A moment that changed me: I played professional basketball, until I broke my eye socket – and came to my senses

‘As a kid I used to play basketball in the back yard of my parents’ house. It never occurred to me that I might one day turn pro’ … Benjamin Markovits in 2003. Photograph: Richard Saker/The Observer

I was chasing Johnny around a screen – a blocking position – on the left nail, a throwing point. Yao had set it. He was maybe my only friend on the team – from Ivory Coast, he had been adopted by Germans and raised in Munich, about an hour’s drive away. (One night, we caught the train into the city and he took me around.) Yao was guarded by a 6ft 9in centre, whose elbow caught me in the delicate patch of skull just under the eye socket.

It was like somebody had unplugged my cheek. For the rest of practice, I sat with my back against the wall, wondering how I had ended up here.