#where he had to win this challenge against this kid to dribble a basketball and 'juggle' a table tennis ball at the same time

[adore-gregor]

Gregor really is good at everything wow 😂🤯

[ptergwen]

oooh oml how about a blurb w peter in his spider-man suit (or not but the kids look up to him) playing basketball with a few kids and you see him interacting with them and he makes you join him. like just a whole lot of fun and the kids say, "are you two gonna get married?" and you're both like 😳😳😳.... "maybe??" or wtv (ily tonnes)

knock(it)out of the park

w/c: 1.8k

a/n: oh my goddddd :( ilyt thank you for this <3 also the gif is super unrelated he just looks cute

-

there are few people in this world as generous as peter parker. whether it’s saving the city as spider-man or doing food drives with may, he’s always helping someone, somehow. his desire to give back comes from the kindness in his own heart. he’s shown you that so many times before, but there’s one that stands out to you most.

your general chemistry class had made a group chat so you could ‘collaborate’ with each other. there were a few particular topics you were struggling with at the time. you’d texted everyone asking for help, but they were either busy or didn’t understand themselves. science and specifically chemistry being peter’s best subject, he reached out to you separately.

he felt for you because you had a pretty big exam coming up. he’d offered to call you so you could work through some problems together. why, you had no idea. you two had exchanged no more than a “hi” or “can i borrow a pencil?” now, he wanted to give up his night to tutor you? how could someone be so sweet?

that test ended up being your highest grade so far. you thanked peter in person with a hug that turned his cheeks a deep shade of pink. after that, you asked him to be your study buddy. he didn’t hesitate to agree. you met at your school library twice or sometimes three times a week.

peter really liked talking to you. he found himself smiling through your conversations and the funny comments you made when you got frustrated. you loved how genuine he was, how he wasn’t afraid to wear his heart out on his sleeve. not literally, even though you were studying chemistry.

he’d wanted to get to know you beyond your hatred for balancing chemical equations, so he asked you out for coffee. it was something simple that no college student would pass up. you’d had to push peter’s hand away so he’d let you buy the drinks. you insisted that he already did so much for you, so you could pay it back.

that lead to you properly taking his hand in yours while you waited for your coffees. his palm was a bit sweaty, probably from nerves. he laced your fingers together once they died down and gave you that soft smile of his.

that was almost two years ago. since then, you’ve fallen completely in love with peter. peter has fallen at least ten times harder for you.

instead of walking you to your dorm like he usually does, peter asked you to meet him at the park today. he’s been spending a lot of time there lately. it’s close to campus and he always comes back grinning ear to ear, which is all that really matters. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t curious what he does there, though.

you head over to the basketball court like peter had told you to earlier. you can’t imagine what you’re doing here. laughing to yourself, you drop your bag on the nearest bench, then take a seat. you’re not in the dark much longer because you hear someone call your name. you recognize their voice as peter’s.

“hey, y/n! c’mere!” is followed by the sound of a basketball dribbling. you look up and realize he’s playing with a group of kids. they’re all in a line, watching peter in awe. he easily jumps up and shoots a hoop in front of them. you hear a “woah, how’d you do that so fast?” and “you’re sick, peter!”

that makes him chuckle while he high fives some of the boys and fist bumps the others. this must be why he’s been coming to the park. peter was never quite the athlete until he got his powers. everyone in high school knew him to be terrible at sports, so he couldn’t exactly join any teams out of the blue. it’s nice he gets to show off his skills now.

it’s also adorable seeing him with his own mini team. they’re a group of five boys who can’t be any older than twelve. peter definitely has a soft spot for the little ones. he’s always talking about morgan, who he babysits whenever pepper isn’t around. you’ve never seen him in action until today.

a grin spreading across your face, you make your way over to the basketball court. peter passed the ball to one of the boys so he can block him while he tries to shoot. he goes easy on him, and he makes the basket. “nice job, shawn!” peter compliments and holds open his hands for the ball back. shawn beams at peter, throwing it to him.

peter notices you coming over and hits gabe with a “think fast” to pass the ball off again. you’re still smiling as peter jogs up to you. he slings an arm around your waist and pecks your lips at the same time. you squeal, pleasantly surprised as you rest your hands on his chest.

“not in front of the kids,” you tease and glance over at them. they’re fighting over whose turn it is. peter wraps his other arm around you with a knowing smirk. “how’d you meet them, by the way?” his smirk becomes a shy smile. “i was walking around here the other day and they needed a sixth player,” he explains, you biting on your lip.

“they asked me to join. guess i’m an official member now.” you trace peter’s jaw with your thumb, making him tilt his head to the side. “you’re the best person i know. best person ever.” he dismisses your words with a click of his tongue. “i can’t say no to a kid, or five.” “god, i love you,” you giggle softly, peter threading his fingers through yours.

“i love you more. you wanna join us?” he raises an eyebrow to urge you to say yes. unlike peter, you’re just terrible at basketball. you’d be better off on the sidelines. “i don’t know how to play,” you sigh and roll your eyes at your confession. “what about knockout? think everyone learned that at some point,” peter suggests in that same persuasive tone.

you give in with a huff. “okay, i think i remember that.” “awesome.” he takes your hand and happily leads you over to the court. the kids stop their bickering once peter gets there, everyone falling back into a line. they must like him a lot. “alright, guys. how about we do a few rounds of knockout?” peter rubs his hands together.

“who’s that?” david ignores peter’s question, pointing at you. he has the ball in his other hand. max hits it out and grabs it for himself. david is about to get him back for it, but peter speaks up again. “this is y/n,” he introduces you and puts an arm around your shoulders. you give the kids a small wave. “hi!” “is she your girlfriend?” shawn blurts out.

kids really have no filter. peter breathes out a laugh, drawing you into his side more. “yup. she’s gonna play with us.” “no girls allowed!” anthony yells out and crosses his arms in defiance. he’d been the quietest, then that happened. you try not to take it to heart because these are only children, but damn.

peter ‘pffts’ at him. “oh, come on. who made that rule?” everyone points at gabe. his face falls, and he pokes max’s arm harshly. “it wasn’t me, it was him!” max shakes his head side to side. “no! it was-“ “never mind, it doesn’t matter who it was,” peter finally decides before they all accuse each other. you give him a look to say you can handle it.

“you know, some of the best athletes are girls,” you tell the kids gently, offering a devious smile. “don’t you want a challenge?” you’re not referring to yourself, but you’ll let them think otherwise. no one’s too young to have their misogyny shut down. peter proudly presses his lips to the side of your head.

the boys whisper amongst themselves before shawn replies on their behalf. “we accept.”

peter gets on the line after finding another ball, you behind him. the start the game right away. first is shawn and anthony, and anthony loses that round. he’s up against david next. anthony can’t seem to aim right, which makes him lose that round and get out of the game. he shoots a glare your way. that gets a snort from peter.

max goes against gabe after that. gabe gets the ball in first, leaving max to go with peter. he gets it in while peter is shooting his first basket. it’s you and peter now. there’s no way you’re winning this, even if he’s easy on you. he’s not. he makes his basket while you’re in mid-air trying to get your own.

“sorry, y/n/n!” peter shouts and goes off to the back of the line. you groan, shawn being your opponent. he’s the better of the kids. you keep shooting baskets while he aims for his first. neither of you make it, except you get closer. the two of you go on for a couple of minutes before you both shoot at the same time. your ball hits into his and, well, knocks it out.

you make the basket.

the kids all gasp, including shawn, as you run back over to peter. he high fives you with both hands, then locks his with yours. “babe! you made a basket!” peter cheers for you. “i made a basket!” you repeat, jumping up and down. everyone is going to take you as serious competition from here on out.

by the time you finish the next couple of rounds, you’re all out of breath. you managed to win one. it would’ve been two, had peter not been the other person left in with you. it definitely helped that you have a few feet and around ten years on all the kids. they did try their hardest either way, and you all had a really good time.

the boys each grew respect for you. you’re glad you gave them a new perspective.

“good game, y/n,” shawn says like he’s wise beyond his years, shaking your hand. “you too,” you grin at him and give him a firm handshake back. peter squeezes your waist from where he’s standing behind you. “we’d ask you to join the team, if it didn’t make us an odd number,” david explains, gabe nodding in agreement.

you lay your head back on peter’s chest. “dang, you’re right. i had a lot of fun, though.” all the boys look at you two suspiciously. max asks what they’re all wondering. “peter, are you gonna marry her?” you feel him stiffen against you, his breath hitching. “wh- what?” he stammers out and subconsciously tightens his grip around your waist.

anthony gags at the question, shawn slapping him on the back for that. he asks this time. “yeah, are you?” your lips pull into a smirk, you looking at peter over you shoulder. “are you, peter?” this is something you’ve talked about before, so you’re not putting him on the spot. peter meets your eyes and tells you the same thing he said last time. “one day, i hope.”

[junker-town]

Josh Giddey is the NBA draft pick who almost slipped through the cracks

How Josh Giddey went from being cut by his Australian state team to a potential NBA draft lottery pick.

Josh Giddey knew he was down to his last chance. As he arrived at a multi-day basketball jamboree known as the East Coast Challenge, Giddey was one of 60 youth players competing from the Australian states of Victoria, New South Wales, and South Australia hoping to be selected for the prestigious state team.

State basketball is the pathway to a brighter future in the game in Australia, but it had alluded Giddey to this point. Three times he had tried out for state-level basketball, and three times he had received an email at the end of the event telling him he’d been cut. Only 16 years old and already realizing he was at a crossroads in his career, Giddey was determined not to let it happen again.

He had the benefit of a recent growth spurt this time around that taken him up to 6’8 as a point guard. The added height only accentuated the gifts that always made him stand out: his passing and playmaking, and perhaps more importantly his ability to think one step ahead of the next defensive adjustment. After shining at the camp, the anxious hours waiting to hear if he was selected turned into a quiet confidence.

“I kept promising myself I wouldn’t get cut, I wouldn’t get cut, and the last opportunity I had to make the state team I didn’t get cut,” Giddey told SB Nation. “I finally got that one email I was waiting for.”

Giddey’s life has been in overdrive ever since. After shining at a subsequent national event, he was offered a scholarship by the NBA Global Academy at the Australian Institute of Sport. Giddey moved across the country to Canberra, where he would spend the next 18 months developing his game and his body while competing against peer-aged competition around the world. The accolades he earned at the academy eventually led Giddey to become the first Australian player to be tabbed for the Next Stars program in the country’s domestic professional league, the NBL.

After one season with the Adelaide 36ers, Giddey is now on his way to the 2021 NBA Draft. The same player who couldn’t separate himself from his peers in Victoria only two years ago is now projected as a likely lottery pick.

Giddey is at once on a meteoric rise and still just scratching the surface. He’s one of the youngest players in the draft and has a case as one of the most accomplished given his production in a pro league against seasoned adults. He is still growing into his body and refining his jump shot while already possessing the type of mental processing gifts that can’t be taught. It has been a wild ride to bring him to the precipice of his NBA dreams, but Giddey isn’t the type to get overwhelmed by the moment.

