VENICE, Calif. — Late on a Sunday afternoon, it finally felt like the hoops universe had tilted toward balance.

The sun was dipping toward the ocean, settling behind palm trees, and Veniceball founder Nick Ansom — wearing well-worn Puma sneakers and paint-spattered sweatpants — was taking video of a young baller practicing layups at the Venice Beach basketball courts.

Along the other sideline, a handful of the men and women that Ansom regularly shares a court with were laughing together, talking about the game, and shooting the breeze at their home court, which finally opened to the public for the first time in more than a year.

After about fifteen months, the hoops were back. Venice was back.

"I saw like 40, 50 new faces today," said Ansom. "People come out here specifically to experience Venice Beach basketball. To be able to have that back, today was fun. It’s hoopers’ paradise."

Ansom, a native Frenchman and avid street baller who has called California home since he was 13 years old, founded the Venice Basketball League (otherwise known as Veniceball) in 2006 as a community tournament.

Over the years, Veniceball's popularity and visibility has grown, and Ansom has used its growth to further other basketball-boosting initiatives, touring the country and the world. He has become a basketball evangelist, rebuilding basketball courts with tours across the U.S. — a Johnny Appleseed with a killer crossover.

The games themselves are raw, fluid and fun to watch. The men and women playing the games aren’t superhumans like in the pros but they’re athletic and creative, often capable of clever, brain-bending, ankle-snapping moves.

But the COVID-19 pandemic, as it did with so many things, put Veniceball on hold. The City of Los Angeles, as with municipalities across California and the U.S., made the outdoor hoops inaccessible by affixing bars across them, so basketballs would either bounce out or get stuck.

Paradise wasn’t lost — it was locked up.

For a while, basketball froze. Eventually, hoopers began finding pickup games at private gyms and the occasional court that hadn’t closed down. The Venice Basketball League ran a short, four-event tournament last winter using courts that (for one reason or another) happened to be open at Dockweiler Beach, Long Beach, Huntington Beach and in Watts.

Ansom and his crew worked to make basketball possible throughout the pandemic. Their "Hoopbus" — a renovated school bus, fitted with a basketball hoop — toured the country, renovating courts and spreading the good word of basketball.

Plus, a series of “survival hoop” installations (functional outdoor art projects that doubled as a way to practice a jumper) culminated in an “Easter Hoop Hunt” in April, where people seeking hoops could score VBL gear, Easter candy and even sneakers.

All the while, Venice remained closed.

In late April, as Ansom explained, he couldn’t take it anymore. He and his VBL colleagues claimed to have called across the City of LA's departments dozens of times to no avail.

"Every time we heard something, it gets delayed by two or three weeks. The last thing I heard was September,” Ansom said in April.

So if they couldn’t play on the hoops in Venice, they decided to bring their own. For two weekends, Ansom and hoopers of Venice brought temporary basketball hoops (the kind of wobbly baskets you might find on a suburban driveway) to the Venice Beach courts, as part of their “Free the Hoops” protest games.

“VBL was the first league that hired me when I came out,” said Aaron “Showtime” Taylor, the new voice of Veniceball. “So to not have everything open up, it’s almost like a slap in the face. You have restaurants where people eat together. You have people going back to professional sports stadiums, even though it’s six feet apart. We should be able to come out here and play freely.”

Taylor was released from San Quentin last year, after serving 26 years for robbery and assault. While serving his time, he began doing live basketball play-by-play of pickup games and tournaments. His skill became so prodigious that the Golden State Warriors brought him aboard as a guest announcer in April.

"I mean, sometimes necessity is the engine of ingenuity," he said. "Do what you do, and you make what you can make."

On those weekends during the Free the Hoops protest, Venice regulars did what they did, just like the old days.

On the second weekend of protests, the run of games was reduced to a three-on-three tournament, as one of the temporary hoops had been left on site and was allegedly confiscated by the city.

But the crowd was insatiable, and Ansom took advantage as he could. He and a handful of regulars wore “Free the Hoops” shirts, and he authorized someone to hold up an extended pole topped with a “Free the Hoops” backboard.

"Even though it’s not a full league, I’m thankful to be back in this atmosphere," said Brian Mayfield on the day of the second protest. "Look around: People are drawn to it."

As usual, the games had drawn crowds of onlookers, tourists and boardwalk cruisers alike.

"It’s therapeutic," said Mayfield. "It’s like going to a family reunion every weekend."

Throughout the next week, Ansom was trying to figure out next steps. He promised to help out a regular who was pinched by LAPD for unlocking a hoop by himself and, in the meantime, was trying to figure out where the second hoop went.

On May 7, days after LA County had moved to the yellow tier of the state’s pandemic reopening blueprint, Veniceball dropped a new post on Instagram: The hoops had been freed.

The next Sunday run had transformed from a potential protest to a celebration. More than 100 people showed out for the traditional Sunday Open Run. By sunset, only about a dozen regulars were left, but it was like being home again.

"It’s awesome," said Sammie Archer, who ended his run of games by practicing contest-level dunks. "I honestly didn’t think it was going to be open anytime soon. But I knew as soon as they opened up Santa Monica that other cities would follow suit. This is literally hooper’s paradise, of all the places to close."

As everyone gathered their things, Ansom was relieved.

"It’s beautiful, man," he said. "It’s so much happiness and gratitude."

Things aren’t quite normal yet, however. Usually about this time, Veniceball would be holding tryouts for the league’s seasonal draft. But that will come later. For now, they’ll take just having their games back.

“I’m happy to be back, but once we get it in full effect, it’s gonna really be a great time,” Mayfield said. “Come one, come all, if you want to ball.”