Sure, These Comics Can Make You Laugh. But Can They Hit a Jump Shot?

It took a moment for Dan Yang to register exactly whose fist he had bumped one Sunday afternoon earlier this year.

Mr. Yang, a comedian, was lacing his sneakers before his weekly pickup basketball game, nonchalantly greeting the other players as they entered the gym.

He extended a pound to Ben Marshall, a writer and performer for “Saturday Night Live,” then did the same to a newcomer in a Hawaiian shirt shuffling a few steps behind.

“But I did a double take,” Mr. Yang said, “because it was Adam Sandler.”

Whether he knew it or not, Mr. Sandler had joined these hoopers in their happy place: a musty, subterranean gym where New York’s buzzing comedy scene and pickup basketball underworld collide.

This weekly, invitation-only session, known simply as the Sunday Game, is populated almost entirely by professional funny people from all corners of the comedy landscape — stand-up comedians on their way up, comics past their primes and, as in the case of Mr. Sandler, industry A-listers.

They all are accustomed to performing in dank basements across New York City. But here, beneath an East Village elementary school, punchlines are less important than the 3-point line, and crowd work takes a back seat to footwork.

The game, for the comedians, represents a welcome respite from the road, a way to stay in touch with friends and, in their eyes, a rare thing in their lives that might actually be good for their bodies.

“Comics are not healthy people,” said Sam Morril, a stand-up from Manhattan who released a Netflix special, “Same Time Tomorrow” in 2022. “We work at night. We drink. So I think you make an extra effort to do a healthy thing, if the healthy thing is fun.”

The weekly game crystallized into its current form roughly a decade ago, partly as a consolidation of other comedy-adjacent games that were taking place around the city.

Scores of big-name stand-ups, including Nate Bargatze and Hasan Minhaj, have played over the years, according to the players. And the group is always welcoming new blood, like Kam Patterson, 26, a prominent up-and-comer, who stopped by to play earlier this summer.

Managing all these personalities is Joel Walkowski, 38, a comic based in Queens, who oversees the current membership of close to 100 people. He also organizes a separate, sprawling, four-on-four tournament each September called “The Big Walkowski” that raises money for charity. Though there are some non-comedians in the group — Jon Lampley, the trumpet player for “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” is an enthusiastic participant — almost every player has some tie to the industry.

“My agent, he gets in,” Mr. Walkowski said. “None of these other guys put money in my pocket.”

The Sunday Game, somewhat like an episode of “S.N.L.,” coalesces over the course of a week. The official invitation goes out on Tuesday morning, and the slots fill up quickly. As in any successful pickup game, the criteria for inclusion focuses more on vibes than athleticism.

“Please,” Mr. Walkowski writes in his emails, “be fun to play with.”

Mr. Walkowski fronts the fee for the gym, then spends the rest of the week asking the other players for money. He has been known to stare people down mid-game while rubbing his fingertips together, the international signal for payment. And every Sunday night, he presents an award — a broken, 18th-place chess trophy he found in a garbage can — to the person he deems the week’s most valuable player.

For all of this, Mr. Walkowski has earned the respect of his peers.

“He looks and sounds like an idiot, but he’s smart,” said Carmen Lagala, a stand-up and one of the few women to regularly play.

On a recent Sunday, the comedians descended into the gym just before 5 p.m. and began loosening up. Almost immediately, a young man from another group approached Mr. Morril with a look of recognition.

“You’re that stand-up comedian, right?” the player said. “I love your stuff.”

Among players, though, careers and the business of comedy were rarely discussed. Struggling comics and established ones operated on equal footing. And by the end of the evening, it was Mr. Morril’s offensive toolbox — including agile post moves and a jump shot with a bit of range — that was earning him praise.

Among those impressed was Devon Walker, an S.N.L. cast member known for his portrayal of Mayor Eric Adams. He declared Mr. Morril to be “balling.” Mr. Walker said he enjoyed observing his peers in such a different context. (Other participants from the S.N.L. cast have included Alex Moffat and Andrew Dismukes.)