“It’s just good to see the work paying off,” he said.

Photo by Kelly Barnes/Getty Images

Marty Clarke remembers the first time he identified Giddey as a future prospect to watch during his days as a college assistant coach at WCC power Saint Mary’s. A fellow Australian, Clarke was a former teammate of Josh’s dad, Warrick, who enjoyed a long professional career with the NBL’s Melbourne Tigers and had his No. 6 retired by the club. He saw the traits that could eventually make the young guard the type of player Saint Mary’s would one day want to target, but he knew it was going to be a while before they could do so. Giddey was only 12 years old.

“When I first went to St. Mary’s in 2013, I said coach (Randy) Bennett, there’s a kid I want to put on the board but it will be like seven years before we can get him,” Clarke recalls. “He can really pass with his weak hand. He can pass full court, off the dribble, or from penetration. He was kind of doing a lot of that stuff as a 12-14 year old. Now he’s a 6’8 person who can do that.”

Clarke would eventually get his chance to help develop Giddey in a way neither could have anticipated. When the NBA partnered with the Australian Institute of Sport and Basketball Australia’s Centre of Excellence in 2017 to launch the NBA Global Academy, Clarke left Saint Mary’s to take a job as its technical director. Clarke was the perfect candidate as someone who previously had experience as a coach at the Australian Institute of Sport, and now had familiarity with American college basketball.

The same place that had produced almost every Australian player to reach the NBA — Andrew Bogut, Matthew Dellavedova, Dante Exum, Joe Ingles, Luc Longley, Aron Baynes, and Patty Mills among them — was now further investing in its connection to the league. Clarke would oversee all aspects of player development and coaching for the 12 high school-aged players who were offered a scholarship to the academy.

“We have a really good blue print,” Clarke said. “The Australian academy has been here for 40 years. This is what this place has always been doing, producing Olympians and future NBA players.”

The NBA launched academies in India, Senegal, Mexico, China over the last 10 years as a year-round development initiative for elite youth prospects. Australia’s Global Academy takes teenagers from around the world. In its partnership with the AIS, players with the Global Academy live in dorms and attend classes while preparing them for life as a professional athlete. Instead of trying to win as many games as possible and compete for championships like a college team, the main goal of the academy is individual development.

The players at the Global Academy go to school and training six days per week with only Sundays off. In a typical week, players will be put through regular full team practices, as well as smaller group sessions that focus on things like connecting the bigs to the smalls by drilling pick-and-rolls and post entries. There’s shooting and skill training every morning before school, as well as weight lifting three times per week, and mindfulness training. Spliced in with all of that is education on nutrition, physiology, and personal learning like financial literacy and social media courses.

“Our goal here is when they leave here, they have lots of options,” Clarke said. “We make sure they’re eligible for universities. We want to make sure every door is open when they leave.”

The Global Academy also plays games against peer-aged teams, and that’s where Giddey continued to raise his profile. Giddey would lead the academy to the championship at the prestigious Torneo Junior Ciutat de L’Hospitalet tournament in Spain and was named MVP of the event. He followed it up with a strong showing at Basketball Without Borders during All-Star Weekend last year in Chicago.

“His development since he got here has been off the charts,” Clarke said. “Because he missed that state-level development, he skipped up to another level and had a lot to learn. He jumped a stage, really.”

Giddey’s time at the academy had given him multiple avenues to explore on what he should do next. That’s when he faced the next flashpoint decision in his burgeoning young career: Was he better off going to college in America or staying home to play in Australia?

Photo by Kelly Defina/Getty Images

Giddey had a long list of American college basketball programs who wanted him. He had standing scholarship offers from Arizona, Colorado, Rutgers, St. John’s, and more. After one college visit in particular, Giddey felt like he was ready to commit.

“I was 99 percent set on college,” Giddey said. “I took a visit to Colorado sometime in 2020, when I left there after my two-day visit, I was ready to commit there. I was about to commit there but my parents said just wait to we get home and we’ll talk about it.

“So I went home and we started talking to some people and they started talking about the NBL Next Star pathway. I met with Jeremy Loeliger, who is the CEO of the NBL, and they really sold it to me. The way they take care of their kids, the opportunity you’ll get to play against grown men at such a young age, I thought that was better for me personally than going to college to play against other kids.”

On April 16, 2020, at just 17 years old, Giddey signed with the Adelaide 36ers of the NBL. He had become the first Australian to take advantage of the league’s ‘Next Stars’ program, which was originally intended to lure top American prospects who didn’t want to play college basketball. Former McDonald’s All-Americans Terrance Ferguson and Brian Bowen were two of the first signees of the program, but it was a decision by LaMelo Ball and R.J. Hampton to sign in Australia that helped convince Giddey it was the best path for him.

“They surprised everyone with how good they were, especially LaMelo,” said Giddey. “It was good to see because it was something I wanted to do. I wanted to be an NBL player and eventually an NBA player. To see those guys come through gave me the confidence to think I could hopefully do something similar.”

Going from youth tournaments against peer-aged competition to playing against grown men was an enormous adjustment. Giddey struggled with it at first. The ambitious passes that defined his time at the youth level were often becoming turnovers in more meaningful games. He was ice cold as a shooter to start the year, hitting just 2-of-20 shots from three-point range over his first seven games. The biggest issue was playing through contact on both ends of the floor.

“I was struggling with the physicality of the league,” Giddey said of the start to his time in the NBL. “You don’t realize how physical the league is until you actually play against guys that are 35 years old and strong, athletic, and quick. It was just a completely different level to junior basketball. I was playing at a fast pace the whole time. I was rushed, I was nervous.”

He points to his second game as his initial breakthrough, when he finished with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and seven assists against South East Melbourne, and was trusted to take the final shot in regulation. Even though he missed, the 36ers would win in overtime, and Giddey started every game the rest of the season.

Giddey was masterful at times as a facilitator, firing passes to open shooters in the corner with either hand and finding unique angles to get the ball to the big man near the basket. Starting center Daniel Johnson had one of the best seasons of his career at age-33 with Giddey at the controls, and fellow teammate (and former Kentucky big man) Isaac Humphries turned into a dependable scorer, as well. Giddey’s three-point shot also started to come around eventually, hitting 36.7 percent of his shots from deep those first 20 attempts.

“The big thing for me early in the year was I was so down on confidence,” Giddey said. “I was so worried if I missed what people were going to say, what scouts were going to think. There was a point where I spoke to one of my teammates and he told me all of this doesn’t matter. Just shoot every shot like you think you’re going to make it. That was when it switched for me.”

Before season’s end, Giddey had run off three triple-doubles over a four-game stretch and had firmly established himself as a first round NBA draft pick. Given his age and the level of competition, Giddey was remarkably productive: he averaged 10.9 points, 7.4 rebounds, and a league-leading 7.5 assists per game on 51 percent true shooting.

Those numbers stack up reasonably well to what Ball did in the same league a year earlier as 6’8 playmaking guard at 18 years old. Ball scored more, but slightly less efficiently (47.9 true shooting) while their rebound, assist, and steal numbers were similar. It is worth noting that while Ball was often deemed reckless as a lead decision-maker, Giddey’s turnover rate was significantly highly at 23.7 vs. Ball’s 12.4.

Giddey isn’t as flexible and shifty as a ball handler as LaMelo, but the baseline similarities and statistical profiles in the same league, at the same age will be tempting for teams, especially following Ball’s run to Rookie of the Year after being the No. 3 pick in the 2020 NBA Draft.

“To see how (Ball’s) game translated to the NBA, it’s made me feel even better about my decision,” Giddey said.

The appeal of Giddey for NBA teams starts with his intersection of size and passing. Giddey is an impressive facilitator off a live dribble who will fire passes with either hand while on the move. Against a set defense, Giddey is able to make quick decisions with the ball, and loves to zip a two-handed, overhead pass to his big man in the paint. His interior passing is particularly impressive thanks in part to his ability to leverage his length to find creative angles in tight spaces. The big question for his offensive game will be if he can make opposing defenses respect him enough as a scoring threat to fully unlock his playmaking gifts.

There will be serious questions about Giddey’s athleticism and strength, particularly if he has enough standstill burst to beat his man and force the opposing defense into rotation. Even if Giddey can’t put enough pressure on the rim to be a primary creator, he should be custom-made as a ‘connecting’ piece who can be a secondary facilitator and floor spacer as his jump shot comes around. In Clarke’s eyes, it’s Giddey’s overarching feel for the game that will help him overcome the challenges he sees at the next level.

“He’ll often have quiet first quarters or first halves, and then he’ll have monster second halves,” Clarke said. “He can figure things out on the run, and that’s a skill a lot of players don’t have. He can fix things in game.

“It’s not just feel for the game, it’s feel for the opposition and what they’re trying to do to you. A lot of people have feel for the game when the game is mundane and vanilla. He has feel for the game when it’s chaos going on. He can figure things really quickly.”

As the NBA moves into the pre-draft process, Giddey is widely projected to be taken in the lottery. We had Giddey going No. 14 overall to the Golden State Warriors in our mock draft, while ESPN has him going No. 10 overall to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Giddey’s entrance into the league is also an achievement for the academies the NBA invested in around the world. He’ll be the first male athlete to be drafted into the league after being a full-time academy student. Clarke sees Giddey as the type of player the Australian Institute always dreamed about developing.

“He’s kind of the guy we thought of 30 years ago when we started the program,” said Clarke. “Imagine if we had a whole team of 6’8 guys who are multi-dimensional and can pass, dribble, and shoot, defend multiple positions. We’ll stick one big guy in the middle with four guys like that. Josh is kind of exactly that.

“Coaches always ponder what the future is going to be. I think Josh is what we thought about when I first came here 25 years ago.”

If Giddey embodies the dream of what the AIS always hoped to produce, he also came dangerously close to slipping through the cracks. In the course of just over two years, he has gone from a player who couldn’t make it out of his home state to a possible top-10 NBA draft pick. For a player on such a rapid rise, the next question is the most exciting: how much room to Giddey have to grow from here?

[rosesisupposes]

Lunkheads

Part 6 of Breakin’ Free, a High School Musical Sanders Sides AU

Chapter Pairings: Prinxiety

Chapter Warnings: Negative self-talk, graphic description of a panic attack

word count: 4,674

Reader tags: @residentanchor @royally-anxious @bewarethegrammarpolice   @jemthebookworm@arandompasserby  @sparkly-rainbow-salt@astral-eclipse​ @thelowlysatsuma @adorably-angsty

<<5. The Status Quo  | 7. If We’re Tryin’>>

read on ao3

SCENE: Gymnasium

Squeaks, dribbles, and whistles echoed through the gym. The basketball team faced each other in two lines, passing back and forth in a zipper pattern. The ball flew between players, hitting their hands in a thwap THWAP pattern. Coach Bolton strode up and down the line with a sharp eye to his team, offering encouragement as he went.

