket pass.” I had to go up with that.”
He insists he didn’t know how Sandler executed the pass, one he described as super fast and perfect but “soft.”
Jackson said he has played basketball his entire life in different states and venues. To this day, there hasn’t been a pass that comes close to that.
“It’s still the best pass I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “And I’m not saying that because I’m Adam Sandler.”
Adam Sandler threw me a dime today pic.twitter.com/a5R4JDscT7
– ≠ (@senseisigh) December 20, 2019
Nailing slick, no-look passes are among Sandler’s skills that seem to come second nature to him.
Luggage says he’s seen Sandler make behind-the-head passes. Jackson saw Sandler throw a behind-the-back bounce pass that he described as “pretty hot.” Foster said Sandler probably passes too much, but it complements his style of seeking to involve everyone.
Bertoia was also impressed with Sandler’s basketball skills.
“To me, from a basketball standpoint, he took the shots that were there,” he said. “He definitely tries to keep the ball moving… I would have liked to play with him.”
JACKSON CALLED SANDLER the most relatable celebrity he’s ever played with because he didn’t do it for show: Sandler wanted to stay in the moment.
Luggage recalled how when Sandler came to court, he didn’t say a peep. His only security guard was away. Even when his friend reacted loudly to seeing the comedian, Sandler remained humble, indicating his desire to play in the next game.
No one picked him up for another game after his team lost: too many people had shown up and formed teams. Sandler, probably anticipating a long wait, left.
“To be honest, I don’t even remember him leaving,” Luggage said. “I just remember he just wasn’t there.”
The comedian left as he arrived, without pomp or circumstance. In his wake, he left a growing legend, not that of a Hollywood comedian, but that of a mysterious basketball player who could show up at the local court dressed in baggy clothes and shouting “next one.