“I’ve seen comics who are the sweetest guys, then you come here, and they’re throwing elbows,” Mr. Walker said. “It’s like the comedy version of an office Christmas party: I’m used to seeing these people in one light, and now I’m seeing them in a very different way.”

The basketball on display was scrappy but spirited, with all skill levels and sizes represented. Mr. Walker, who played football in high school, and Mr. Walkowski, who is barrel-chested and tall, with an art work by James Turrell tattooed on his left biceps, grappled frequently under the basket.

“People say I play like a bear falling down the stairs,” Mr. Walkowski said.

Asked to name an N.B.A. player as a reference for his own style of play, Mr. Yang settled on Boris Diaw, a French forward who retired in 2017 after averaging a modest 8.6 points per game in his career. Mr. Morril, asked the same question, rejected its premise altogether.

Several players singled out Mr. Marshall, 30, who performs on S.N.L. as part of the group “Please Don’t Destroy,” as one of comedy’s best hoopers. Mr. Marshall, who is 6-foot-5, played somewhat seriously in his youth, including for a high-level club team in Savannah, Ga., where he was, he noted, his team’s only white player — and fit that stereotype.

“You think I’m going to shoot 3s — and then I do,” said Mr. Marshall, who dismissed the notion that he was actually any good: “The bar for comedians is so low that if I was playing with even a group of lawyers, I’d be middling. Your average fraternity could beat an All-Star team of New York comedians.”

The quality of play was never worse, actually, than the afternoon Mr. Sandler showed up.

Mr. Sandler, who declined a request for comment, had appeared on S.N.L. the previous night, introducing a musical segment for Timothée Chalamet. At the after-party, he ran into Mr. Marshall and asked if he knew of any basketball games that weekend.

The comedians, many of whom grew up idolizing Mr. Sandler, were stunned when he strolled into the gym the following day. But his presence was not entirely far-fetched: Grainy clips of Mr. Sandler shooting hoops in seemingly random parks have in recent years become their own genre of viral social media content.

As the games began, the comics found it difficult, at first, to play it cool.

Passes were fumbled. Layups clanged off the rim.

“I remember being like, ‘Wow, the quality of play today is at an all-time low,’” Mr. Marshall said, laughing.

But eventually the game found its normal groove, and Mr. Sandler proved a generous playmaker, slinging the ball around his back, slipping passes into tight spaces and generally looking to facilitate action for the players around him.

In other ways, too, Mr. Sandler was a good teammate. He introduced himself to everyone and quickly learned their names. He obliged their sheepish requests for selfies.

At some point, the players came to an unspoken agreement to let Mr. Sandler stay on the court for every game, win or lose, even after he offered to sit out.

“He has extremely good stamina for a 58-year-old man,” said Dan Perlman, a comic who created a television series called “Flatbush Misdemeanors” for Showtime. “He brought the right Sunday energy.”

And Mr. Sandler even accepted some good-natured ribbing.

“I did hit him with a ‘shabadoo’ after making one,” Mr. Walkowski said, mimicking Mr. Sandler’s trademark gibberish. “He laughed.”

The comedians said that there was, in general, less witty banter and snappy smack talk during the weekly games than an outsider might imagine. But there are still moments of well-timed levity.

At one point in the game earlier this month, Mr. Walkowski snatched an offensive rebound from the clutches of another comic, Tobin Miller, and sank a bucket in traffic, before exclaiming, “Too small!”

Mr. Walkowski thought the taunt had sounded sufficiently facetious — Mr. Miller’s Instagram bio reads, “6’7” Comedian” — but was left wondering if the joke had possibly provoked Mr. Miller, because moments later, he was corralling an outlet pass, hopscotching along the left base line and dunking emphatically with his right hand. The room erupted in hoots and applause.

“I do a lot of ‘tall’ stuff in my act,” Mr. Miller said later.

The players continued this way at a relentless pace. By the end of the session they were dragging their feet and tugging at their shorts. A janitor peeked through the doorway, preparing to clean up for the night.

But the comics had 10 minutes left, so they hurriedly launched into one last game.

“I’ve got a show right after this,” Mr. Yang said, walking onto the court in a drenched red jersey. “I’m just going sweaty.”