“Let's go, guys! Make it sharp! To the chest, come on!”

Thwap THWAP thwap THWAP

“Pop it! Come on, guys, focus! Focus!”

The ball traveled up and down the line, and Coach did too. Finally, he stepped in front of Patton to catch the ball.

“You seen Roman today?”

“Uh, no, Coach,” Patton admitted.

The coach frowned, and blew his whistle even louder than usual. “Again!”

If he could have brought himself to leave the gym, he might have heard snatches of a tune being composed, or voices raised in song, practicing. He might have seen a pair of students in the scene shop, helping to paint backdrops and sew costumes while sharing smiles. He might have noticed they both tapped their feet to an inaudible rhythm, humming softly in perfect harmony.

Instead, he saw only his son racing into the gym just as the rest of the team finally finished practicing for the day.

Remy scowled and flung a ball at Roman’s chest as he entered, out of breath.

“Hit the showers, boys. Good hustle today, let’s see that in the game,” Coach called, pointedly looking away from his only child.

As the other players disappeared into the locker room, Roman spoke without looking at his father. “I, uh... think I'm gonna stay a while. Work on some free throws.”

“Well, since you missed practice, I think your team deserves a little effort from you today,” Coach responded, already leaving.

Roman took a deep breath and aimed. He jumped from the three-point line, arms extending in a perfect angle to bounce the ball neatly into the net. Up, catch the rebound, dribble back to the line, and aim again. This time, it landed with a soft swish, no backboard needed.

“So here’s the real stage,” Virgil commented, walking in.

The shame of failing his team melted off Roman’s shoulders as he caught sight of Virgil’s wry grin. “Yeah, you could call it that. Or just a smelly gym,” he grinned back, tossing the ball to Virgil.

Virgil stepped to the line, narrowed his eyes in focus, and tossed the ball, sinking it for a three-point shot.

“What is this? Are you secretly good at basketball too? Stealing my thing, no big deal.”

“I actually once scored 41 points in a league championship game,” Virgil said with a modest shrug.

“What? No way!” Roman exclaimed, impressed.

“Yeah, same day I invented the space shuttle and got My Chemical Romance to reunite.”

“Oh, you’re funny now, I get it,” Roman said, with a mocking grin. He stole the ball back and sank another perfect basket.

“I’ve been rehearsing with Joan, by the way,” Virgil said. “I think it’s going well.”

“Me too. And by the way, I missed basketball practice for that today. So if I get kicked off the team it should be on your conscience.”

“What?” Virgil looked alarmed. “I wasn't the one who told you to sing…”

“I’m kidding, Panic! at the Everywhere,” Roman said, grinning.

“That’s it!” Virgil said with mock fury. He stole the basketball and kept it away from the taller man, laughing.

“Hey! That’s traveling!” Roman protested, trying to reclaim it. “That’s really bad traveling!” None of his normal techniques worked on such a short opponent.

“Only if you catch me!” Virgil smirked.

“Oh, a challenge, is it?” Roman grabbed Virgil around the waist, lifting him and the basketball bodily off the floor and spinning until the ball bounced out of his hand.

“Excuse me, this is a closed practice!” a voice shouted from the locker room entrance.

Coach Bolton walked in, scowling. Roman immediately placed Virgil back on the floor as the smaller man appeared to shrink in on himself.

“Dad, come on, practice is over,” Roman said.

“Not until the last player leaves the gym. Team rule,” he responded curtly.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Virgil said softly.

“Coach, uh, Dad, this is Virgil Montez.”

“Ah, your detention buddy,” his dad responded rudely, not shaking the hand Virgil had tentatively extended.

Virgil looked down, his bangs falling to cover his face. “I’ll see you later, Ro. Um, good to meet you, Coach Bolton.” He left the gym quickly, not looking back.

“Dad, that was rude. Detention was my fault, not his.”

“You haven't missed practice in three years. That boy shows up…”

“‘That boy’ is named Virgil, and he’s a really… cool guy.” Roman hoped his blush wasn’t visible, but he could feel it warming his cheeks.

“Well, helping you miss practice doesn't make him very cool, not in my book. Or your team's.”

“He’s not a problem, dad! He’s just a guy!”

“But you’re not just a guy, Roman! You're the team captain,” Coach interrupted. Roman flinched. It always came back to this, didn’t it. “What you do affects not only this team, but the entire school. And without you completely focused, we're not gonna win next week. These championship games - they don't come along all the time. They're something special.”

Roman could feel a lump of frustration in his throat. “A lot of things are special.”

“But you're a playmaker... not a singer, right?”

Roman finally made eye contact, feel his heart drop in his chest. Of course his dad had heard about it. Of course he wasn’t going to be happy about it. But that didn't mean Roman was going to blindly accept his dismissal. “Did you ever think maybe, just maybe, I could be both?”

His father was silent. Roman tossed the ball away, not caring where it landed, as he stomped away to the outside entrance of the gym.

At the locker room door, the eavesdropping team members exchanged looks. Patton’s face was a mask of worry, but Remy’s was one of pure exasperation.

SCENE: Library

It wasn’t until the next day that Remy was able to corner Roman. Roman was attempting to complete actual classwork, searching for books among the stacks. Remy, as per usual, had only his basketball and an attitude.

“For real, babes, what spell has this elevated-IQ incubus cast that suddenly makes you wanna be in a musical?”

“Rem, stop talking about him that way. I just did it, okay? Who cares?”

“Who cares? How about your most loyal best friend?”

“Quiet in here, Mr. Danforth!” the librarian hissed, rounding the corner from the fiction section.

Remy held up his hands. “It’s all him, Ms. Falstaff,” he said innocently, pointing at Roman. “I’ll keep him in line.”

She gave him a look, then returned to shelving.

Remy tried a new tactic. “Look, Ro, have you ever seen Colm Wilkinson on a cereal box?”

“Rem, who the hell is Colm Wilkinson?”

“Yeah, exactly,” he responded with an exaggerated sigh. “He was Jean Valjean in Les Miserables in London, on Broadway, and in the anniversary concert. Why do I know this? Because Mum has seen that musical 27 times and she put a picture of him in our refrigerator.” Roman stared at his friend, who nodded knowingly. “Hun, I know. Not on it. In it.”

“Why?”

“Bitch, I don’t know, I think it’s part of a some weird diet idea, I try not to think about it in depth.”

Ms. Falstaff glared over the circulation desk, and Remy pointed an accusing finger at Roman once more.

“But Ro, here’s my point,” he continued as she turned away. “Keep playing basketball, you end up on the cereal box. Keep singing, you end up in my mom’s fridge.”

Roman snapped his book closed, turning to face his friend. “Remy, I don’t understand. Why can’t I have more than one thing? You and Patton both do basketball and the GSA and that works fine.”

“Because the whole team needs you. How can you expect the rest of us to be focused on a game if you're off somewhere singing ‘Twinkle Town’?” Remy slid down his glasses for a moment with a smirk. “But for real, babes, the minute you’re finally ready to come out to the GSA, we’ll make it work.”

“What?” Roman sputtered.

“What?” Remy said innocently. “Anygay, I just need you to know this, Ro: the team relies on you. As the playmaker and as our captain. Without you, we don’t stand a chance against West High.”

Roman sighed and looked away as the librarian hissed at them again, “Boys! Keep it down! ”

“I’ve been trying to tell him, Ms. Falstaff,” Remy insisted, looking at his friend meaningfully. “I really, really tried.” Roman refused to make eye contact as Remy grabbed his ball and left him alone in the library.

SCENE: Science Lab

Logan was in the middle of organizing materials for a decathlon team meeting when he heard footsteps approaching. He looked up to see Remy Danforth and Patton Baylor strolling into the science lab, heading straight for him.

“Hey, nerd-” Remy started, but Patton elbowed him. With a roll of his eyes, Remy amended himself. “McKessie. We need to talk.”

“I fail to see any topic on which we would converse, Danforth,” Logan responded, adjusting his glasses.

“It’s about Roman, and Virgil,” Patton supplied helpfully. “Remy is worried about Ro, even if he shows it in odd ways.”

Logan was happy to turn to the taller man and address him, rather than the sarcastic man staring at him from over those infernal sunglasses. He was inside a building, and it wasn’t particularly bright - why did he insist on wearing them all the time?

Yes, it was the sunglasses and Remy’s irritating drawl that led Logan to speak to Patton instead, not the way the man’s curls seemed to glow even under the science lab’s fluorescent lights.

“In what way are you worried about him, and how would I possibly play any role in any plan to help?”

“Well, I think this idea of auditioning for a musical is great if that’s what he wants, but I also know basketball is one of Roman’s biggest passions. And his dream has always been to have a great high school career so that he can keep playing forever,” Patton explained. “Remy is… less enthused about the prospect of him singing, but we can both see that he’s getting really distracted, and losing focus, and it’s affecting the whole family.”

“Apologies, Patton, but I fail to see how the Bolton household is relevant to me?”

Remy rolled his eyes and explained, “It’s the team. The basketball team. Pat calls us family.”

“Ah. So your sports team is struggling. I am sorry to hear that, but that still does not explain how I figure into this discussion.”

“It’s like this, Specs,” Remy said, leaning on the lab bench. “Ro is distracted because his obliviously gay ass can’t get enough of your new genius boy Virgil. And I bet your Nerd Olympics would go much better if Virgil could be convinced to focus on that instead.”

“It is called the decathlon,” Logan said stiffly.

“So the decathlon team would probably do much better if Virgil was on it, right?” Patton asked, trying to apologize for his teammate’s rudeness with a smile directed right at Logan.

Logan was suddenly acutely grateful for his insistence on always keeping a neat appearance. Thanks to his polo and tie, he knew he was dressed more formally than most students, but at this moment he was intensely grateful for taking his barber’s advice to get his hair cut with a modest side fade and small, neat twists on top. It needed very little maintenance to look orderly, and he was sure he would have been frantically running his fingers through it if he hadn’t been assured it wasn’t a mess. Had Patton always had so many freckles? Or had they suddenly become more distracting? Logan realized that the man he was contemplating was still waiting on his response and coughed lightly.

“Ah, yes. We would indeed benefit from Mr. Montez’s extensive knowledge in the realm of chemistry. However, he has been reluctant to join the team as of yet, despite a steadily-growing level of familiarity with myself and other team members.”

“That’s cause ya boi cares much less about chemistry than about Ro’s anatomy,” Remy snarked.

“Rem, don’t be mean,” Patton admonished.

“Hey, I’m just calling it as I see it, hun. I’m way too ace for their shit.”

“Anyway-”

“Anygay”

“-we think our plan will also convince Virgil to focus more on his strengths, as well. But um, Rem. You’re sure it’s not too mean, right?” Patton asked, fiddling with his glasses anxiously as he spoke.

“Pat, we’re not going to be feeding Ro any lines or anything. Anything he says will be his own words, no one else’s. There’s no shame in honesty, right?”

