(H)oops : Park’s Sloping Basketball Courts Give the Game a New Slant

The curious case of the crooked basketball courts began last November, when a construction crew hired by the city of Los Angeles started building two basketball courts in Westwood Park.

Alas, what should have been a joyous neighborhood occasion quickly turned into a wrangle between residents and officials of the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks.

The courts were being built at such a tilt that the park’s regular visitors soon began tromping over to gawk and giggle at the construction workers and their peculiar project.

The workers, also concerned about the slope, called park planners to double-check the plans. Park officials reassured everyone that the courts only appeared to slope because the angle of a nearby tennis court created an optical illusion.

In short, officials said, there was nothing unusual about the slope of the courts. And so crew foreman Keith Goetz and his workers went back to work and finished laying the concrete.

“To me it does look kind of extreme,” Goetz said. “But they’re the boss. We’re just the idiots doing the job.”

The matter might have ended there but for the persistence of Laura A. S. Phillips, a nearby resident and documentary film producer. She became so exasperated with the city’s refusal to acknowledge what she is convinced is a mistake that she launched a phone and letter-writing campaign.

Nothing was done.

In despair, she sent copies of her correspondence, including letters to park officials and City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, to The Times.

The courts, it turns out, were built on a 2% slope. That means that one side of the courts is more than two feet higher than the opposite side.

“We build them that way so that water can drain off,” project manager Richard Klink said. “A 2% slope is normal.”

But a survey of local contractors who specialize in tennis and basketball courts found that none of them agreed.

“Two percent? That’s flat out too much,” said Larry Greenspan, president of Arrow Construction.

Paul Geyer, general manager for Pacific Tennis Courts, said: “Two percent? That’s a lot! That’s drastic!”

Norm Sanoff, president of Great American Backyard, agreed: “Wow! That’s weird. Somebody screwed up.”

The contractors all said the maximum slope they permit on a concrete basketball court is 1%, which allows for plenty of drainage.

“You don’t want the ball to bounce funny, and you want to give the person playing a level shot,” Greenspan said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to be running uphill.”

There are, however, no national standards for the tilt of an outdoor basketball court. The American Institute of Architects’ industry bible, “Architectural Graphic Standards,” addresses everything about building basketball courts except slope, said Jan Johnson, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based organization.

Johnson suggested that the question be posed to experts at H.O.K. Sport, a Kansas City, Mo., firm with a national reputation for designing sports facilities. An architect there, Joel Leider, agreed that 1% is the maximum desirable slope for an outdoor basketball court. That’s enough to assure proper drainage even for grass baseball and football fields, he said.

City officials, told that private contractors considered a 2% slope excessive, claimed to be stymied.

“I’ll be darned,” said Peter New, a landscape architecture assistant who helped design the courts. He said the slope followed park department standards.

Sonia Conaway, owner of the Rancho Mirage firm that poured the concrete, was also impatient with the fuss.

“The slope is perfectly normal,” she said. “It’s just these stupid damn neighbors who are causing the problem.”

Phillips insists that she was just trying to fix a problem.

“I have no personal stake in this--I’m not even a basketball player!” she said. “I just don’t like to see taxpayers’ money going to build a mistake.”

Phillips says she doesn’t know what should be done now. It hardly seems worth it, she said, to spend $100,000 more to rip up the courts and build new ones.

And so the case of the crooked basketball courts may finally dribble to a most unsatisfactory close.