Realistically, that game would be Steph Curry having ball all the time dancing around you while you dont touch ball except initially. It would also make Steph Curry score within 3 sec from gaining the ball.

Overall effect is that you do nothing. There is no strategy you can use or think about, no time to try trics with ball or even shoot or dribble.

One reason it is not fun is that the less good person don't actually get to be active in play - he will be effectively in much passive position and it wont even be challenge.

I would love to lose a game of basketball against Steph Curry, would certainly be a fun experience. But it would get old fast as he would certainly crush me every time.

If my goal is to get better at basketball, playing against Steph Curry is not useful. Learning happens most efficiently when the challenge is somewhat above your current skill level, but not enormously so.

If someone just recently started going to the gym, would you put a 300 pound barbell in front of them and tell them to lift that, and assume they're a loser if they don't get any enjoyment from failing to lift it?

No but I'd assume they were a loser if they left the gym if someone walked in that could lift it.

That isn't a very good comparison. Lifting weights isn't a competition in the way that basketball is. I want to say the latter is more "zero-sum", but I'm not sure if that's correct terminology.

There are plenty of competitive weight lifting sports. CrossFit, Olympic lifting, powerlifting...

I would probably have fun shooting free throws with Steph Curry, even though I would be lucky to make as many as he missed.

That's more like the weight lifting you're comparing it to - the competition involves artificially choosing the other person as a benchmark, and I can work against whatever internal benchmark I want.

This is very different than a game of one-on-one, where it's his job to change how I interact with the ball (which he would, to the point of meaninglessness) and vice-versa (which I would fail at to the point of triviality).

It's not strange (or a personal failing) to find that less interesting.

" I would probably have fun shooting free throws with Steph Curry, even though I would be lucky to make as many as he missed." I think you're underselling yourself (or Steph) with it. He makes over 90% freethrows, which would mean - for the sake of your argument - that you'd be "lucky" to make more than 10% of your freethrows. I think you are better :) (sorry for this nitpick)

I welcome the nitpicking, but I stand by my statement :-p

I had meant to restrict my weight lifting comments to the kind of weight lifting that goes on in gyms (what was being discussed upthread). And I have to confess I don't know much about those sports you named, but do the participants really interact with each other like they would in, say basketball or soccer? Maybe there really is a rule like "there are a finite number of weights, and each can be lifted by at most one person", which would be pretty similar to "there's only one ball, therefore only the player with the ball can score"? And therefore being paired with someone who vastly outclasses you wrt lifting weights will effectively render you unable to participate (by taking all the weights you can lift, similar to taking 100% of the possessions of the ball).