Patton seemed to waver, but nodded.

“You have sparked my interest,” Logan said, able to look at both basketball players more easily now. “Brief me on the plan, and I will see if I can in fact be of assistance.”

Dee strode down the hallway, brainstorming new makeup looks when he and Cee passed the open lab door. He stopped suddenly, seeing basketball players mingling further with students outside their circle.

“Cee, do you see that? Something’s not right here.”

“Do you think they’re working together to help Roman and Virgil beat us out for the parts? Why would they do that?” Cee asked with a tilt of his head. The twins were precisely color-coordinated today, with Dee in blush pink and Cee in blue.

“Think about it - the jocks are already the most popular group in school. If they branch into drama club, that’s practically the entire student body. And if the science club gets their resident prodigy paired up with Roman Bolton, they go from drool to cool.” Dee shivered at the image. “Ugh, Cee, we can’t just sit back. We need to save our show from people who don’t know the difference between a queue-to-queue and a barbecue.”

“I admit, I am impressed with the thought you have put into this, Remy,” Logan said. “Do you think it will work?”

“I do. Gotta save my main man from his own stupidity somehow.”

“Here is what you will need, then,” he said, pulling out a laptop and compact webcam.

Remy lifted his glasses to check his watch. “I’m at 11:35 Mountain Standard Time, we synced?”

“Given that we both have internet-connected phones, I would assume yes.”

“12:05, lunch period. Operation Save The Gayme is a go.”

“There is no reason for such theatrics. We are not some covert mission.”

“Maybe you’re not,” Remy smirked, pointing at his t-shirt. It read ‘I Come With My Own Background Music.’ “Me, I’m Charlie’s Angel, babes. Just sit back and enjoy the show.”

“Thank you again, Logan,” Patton said, pulling Remy out of the lab. “We owe you one!” He waved as they left.

Logan couldn’t help waving back. This plan had to be a good idea if such a friendly man approved, right?

SCENE: Locker Room

Roman wandered the halls, searching for his team. It was lunchtime - where were they? Was there another unplanned practice he was missing? He checked the locker rooms, just in case.

He expected to find at least one teammate. He hadn’t expected to find the entire varsity team staged around a table. It was covered in trophies, basketballs, and varsity letters from years past.

Remy stood in front of the crowd, holding a framed portrait of a young man in a vintage basketball uniform.

“‘Spider’ Bill Netrine, class of '72,” Remy recited. “He was the MVP in the league championship game.”

Patton continued on, with another picture in his hands.. “Sam Nedler, class of '02. Also known as ‘Sammy Slamma Jamma.’ Captain and MVP of the league championship team.”

Another team member lifted yet another photo. “The ‘Thunder Clap’ Hap Hadden, '95. Led the Wildcats to back-to-back city championships. Alegend .”

“Yes, legends, one and all,” Remy said, waving at the memorabilia. “But do you think that any of these Wildcat legends became legends by getting involved in musical auditions just days before the league championships?”

The team chorused, “Get your head in the game!”

Roman’s stomach dropped. Was it not enough that his dad kept pushing him to practice in every waking minute? Was it not enough to keep hearing Remy harp on this alone? But now, it was the whole team. And they were all here, united. Against him.

Remy punctuated his words with urgent gestures. “These Wildcat legends became legends because they never took their eye off the prize.”

Again, the chorus of the whole team:  “Get your head in the game!”

Remy turned to the group. “Now, who was the first sophomore ever to make starting varsity?

“Roman!”

“So, who voted him our team captain this year?” he asked with a smile, turning back to Ro.

“Us!”

“And who is gonna get their sorry asses kicked in Friday's championship game if Roman’s worried about an audition?” He asked, face serious as he locked eyes with his oldest friend.

The team wasn’t quite in sync as the dejected response came, “We are.”

“Rem, guys, come on. I mean, there's 12 people on this team, not just me,” Roman protested. The guilt was starting to gnaw at him. Was he being selfish, for wanting to explore this other side of himself when so many people were counting on him?

“Just 12? Oh, no. I think you're forgetting about one very important 13th member of our squad,” Remy said. An underclassman handed Remy a picture from behind one of the largest trophies, who turned it for Roman to see.

A lump formed in his throat. “It’s my dad.”

“Yes, Ro. Wildcat basketball champion Jack Bolton, class of 1981. Champion, father, and now coach. It's a winning tradition like no other.”

Roman felt yet another twist of the knife in his conscience. There was so much riding on this game, so many people counting on him, and the team was convinced he was giving up on them.

He couldn’t let that happen.

SCENE: Science Lab

Virgil had thought it was odd that Logan asked him to come work on homework in the lab during lunch, but not too out of the ordinary. But when he entered to see a laptop set up with a presentation queued and the whole decathlon team waiting, his nerves started to spike.

“Um, Lo, what is this?”

“Virgil, I would like to share some very important information with you. Please, sit.”

Virgil sat, not sure what to expect. Logan picked up a pointer and hit play on the computer.

“From lowly Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon, to early warriors, to medieval knights. All leading up to…” he gestured to another teammate, who unrolled a poster - a small recreation of the enormous Wildcat Pride mural, complete with Roman’s smiling face. “...lunkhead basketball boy.”

Virgil scoffed, but Logan continued to speak.

“Yes, our culture worshiped the aggressor throughout the ages and we end up with spoiled, overpaid, bonehead athletes who contribute little to civilization other than slam dunks and touchdowns.That is the inevitable world of Roman Bolton.”

The presentation started to play uplifting music as Logan continued. “But the path of the mind, the path we are on, ours is the path that has brought us these people: Rosalind Franklin, Pierre and Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, George Washington Carver and so many others who the world reveres.”

“Um, cool, Lo, but what is this? You know, I've got Joan waiting for me to rehearse, I need to get going…” Virgil said, rising.

“Virgil, please,” Logan said sharply.

The shorter man sat back down, thoroughly confused.

“Roman Bolton represents one side of evolution. And our side, the side of education and accomplishment is the future of civilization! This is the side where you belong, Virgil. That is where you can do so much good, for you, for science, and for the world.”

“Lo, buddy, I’ve always intended to stay in the sciences, I don’t know why you’re so concerned. Roman and I, we’re just… friends. Singing partners. It’s no big deal.”

“Virgil, trust me. You need to watch this,” Logan said, clicking the screen. It cut to a feed of the locker room. Virgil was shocked to see Roman, distressed and frustrated.

“Guys, if you don't know that I'll give 110% on the court, then you don't know me!” he insisted. He wasn’t facing the camera nor did he seem aware of its presence.

“But we just thought…” a disembodied voice said.

“I'll tell you what I thought. I thought that you're my friends. Win together, lose together, teammates.” He looked close to tears. Virgil stared in confusion. How was this being filmed? Why was Roman so upset?

“But suddenly, this singing, and this singing partner...” another voice asked Roman, off-camera.

“Man, I'm for the team! I've always been for the team. He's just... someone I met,” Roman said. Virgil felt his breath catch in his throat. Didn’t I tell you? Don’t get your hopes up. But Roman wasn’t done yet.

“This singing thing is nothing. Probably just a way to keep my nerves down, I don't know. It means nothing to me. You're my guys and this is our team. Virgil is not important. I'll forget about him, I'll forget the audition and we'll go out and get that championship. Okay?”

He couldn’t breathe. How had his fears, the nagging voices in the back of his head, suddenly started speaking with Roman’s voice? With Roman’s face? Your friends are annoyed by you. You’re a burden, getting in their space. You’re taking them away from things they would rather be doing. You’re not important.

“Behold. Lunkhead basketball boy,” Logan said quietly, gesturing to the screen as the video feed ended. Virgil could barely hear him over the storm of hurt in his mind. He was frozen, waiting for the world to come crashing down around him, for all the other disaster scenarios to come true.

Logan, apparently, did not recognize the external symptoms of an anxiety attack. “So, if you have the time, we would greatly appreciate having you on the decathlon team, Virgil.” He paused, noting the lack of response. “Or perhaps you would just like to get some lunch?”

The last phrase managed to permeate Virgil’s whirling thoughts and he shook his head stiffly.

Logan frowned, but left the lab all the same with the other science club members.

Virgil wasn’t sure how long he sat, drowning in fear. His breath came in shallow gasps as his body prepared him to flee the thousands of terrible things that surely were coming for him now. He screwed his eyes shut, trying to block them out, but the inside of his eyelids only presented him with a film roll of disasters. Roman tosses him aside, Logan realizes he’s not that smart, the science club pushes him out, teachers see right through him, he fails out of high school, can’t get a job, his mom gets disgusted and kicks him out, he ends up homeless and on the street, he starves to death alone and abandoned in a dark alley.

His knuckles turned white with the effort of gripping the lab bench, clinging to something physical. He knew he was spiraling, and struggled to pull himself out. What can I see? Black stone of the lab bench top. Empty beakers and flasks. A whiteboard at the front of the room. American flag in the corner. What can I feel? Cold table top warming where my hand it touching it. The rungs of the stool where my feet are resting on it. The fabric of my hoodie against my wrists. What can I hear? Chatter of students in the other room. Sneakers and shoes on the tiles of the hallway. Music in the courtyard.

Music?

He pulled himself up to standing, and walked to the window. The cheerleading squad was spilling out into the courtyard, singing the Wildcat fight song. And there was the basketball team behind them, jamming along, hollering and cheering.

And there was Roman, in the center of it all, fully caught up with his team.

A tear coursed down Virgil’s cheek. It had been all real, then. Roman really had abandoned him, sticking with his team and the one thing he knew best. He leapt onto the lip of the fountain with his teammates, seemingly without a care in the world.

But really, what was Virgil even losing? Just a chance to audition for a musical that he didn’t really want to be in alone, anyway. Everyone knew Roman was straight, that much of the school gossip VIrgil had heard. He’d had clearly been fooling himself this whole time, thinking that duets and smiles were somehow proof of anything other than friendship.

That didn’t make it any less painful to accept. This past week with Roman had been like something out of a fairytale. What was it he’d called himself, up on the roof? The school’s Prince Charming? Except he hadn’t been the school’s. He’d been Virgil’s, this fantastical dream come true. A beautiful man, tall, ginger, freckled, and with a smile that shone like a shooting star about to grant Virgil’s every wish.

Clearly, he was the last one to realize how dumb he’d been. Thank god Logan had shown him Roman’s true sentiments. Otherwise, Virgil might have gone on fooling himself, believing in his own feelings so hard that he convinced himself it was the truth.

He knew better now. This was real life, not a fairytale. Roman was no prince, just a boy who Virgil had foolishly believed he’d had a chance with. He’d been humoring him, sung the other half of the duet that Virgil so desperately had wanted to be a reflection of reality. Now the words had changed. Virgil held no importance to Roman, he’d said it himself. The basketball star would forget about the weird, gloomy nerd and focus on his upcoming game. Virgil would make sure he didn’t interfere again. Now that he knew, he could at least avoid being even more of an unwanted burden than before.

SCENE: Hallway

Virgil was at his locker, getting books for his next class, when Roman found him.

“Hey there, Dark & Stormy,” he said with a smile, leaning on the side of the locker. There was a lot of him to lean. “Listen, there's something I wanna talk to you about.”

Virgil took a deep breath. Time to get this over with. At the very least, he could make sure Roman knew he didn’t blame him, and that he knew that he was free of any future obligation to his one-time duet partner.  

“I need to talk to you about the same thing, so here it is. I know what it's like to carry a load with your friends- I get it. You've got your boys. So we're, you know, good.”

Roman’s smile weakened as he listened in confusion. “Good about what? I was gonna talk to you about the callbacks…”

“I don't wanna do them either,” Virgil interrupted. “I do get it, Roman. Singing - it’s not my thing, and it’s not yours. So what’s the use in kidding ourselves?  You've got your team and now I've got mine. I'll do the scholastic decathlon and you'll win the championships. It's where we belong.” Virgil handed him his copy of the song they’d been rehearsing. “Go Wildcats, yeah?”

“But I…” Roman started, brow furrowed.

“Me neither,” Virgil said with a half-hearted smile. He closed his locker and walked away, refusing to look back. If he looked back, he might lose his resolve. And the only thing that could hurt worse than walking away would be having to do it more than once.

[fathertaurus]

The Bet (part 1) - Steve Harrington/Billy Hargrove Stranger Things Imagine

A/N: This is something I just thought up this morning and idk it felt necessary to write. This will also most likely become a series (if i don’t procrastinate ;) )

Summary: You and Steve have been dating ever since the night you two, along with Jonathan Byers and Nancy Wheeler killed a demogorgon. But what happens when the pretty faced asshole Billy Hargrove gets involved in your relationship?

PAIRING: Steve Harrington x Reader, Billy Hargrove x Reader

Word Count: 2.0k

Warnings: cursing I guess lol

You had warned him.

You had told Steve countless times not to get involved in any sort of way with that Hargrove kid. After seeing them interact negatively with almost every interaction they had you told him that staying away from Billy would just be the best thing to do for his own sake. And for the most part he listened to you, avoiding eye contact with Billy or just walking away from petty comments by him and his followers. But today it seemed as though that wouldn’t work.

—-

Steve had just gotten out of the showers after basketball practice. Towel wrapped tightly on his waist he headed out into the locker room, to which he thought was empty, but instead stumbled upon a rather loud conversation between his team mates.

“She’s so hot though,” Billy’s obnoxious voice rang out. Steve didn’t even need to peer around the lockers to see–he unfortunately could now recognize that voice quite easily given that Billy never seemed to know how to shut up. So he does his best to tune out the conversation especially since it has nothing to do with him but moreso some poor girl who Billy would likely try and get his hands around later. Instead he turns back to his locker and starts putting on his clothes.

“I mean what’s a girl like Y/N Y/L/N doing with Harrington?” All of his movement ceased, Steve almost completely flabbergasted. 

Why in the hell was Billy Hargrove talking about you? His girlfriend.

“Yeah she’s hot bro.” Some miniscule guy Steve didn’t bother to place his attention, instead he leaned closer in their direction waiting for Billy to speak once more. 

“She’s not just hot, she’s sexy as hell. And her body? Rad.” He could feel his skin crawl, his whole face shriveling up into a deep sooted frown. 

“And, jesus, the things I would do to her.” The mullet moaned allowed causing the crowd around him to hoot and holler in agreement. The sound made Steve’s stomach turn. 

Because Billy Hargrove was talking about his girl, he was groaning about you. And the longer that Steve sat and listened about how he wanted to “Have you up against any hard surface” his anger went through the roof. 

“I mean c’mon s’not like Harrington’s giving her what she really deserves. He’s probably vanilla as hell.” Before he could stop himself Steve had slammed his locker door closed, announcing his position to all of his remaining teammates.

Quickly stumbling from around the corner and into the open space where everyone else was residing Steve nearly launched himself at Billy.

“You shitting me Hargrove?” The question came rolling off of his tongue like acid, face burning red at the anger building up throughout his body. Billy could only stare with a flabbergasted yet amused look, like even though he had no idea Steve was there he was almost glad he heard him fawning over his girl.

“Harrington, had no idea you were here–”

“Yeah clearly.” 

Billy’s eyes darted between their teammates, a smirk building not only on his face but in his eyes. Steve watched with eyebrows furrowed at the glances, the unspoken words that were flooding between the lot of them.

“Don’t talk about Y/N like that. As you were talking about before she’s mine. Meaning you don’t get to talk about her–”

“Ayye slow down Steve.” Billy grinned, “It’s a free country is it not? Can’t tell me who I can and cannot talk about–”

“Yes I can if you’re talking about her.” Steve stepped closer, arms crossed over his chest with full intent on doing whatever was necessary to get Billy to shut the hell up. But to assume so much about Billy Hargrove was a leap.

A quiet chuckle rumbled from the back of his throat, eyes shifting from the floor as he rubbed at his face. 

“You really trying to come at me right now Harrington?” 

“Don’t cream your pants Hargrove.” Steve retailated earning a few snickers from the boys and a instant glare from Billy. “Okay c’mon–Billy I think you truly forget sometimes that you aren’t some big bad guy that everyone is afraid of. Or at least,” He neared closer to him, “I’m not afraid of you.”

His words silenced the room, besides hushed whispers. They were all shocked at how bold he was being. 

“So you’re not afraid of me?” Steve turned back to Billy who now had a strange look on his face and in his eyes, one that made Steve nervous. 

But he shook his head. He didn’t want to give Billy the satisfaction of knowing that he could feel a cold sweat beginning to build over his skin the longer he stood here in the middle of them all. 

“Sorry Hargrove.” he shrugged, “I just don’t scare as easy as these guys–” 

“Good. Than I’m sure you wouldn’t mind a challenge.”

“A what?”

“We play for her.” Steve fell silent. Billy smiled in response before clearing his throat and continuing, “Basketball of course. First person to 21 points wins.” He shrugged like it was no big deal but knowing Billy Steve knew there was much more to this deal.

“Wait win what? She’s obviously already my girl so.. what kind of deal are we making?” 

Billy chuckled once more, the toothpick between his teeth twirling round as he did only adding on to the annoyance building up within Steve. But it only worsened when he crossed the floor to stand directly in front of him. 

“Let me spell it out for you. If you win nothing happens, I’ll stop talking about Y/N and leave her alone–won’t bother her anymore. But if I win,” he neared closer, their noses nearly brushing, “I get her for a whole four weeks.”

“No no hell no–are you kidding me?”

“What? You scared you’re gonna lose Steve-y boy?” Tommy snorted to which Steve quickly retaliated, quite literally jumping at him until Billy raised his hand to his chest. 

“Hey!” Everyone went silent at Billy’s shout, including Steve. He redirected his attention with a look of annoyance “Now let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Steve scoffed before knocking his hand off of his chest. 

“Are you down Harrington? Or would you prefer to hear my thoughts about your smoking hot babe of a girlfriend down on her pretty little knees for me–”

“I’ll do it.”

Another round of cheers spilled into the locker room, the boldness erupting from Steve and the cockiness that Billy was airing out was fuel to the bystanders flame. This game was going to have everyone on their toes.

And unfortunately it wouldn’t go as perceived. 

He lost. 

Steve Harrington: Basketball King had lost to the smug new kid Billy Hargrove.

They were at a tie, making Steve believe that everything would turn in his favor. He had even mapped out the greatest possibility in his head and it ended with him winning. 

But what he hadn’t predicted was being tripped during his dribble, costing him the last point he needed as the clock had ran out. So whilst he was sat on his ass, practically in shock, Billy was across the court with an ugly smirk and the rest of their teammates surrounding him congratulating him. 

The whole scene made Steve sick to his stomach, but the worst part? Having to tell you, his girlfriend.

POV

“You did what?”

“I know I know I’m so sorry—It was a-a stupid bet I didn’t think he would actually win—“

“You bet me?!”

“I didn’t think he would win!!”

“And he did. So…I suffer because you couldn’t shoot a decent 3 pointer!!”

“Okay I-I deserve that one but I—“

“Lost.” Both of their heads turned to see the unfortunate villain of this whole thing; Billy Hargrove, standing with his pack of mutts loitering round him with disgusting smirk-ridden faces.

He smiled devilishly as he approached, hands stuffed into the pockets of her leather jacket and cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. He swayed over ecstatically—his pride puffing out just as much as his chest until he was standing beside you.

“Well hello there beautiful.” You watched as the words literally rolled off his tongue, resisting the urge to stare into his eyes. You wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. Instead you scoffed, arms crossing tightly over your chest as you did so.

Luckily he decided to simper at the response, instead, focusing his attention on your loving boyfriend.

“King Harrington, I’m here to collect my earnings.”

“Watch it asswipe.” Steve groveled, staggering  towards him until Billy raised a hand to his chest, haulting Steve in his tracks. The movement caused him to stumbled back onto the side of his car causing your nerves to flare up.

“Harrington Harrington Harrington,” Billy tisked in mocking tone one that was triggering your own anger. So much so that you began to stalk forward but then froze when the mullet-wearing-jerk began to speak.

“I’d watched what I say if I were you. See that gorgeous doll over there,” he gestured with his thumb, “Will be mine for a whole 3 weeks. Which means I get to do just about anything I want with her—“

“Uhm no I did not agree to that—“

“And if you push me,” he glanced between the two of you, eyes trailing all over your figure with a look that would knock any other girl down onto their knees. But you just got a shiver up your spine and a bitter taste in the back of your throat.

He chuckled aloud before redirecting his attention to your pinned boyfriend, who was seething through his teeth.

“I’ll do what you never had the guts to do.” Instantly you knew exactly what he meant. Both you and Steve had yet to share your first time together—deciding to “Wait until the moment was right.”

Now you were regretting that choice.

“The hell you will—“

“Ah ah ah,” Billy interrupted, “What did I just say?” Steve literally bit his tongue to resist attacking Billy because doing so would probably only give him another thing to hold over his head.

From the sidelines you could see how red in the face he had become, how the anger had moved from a swarm in his chest to fill the pads of his cheeks and tip of his nose. He was fuming, seconds away from a rupture. The only thing keeping him from doing so was you.

“Alright then,” Billy released his grip on Steve’s jacket with a sickly satisfied grin. He distanced himself away from him only to move closer to your silent figure, body now spun in your direction.

“Ready to go…., babe?”

His pet name made you sick, quite literally twisting a knot into your stomach so large you thought you would combust. But unfortunately the feeling was *only a feeling meaning there was no way out of this one.

“Billy I never agreed to—“

“Y/N.” The sound of your name surprisingly didn’t come from the boy in front of you, no, it was the one standing behind him: Steve.

He was making direct eye contact with you, a look worn on his face that caused a flicker of worry to shoot through your chest. He was shaking his head.

It took a moment for you to understand but then it hit you.

He was telling you to go along with it.

But why? Why would he just..give you up like that? Surrender to Billy so easily. There had to be more to this.

“You heard the man.” Bringing yourself back to reality Billy wrapped his arm around your shoulders, his body heat causing your heart to race. Never had you ever been this close in proximity to him due to almost absolutely hating his guts–which was most due to his sexist attitude and quick temper amongst all other things. And now you were stuck with him for a whole month. 

“Let’s go.” 

A/N: oh god I hope that was okay. I literally just typed this up and did a quick read over so if there’s any mistakes I missed I apologized. But this is just the first part! Stay tuned for the next one!

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Kobe Bryant's 40 greatest moments

Kobe Bryant has given fans some of the best moments in sports. From his elite athleticism, peerless work ethnic and insatiable desire to win, “the Black Mamba” struck fear in his opponents during his exceptional career. Here are 40 great (and not so great) moments that are classic Kobe Bryant.   1 of 40

Kobe officially buries the hatchet with Shaq

Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images It’s been 14 years since the dynamic duo of Kobe and Shaq broke up in spectacular fashion. Even if they’ve been friendly in their respective retirements, they buried the hatchet on-air in an intense and intimate interview. It was a sweet ending to what was one of the most bitter feuds of the NBA.   2 of 40

Bryant shows a different side with Arianna Huffington

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images Bryant was always a special basketball player, but he was famously distant from teammates and fans. No one seemed to know who the real Kobe was. But as he aged, he let more and more people in. Eventually, he would be interviewed by Arianna Huffington, and there he revealed how beautifully bizarre he was with topics ranging from his upbringing to meditation. Turns out, the Black Mamba is a human.   3 of 40

The trade request

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images After being eliminated in the first round of the 2007 NBA Playoffs, Bryant did the unthinkable: requested a trade. For all of his scoring, he couldn’t carry a team of nobodies far and he wanted to go to a team where he would get support. He eventually withdrew his request, but his discontent with management motivated the move to get Pau Gasol, giving the Lakers a championship-caliber duo to build around.   4 of 40

Striking gold at the Oscars

Matt Petit/A.M.P.A.S via Getty Images Many wondered how Bryant would transition into retired life. Turns out, he stays winning. Mamba focused on his production company, swung big on his first project, “Dear Basketball,” and he came away with one of the most coveted awards a filmmaker can win. Success is not limited to the basketball court with Vino.   5 of 40

Baptizing Ben Wallace

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images Bryant entered the league as a precocious, wiry teenager. General managers and coaches knew he was going to be special, but the NBA fans found out how good he was going to be when he rocked a facial over a very young Ben Wallace in the preseason of his first year. Welcome to the league, rook.   6 of 40

Destroys Nets, Game 3, 2002 NBA Finals

Fernando Medina /NBAE/Getty Images Bryant’s legacy is built on performances when his team needs it the most. In the 2002 NBA Finals, the Lakers had a chance to put the stranglehold on the Nets and go up 3-0. Bryant put up 36 points, including clutch free throws down the stretch to seal the game.   7 of 40

Beats the Celtics to add to Lakers legacy

Bruce Yeung/NBAE via Getty Images There aren’t many players who are bigger basketball nerds than Kobe Bryant. So when he had the chance to add to the Lakers legacy against Boston and failed in 2008, he was devastated. Given a second chance in 2010, Bryant capitalized and added to the Lakers-Celtics lore with his fifth championship and second Finals MVP.   8 of 40

First 50-point drop at 22

Tom Hauck /Allsport via Getty Images At 22, regular dudes are maybe graduating from college, grinding it out at a job or trying to figure out whether Stacy is really into them or not. Kobe Bryant was not a normal dude at 22. A kid who should’ve been more worried about grades dropped 51 on the Golden State Warriors and established himself as one of the baddest guys in the league.   9 of 40

Stops the bleeding against the Detroit Pistons

Kent Horner/NBAE via Getty Images Unexpectedly down 1-0 to the stingy Detroit Pistons in the NBA Finals, the Los Angeles Lakers found themselves with their backs against the wall in Game 2. The Pistons were up by three with 10.9 seconds when Bryant rose up from 27 feet to drain an ice cold, overtime-clinching three. The Lakers may have lost the series, but for one game Bryant carried the team.   10 of 40

Clinches first NBA Championship without Shaq

Jacob Langston/Orlando Sentinel/MCT via Getty Images Many experts doubted Bryant’s ability to get a team to the championship without Shaquille O’Neal. Given the opportunity, he did what he always does: close. Bryant put up 30 points to put away the Orlando Magic to secure his fourth championship, proving he could lead a team to the Promised Land on his own.   11 of 40

Downs the Hawks with a dunk and a shot

Stephen Dunn/Getty Images At 34 years old, people wrote off the Black Mamba as washed. In 2013, the Lakers had their detractors, but Bryant proved he was still up to the task of carrying the team when he turned back the clock to rock a poster dunk over Josh Smith and sank a game-winning shot to beat the Atlanta Hawks.   12 of 40

Wills the Lakers to victory over Raptors in 2013

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images It seems the Toronto Raptors bring out the best in Bryant. In a back-and-forth game in the last minute, he hits two clutch threes to help send the game to an extra frame. Then he shows up right on time to hit a game-winning shot to sink the Raptors and finish with 41 points.   13 of 40

Shakes and Bakes James Harden in the Drew League for a game-winner

Chris Graythen/NBAE via Getty Images When the NBA locked out its players, there was a lot of ballers who were out of a job. True to form, Bryant took his game from the bright lights to the humid gyms of Drew League, where he put on a show. Not only did he pour in 45 points, he sniped the game-winning shot over rising star James Harden. Take that, young gun.   14 of 40

Shuts down Rucker Park

Marc Lecureuil/Getty Images for Nike You never know who’s going to show up at Rucker Park in the summer. In 2002, coming off his third straight title, Bryant stepped onto the legendary court for the first time. Before going with the Black Mamba moniker, Bryant received a couple of nicknames from iconic Rucker Park announcer, Hannibal, but none stuck out more than “Lord of the Rings.”   15 of 40

Gives LeBron James a dagger

David Liam Kyle/NBAE via Getty Images LeBron James’ prime and Kobe Bryant’s didn’t quite overlap totally, but it was there long enough for some epic duels between the two. Bryant put his stamp on the rivalry with a beautiful rainbow shot over James in Cleveland to give the final blow to the Cavaliers’ chances.   16 of 40

Dunks over LeBron and wins the 2011 All-Star MVP

MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images Bryant always prided himself in being better than the best, and he proved it four times at the NBA All-Star Game with four MVP awards. His last one may have been the sweetest when he dunked on a trailing LeBron James and helped the West blowout the East.   17 of 40

Releases “Detail”

Maxx Wolfson/Getty Images To label Bryant a “student of the game” would be underselling his knowledge and wisdom when it comes to playing basketball. He took that IQ to the fans for easy consumption in his ESPN series, “Detail.” This gave incite to habits, tendencies and solutions that brought every basketball fan closer to the game and its intricacies.     18 of 40

1997 Slam Dunk Champ

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images An 18-year-old Kobe Bryant barely took his training wheels off when he burst into the spotlight with a series of high-flying dunks to win the 1997 Slam Dunk Contest.  It would be one of many trophies Bryant would collect in his career.   19 of 40

Putting Vincent Yarbrough through the spin cycle

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images This may be one of the slickest poster dunks ever to occur in the NBA. Bryant not only dribbled the ball behind the back to get the necessary room to set up the dunk, but he also added a 360 when he could have easily just went up with two hands. Only Kobe has that much swag.   20 of 40

Welcome to the league, Dwight

Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images When Dwight Howard went to the Los Angeles, he and Bryant could not get along. I’m guessing this highlight hung over the big man’s head. If you believe this didn’t result in Howard’s hate for Kobe, you’re more naïve than Lakers management, who thought it could get Howard back after the 2013 season.   21 of 40

Great Wall of Yao crumbles

Andrew D. Bernstein/ NBAE via Getty Images The 7-foot-6 Yao Ming was a player who didn’t have many challengers in the NBA. Kobe Bryant never saw a challenge he couldn’t solve. Something had to give. (Hint: it was Yao). Oh, and Bryant scored 52 points.   22 of 40

Averages 40 points…for a month

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images Some NBA players can have a great stretch of maybe four to five games where they are on fire. For Bryant, however, a fire five-game stretch is the norm. An entire month of incredible scoring performances in February 2003? Now that is some legendary stuff.   23 of 40

Shooting free throws with a torn Achilles

Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images You think you know tough? Try sinking two free throws after ripping apart your Achilles tendon, knowing your season and career might be over.   24 of 40

Two threes to win against Portland and claim the Pacific Division in 2004

Sam Forencich/NBAE Getty Images The Lakers needed the W against the Trail Blazers to finish atop the Pacific Division and secure a higher seed in the playoffs. Portland was not going to go easily, giving Los Angeles a fight. But that’s why you have Kobe Bean to sink a game-tying shot in regulation and a game-winning rainbow in overtime. How about that, Ruben “Kobe Stopper” Patterson?   25 of 40

Four straight games of 50+ points 2007

Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images The NBA 2K video game franchise has ruined the standard for amazing performances done in real life. Bryant did his best to emulate it. He made the real thing look like the game at the rookie difficulty setting with this incredible stretch of games.   26 of 40

Downing Spain in 2008

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[andrewuttaro]

New Look Sabres: GM 2 - NJD - Goals for Everyone!

Undefeated. Let’s just say that as many times as possible before we inevitably can’t anymore. If this team plays well these first couple weeks not only could it be good for the long run to get a good start but, there are some very telling challenges coming up. We’ll get to last night’s opponent, a very well upgraded Devils team in spite of what the score says, but tomorrow we take a jaunt down to Columbus to face a Blue Jackets squad that isn’t what it was last year. Next week proper we got the two divisional rivals Buffalo maybe fighting for wildcard spots with later this season: Montreal and Florida. The Sabres hammered the Habs last season but I’m not certain that will happen again. Florida absolutely had our number and the addition of Coach Q and more competent goaltending is a little frightening. Then Dallas visits before the annual October California road trip. There is a lot of off time in early November because of the Global Series in Sweden so if October looks good we’ll have a lot of time to sit on it. If we’re all being honest, we need some time to just feel good about this team. The Devils are an interesting club to consider this season. Some folks have them winning the Met while others have them missing the playoffs by dozens of points. It’s weird in a league that stresses parody so much that such a wide chasm can exist between predictions but here we are. I’m going to err on the higher side after the first couple games they’ve put up. A 2-0 drubbing of Columbus followed by a shootout loss to Winnipeg that looked like a rout the other way for most of the game. Those examples are here to say what we just saw last night was a little explicable. It’s a bit of tale of two games in that this would’ve been a night to remember no matter the outcome.

Fifteen of the Sabres Twenty plus former Captains participated in a pregame ceremony that was touched off by Rick Jeanneret coming out to get a standing ovation. There was emotion before the puck even dropped. The crowd went crazy for the 50th Anniversary jerseys when they appeared on the jumbotron and booed when the Devils came out. It was bordering on a religious experience already and then… *breathes out nostalgically* …then this current Buffalo Sabres teams put together the fourth, fifth and sixth straight periods of complete, full-effort team hockey. Before we get to the four-course meal that was this game, I think it’s important to say the reason we have to get legitimately excited about this club right now is that we’re seeing levels of effort and consistency through two games that were few and far between in past seasons. A lot of people were talking about how bad a Coach Phil Housley must have been to not get this level of play out of mostly the same the roster last season. I see the reasoning there but all that blame you’re sending that way, turn it into credit and send it Ralph Krueger’s way. We joked about how this new coach talked a big, group buy-in rhetoric in the preseason that was supposed to pay dividends beyond the mere culture this culture that we’ve gotten so used to with the Buffalo Bills. But the tight, fast, everyone playing-together jargon we kept hearing is now unfolding right in front of us. If this guy gets Marco Scandella, Vladimir Sobotka and dare I say it… Rasmus Ristolainen to not be statistical black holes then he’s the miracle worker we’ve been waiting for. Only time will tell after all, we’re two games into an 82-game season. Wow though. Just wow, what a game I got to be at.

This game was incredible from almost the very start. Will Butcher got called for holding on Jack Eichel and to that I say: Will, you could’ve been Sabre and gotten to hold Jack legally, but there you are going to the Sin Bin for it! On the ensuing powerplay the puck found it’s way to Eichel beside the net and instead of shooting point blank the current Captain threw it out to Victor Olofsson who winds up for maybe a half second and then shoots it through the woods into the net. That goal was special. I don’t know if Devils goalie Mackenzie Blackwood even saw it. That will become a theme tonight by the way. The Sabres goalie, Carter Hutton, has now had two great games and I want to give him huge props for holding the fort again last night, but he only needed to make 18 saves to win this after facing a total of 20 shots. He’s seen far busier nights. The whole game I’m trying to figure out if the Sabres defense is good now or is the Devils offense just so bad? I mean the Devils have Hall, Hischier, Simmons, Zajac and Hughes so they should be a threat, but Marco Scandella had the best 5 on 5 corsi of every person wearing skates in this game. Like… what is going on? If I wasn’t at the game with people yelling all around me I would have thought I ate something strange and was on some kind of groovy hallucinogenic trip. Well the good kept coming and after another holding call against the Devils Jack Eichel cleaned up a Jeff Skinner rebound on the powerplay. Blackwood couldn’t control it deep in his own crease and there it was 2-0 Sabres at 17:26 of the first. For what a fun start it was, you go to the intermission with the most dangerous lead in hockey thinking this game is still very much a game. By the end of the next period it would become a rout.

Before most of the enthusiastic crowd was back to their seats Kyle Palmieri scored a one timer off a Taylor Hall assist to cut the lead in half. Now I don’t know why but this game featured bone-rattling hits. The kind of thunder dome stuff that gets a crowd going. Jake McCabe was landing them left and right. This is generous for me to say because the shots were lopsided in favor of the home team throughout this game, but this was the only time the Devils could’ve taken control of this game. A goal to tie it early in the second and this would’ve been an entirely different game. Even at the 2-1 score line the crowd was a factor in this game. There were sporadic Bills cheers and totally spontaneous Let’s Go Buffalo chants. This little tyke rarely-sitting next to me was losing his mind and he was something of a barometer of the fans overall. Every time the puck got knocked out of the defensive zone there was deafening cheers. It felt like a playoff game and I’ve only been to Amerks playoff games and those have all turned to shite lately. This game did not. It was electric in there. Want to know how good the Sabres were doing? Kyle Okposo and the retread third line that we decried at the end of Training Camp were hemming the Devils in their zone! What!? Kyle Okposo redirected a shot originating from Rasmus Dahlin at the blueline and we’re up 3-1. Unreal. It only got better. Jeff Skinner, streaming into the zone with Marcus Johansson and *checks notes* Vladimir Sobotka, gets a cross-ice pass and shoots in short side. 4-1 Buffalo.

We all feared the guy we just signed for eight years to big money wouldn’t score until November with that Vladdy anchor on his line; but no, on only his tenth shot of the young season he sinks one and we get to see that beautiful smile again. The second period was a total shooting gallery, but one non-scoring play this period made a girl sitting a few seats down from me screech in a way you normally only hear in comedy clubs. Jack Eichel skates through red-jersey defenders moving the puck all around and dekes the ever-living daylights out of Nico Hischier. The poor kid fell on his ass like they were playing street basketball or something. The crowd went wild for the rest of the shift. In this environment, the Devils gave us another powerplay opportunity! You’ll need to watch the replay on this one. A clinic in Captaining unfolded as Eichel dribbles the puck in the right circle looking for someone and makes the kind of meaningful eye contact with Victor Olofsson on the other side that can only mean one thing: go to the goal. Eichel passes it through not one, not two, not even three but four Devils defenders to Victor who bounces it off of either Reinhart’s skate in front or Blackwood’s pads and recollects his own rebound. Not a second later Olofsson takes another shot and buries it. Correction, Reinhart passed it back to him. It’s as if this goal was going to happen one way or another. That made it… *pauses for dramatic effect* FIVE to ONE Sabres. Gee, I felt greedy.

I could talk for hours about how completely new the Sabres powerplay looks through two games this season, but the score was now 5-1 and I still have more goals to get to. In most games I’d call that box score a rout, but this game gets chippy. Remember I told you Jake McCabe was leveling hits left and right? He landed one in the middle of the game here on Taylor Hall that immediately unleashed pandemonium. I need to use every meaning of that word here because the crowd went wild and rose to their feet while some “extracurricular activities” if you will unfolded on the ice. It took a couple minutes to sort out the penalties, but McCabe knew what he did and went down the tunnel bopping fist bumps like he just won a WWE title. What resulted was three minors and two majors and a 23-year-old building struggling to keep the noise in. The Devils didn’t get the lift they needed from that fight. Not from that fight, not from running McCabe, not from running Hutton. The third period begins, and we get Travis Zajac goal to make 5-2 but… here’s the reason this article is so long again: the Sabres still had more goals to score. Sam Reinhart gets the puck way out by himself in the left circle and shot it bar down. I know Blackwood was trying to catch it with his glove over his head, but it was already in and it just looked like the poor kid was begging for mercy. “Please oh please don’t keep shooting at me!” 6-2! I’m feeling greedy now! The crowd is now doing that chant where they count the goals and ask for another. I am not swearing in disbelief now for no other reason than the child sitting next to me. I just didn’t know what to do with myself. My teams don’t score this many goals. We’ve seen probably a dozen breakaways in these first two games and no goals off of any of them. That changed when Sam Reinhart challenges PK Subban in his own defensive zone and poke checks the puck free. Subban can’t get to Reinhart and falls down briefly. Reino just takes off and goes five-hole on Blackwood. He puts his hands in the air like, yeah, just pay me now. Can we just pay him now? At this rate he’s going to score 5.2 million goals and Terry is going to have to drill a new well just to pay for it. 7-2 Sabres is the final outcome of this home opener.

There is so much to take away from this game that I’ll probably be referencing it for a couple weeks. Our New Look Sabres reply guy tweet of the game is actually a tweet not a reply. It comes from The Charging Buffalo’s Joe Marino who points out “the Sabres haven’t won the first three games of the season since the 08-09 season”, exclaiming Monday is huge. This recap is getting a little long and I’ve got a Bills game to go watch so I will agree wholeheartedly and invite you to look forward to Monday night’s away game in Columbus. I for one cannot wait. This team has got me in hook, line and sinker. Like, share and comment on this blog; at this rate we may have some fun this season and fun is best when it’s shared. I hope we can share in the fun together here. Who knows what these guys can accomplish if this is the level of play we see out of them in even half of the remaining eighty games ahead. Let’s Go Buffalo!

Thanks for Reading.

P.S. Rasmus Ristolainen: actually good! I’m looking at you Winnipeg, that blueline ain’t looking so hot!

[gadgetsrevv]

Jadon Sancho will be soccer’s next superstar … but only on his terms

Craig Burley gives his top five U-21 English players, with Jadon Sancho, Marcus Rashford and Trent Alexander-Arnold all battling for the top spot.

DORTMUND, Germany — Jadon Sancho lives in a contemporary home overlooking an artificial lake in Phoenix-See, an affluent development on the edge of Dortmund. He drives a white Mercedes, but he doesn’t drive it far. He’ll go to practice, which is about five minutes away. If it’s hot, maybe he’ll get ice cream. Then he’ll come home.

He’ll settle in with a video game, FIFA or Fortnite, and wait for his private chef to make him dinner. It’s a life so bland, so willfully anonymous, that you’d think it wouldn’t matter where he lives.

It matters. Still only 19, Borussia Dortmund’s Sancho has emerged over the past year as a transcendent footballer. “He’s an exceptional talent,” Jurgen Klopp said after his Liverpool team lost to Dortmund, his former team, in a friendly in July. “There’s no doubt about the potential of Jadon Sancho.” These days, he’s regarded as the best player in the world born in the 21st Century; there is nobody younger who is better. The website Transfermarkt gauges his value at 100 million Euros. “He can be a very, very, very important player in Europe,” says Lucien Favre, the Dortmund manager.

Axel Witsel, Sancho’s teammate, goes further. “I’ve watched him improve since I came here,” Witsel says. “He works hard. He scores goals. If he keeps going like that, he will be one of the best players of his generation.”

Sancho scored 12 goals last season for Dortmund. ‘When I left Manchester [City], there were a lot of people that doubted me,’ he says.

And Dortmund? It’s a working-class city in the Ruhr Valley, Germany’s version of Pittsburgh. Hardly a tourist destination, it would seem unlikely to attract a young, ambitious Englishman in any profession. But it’s crucial to Sancho’s trajectory because it isn’t Manchester. Or London, Liverpool, Watford, Southampton, or anywhere else in England.

Three summers ago, Sancho declined the opportunity to tour North America with Manchester City after refining his game at its youth academy. The club regarded him as a potential first-teamer somewhere down the road. Sancho believed he was there already, even at 17. “I was standing out, week in and week out,” he says, describing his success with Man City’s U-23 team. “I felt it was time to seek another challenge.”

Pep Guardiola, Manchester City’s manager, wanted to move slowly. He proposed letting Sancho test his skills against the first team during training sessions. “You start the phase where you duel with Kyle Walker, with [Benjamin] Mendy, with [Vincent] Kompany,” Guardiola said, listing three of City’s — and the world’s — leading backs at the time. “And then we will see what is your level, your dribbling, when you are going to play against all the fullbacks in the Premier League. That is what we believe is the next step.”

It sounded sensible, but Sancho didn’t want to wait. Crucially, he didn’t have to. Over the past decade, starting around the time that Klopp inherited the team in 2008, Dortmund has aggressively pursued promising teenagers, including Christian Pulisic. It was primed to do the same with Sancho. “You could see how good he was,” says Michael Zorc, Dortmund’s sporting director.

The Premier League is regarded as the best in football. Aspiring stars are supposed to come to England to make their fame and fortune, not leave it. But rather than striving to play for Guardiola, who had won titles at Barcelona and Bayern Munich and would win at Manchester City, Sancho decided to leave him before his senior career had even started. He was driving, somebody said, the wrong way down a one-way street.

Dortmund isn’t much further from South London than Manchester is. But it was in another country, and it might as well have been another world. “Going there was a very bold move,” says Arsenal’s Reiss Nelson, a childhood friend. “Not everyone would have done it. It was brave.”

Sancho had never played a first-team match. He couldn’t speak German. He didn’t know anyone in Dortmund, where he became the first Englishman to play for the club. He wasn’t criticized so much as pitied. Was he delusional? Getting bad advice? “When I left Manchester, there were a lot of people that doubted me,” Sancho says. “Saying it’s too early to leave England. It’s a big club. I might not play. That it was very rare for an English player to do well in Germany.”

But Sancho knew he was ready to go because he knew where he’d already gone.

As a kid, Sancho honed his game playing street soccer. ‘There’s no rules. I was just freestyling, finding ways to nutmeg people. You’d bring back tricks to the training ground,’ he says.

The Kennington tube stop is the one after Elephant and Castle, heading south on the Northern Line. Topped by a metal dome, it has pretensions of grandeur. It must have looked quite stately some sixty or seventy years ago. But the stained and crumbling concrete, and the straggle of bystanders on the street corner in front of it — one in a workout pants and a ripped jacket, another in knicker-length trousers and a soiled checked shirt — give it away.

This is Kennington, in the London borough of Southwark. It’s where Sancho grew up, a lower-middle-class neighborhood with the accent on the lower. Like Camden Town and then Bermondsey, it has started to gentrify because affordable housing near central London is hard to find. It looks a lot better, residents insist, than it did a few years ago. But it has a long way to go.

Until he was 12, Sancho lived with his mother and sister on the ground floor of Kennington’s Guinness Trust Estates, red-brick apartments that were built in 1921 with a government grant. In primary school, Sancho would arrive home shortly after three o’clock. By four, he’d have eaten a snack, done his homework, packed his gear. If his father, Sean, was able to swing by in his old Citroen, Sancho would wait for him in the parking lot. If not, Sancho would head to that tube stop with one of his father’s friends, who had been designated for the assignment that day.

– Lukaku on a mission: Win with Inter and prove Man United wrong  – ESPN FC’s Ultimate XI: We pick our dream team  – Play ESPN Fantasy Soccer 

Driving from Kennington to Watford F.C.’s academy, which is located on the far northwestern edge of Greater London, takes maybe two hours each way during the afternoon crush. By tube, the trip is shorter, but only slightly. Take the Northern Line toward Charing Cross. Get off at Euston and wait for the National Rail. Go two stops on a Midlands train toward Milton Keynes. Then transfer to an Overground train at Watford Junction for the short hop to Watford High Street. It’s a fifteen minute walk from there. Leave at four and you’ll make the 6 p.m. training, assuming none of the trains arrived late or got stuck in one of the delays that plague London transit. “It took a long, long time,” Sancho says.

Two hours there, two hours back — all for two hours of training with a Watford youth team. Watford had discovered Sancho during a camp it ran in Battersea, across the river from Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge. Sean Sancho’s friend was working as a liaison between the community and the club. Young Jadon showed up and impressed everyone. “They realized he was good,” Sean says, “and they sent that up the line.”

Pep Guardiola, Manchester City’s manager, wanted to develop Sancho’s game slowly. Sancho didn’t want to wait.

The first-generation son of a Guyanese father and a Jamaican mother, Sean, 45, grew up in Kennington. He never married Jadon’s mother, so he used football to stay connected with his son. They’d occasionally go to see Chelsea or Arsenal, but mostly Jadon liked to play. Sean encouraged it. Football would help keep him away from trouble. “If you’re idle, something can come and take your mind away,” Sean says. “You’ve got to have something else to do.” After Jadon’s skills started turning heads, Sean started thinking of football as his son’s ticket to a better life. “Without football, I don’t know what path he might have taken,” he says. “I’d like to be optimistic, but who knows?”

Soon Jadon was offered a place at Watford’s academy. “We saw it as the next step,” Sean says. “That was always what was in my mind. Whatever needs to be done needs to be done.” At the time, Jadon was eight years old. The academy had no provision for boarders that young. But the trip from Kennington to Watford was too long for him to make every day. It was agreed that he would do it three times a week.

On the other days, Sancho headed to the cages. Blacktopped playgrounds surrounded by chain-link fencing, they’d been devised by cynical developers as a way to devote as little real estate as possible to inner-city exercise. They’ve evolved into one of Europe’s greatest manifestations of street football. Games there are raw, unstructured, often dangerous. Nobody is ever offside. You call fouls at your risk. “You’re allowed to do anything,” Sancho says. “There’s no rules.”

More talented players are on display in the cages of South London than anywhere else in the city, maybe anywhere in Europe. A few make it out. Crystal Palace’s Wilfried Zaha developed his game in the cages. So did Liverpool’s Joe Gomez. Tottenham’s Ryan Sessegnon and Chelsea’s Tammy Abraham are two of the latest to break through. “You come home from school and you maybe don’t even change your shoes,” recalls Nelson, who lived a short walk from Sancho in Aylesbury. “You’ve got the ball at your feet, and you learn what you can do with it. Going into the academy, you bring that rough flair from the streets with you.”

One of the playgrounds is located over a tall fence that borders the development where Sancho lived. What passes for a pitch there is tiny, no bigger than a basketball court. Even five-on-five, there’s little room to maneuver. Dribbling makes far more sense than trying to thread a pass through the crush of defenders. Sancho is renowned for his speed, but in the cages speed becomes irrelevant. It’s all quickness, a shake of the head in one direction, then acceleration in another. “You have to shuffle your body,” Sean Sancho says. “It’s about the feint, like boxing. You get the defender to second-guess.”

Because he didn’t go to Watford every day, Sancho was able to get the best from each of his disparate worlds. The skills he honed on rough blacktop were even more effective on a proper field. “I was just freestyling, finding ways to nutmeg people,” Sancho says. “You’d bring back tricks to the training ground. And not many people have them kind of tricks at a young age, so I would stand out.” At the same time, the coaching he received at Watford made him shine even brighter in neighborhood games. He learned how to make a pass, and how to effectively receive one. “You add that to the cage,” he says, “and become a complete player.”

Sancho commuted to Watford for four years. When he turned 12, the club proposed to pay his tuition at an elite boarding school near its facility. Many of the students there were sons of foreign millionaires. “It was a very different culture,” Sancho says. That, too, was part of Watford’s plan. Sancho had brought his street football nous with him from Kennington, but he’d also brought some of the street’s less desirable characteristics. “My attitude wasn’t the best,” he admits. “That part of the hood was still in me. I was getting into trouble, getting detention. And one of my coaches sat me down and said, ‘We rate you highly, but you’ve got to choose which way you want to go. Left or right. Good or bad.'”

By then, his game had evolved into a rough version of what we see today. “Some people said I seemed Brazilian,” he says. “I understand where they’re coming from. Because English players don’t typically play like I do.”

He had just turned 14 when Manchester City made an offer. Moving there was his third journey. “The hardest one,” he says. “Could I handle that next step? And obviously, I handled it very well.”

Sancho was a star for Man City’s youth teams. ‘I was standing out, week in and week out. I felt it was time to seek another challenge,’ he says.

  “The team sheet,” Michael Zorc says. He smiles. “It’s my best argument.”

He’s explaining how Dortmund manages to get tomorrow’s stars to spurn some of world’s biggest clubs and come to the Ruhr Valley. “They know we are not afraid to use young talent,” he says. “I tell them, ‘Look at our team sheets. You will play!’ And not in a cup game against a second-division team, but important games against Schalke, Moenchengladbach, Bayern. In the Champions League.”

By 17, Pulisic was on Dortmund’s senior team. When Mario Gotze was 17, he was playing every week. Ousmane Dembele, now with Barcelona, had turned 19 when he came to Dortmund in 2016. Jurgen Klopp’s unheralded Dortmund team that upset Bayern Munich in 2011 had an average age of 22. “On 3:30 on a Saturday afternoon,” Zorc says, referencing the usual Bundesliga start time, “we typically have three, four, five players under 20.” Zorc wanted Sancho to be the next.

One of football’s most adept executives, Zorc has made a virtue out of necessity. Dortmund won the Champions League in 1997, a stunning apotheosis for a working-man’s club. By 2004, though, it had spent itself into bankruptcy. If not for a bridge loan of two million Euros from Bayern Munich, and then a crucial vote by investors in March, 2005, that ratified a restructuring plan, it would have been dropped into the nether reaches of German football, and without the financial capacity to return.

Frightened into frugality, Dortmund has since operated far more prudently. The home dressing room lacks the luxuries that even smaller clubs routinely offer. Players don’t even get a cubicle, just four metal hooks for their street clothes and accessories. A wooden bench runs the length of room like in a sauna, with a rubber-covered floor beneath. If the hair dryers, which are permanently installed beneath the small mirror at one end, look like remnants from the 1970s, it’s because they are.

Sancho joins a front line of Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane for England.

Even with one of the largest stadiums in Europe, Dortmund’s earning capacity doesn’t come close to matching that of the world’s biggest clubs. Its fans can’t afford the ticket prices that most of its Champions League competitors get. Nearly 30,000 standing-room places in Signal Iduna Park cost under 20 euros. Even the priciest seats top out at 60.

Like many small clubs, Dortmund generates revenue by selling players to the giants. The difference is, it also wants to successfully compete against them. So Zorc combs the world for young talent. He hopes his discoveries will make their most dramatic progress at the end of their teens and the start of their twenties, while they’re wearing black and yellow. Then he’ll sell them to a bigger club at a sizeable profit. These days, Dortmund’s alumni association would field a competitive team in nearly any league in Europe: Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski, Arsenal’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Man City’s Ilkay Gundogan, Barcelona’s Dembele, Chelsea’s Pulisic, Japan and Real Zaragoza’s Shinji Kagawa. Klopp took many of those players to the Champions League final in 2013. And Sancho was watching.

Sancho had shaken off homesickness and raced through the Manchester City youth program after arriving there in 2015. In the summer of 2017, director of football Txiki Begiristain offered a professional contract. Begiristain assumed it was pro forma, a done deal. Who turns down Man City?

But Sancho wasn’t convinced. The world’s greatest collection of forwards was already fighting for playing time under Guardiola: Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane, Sergio Aguero and Gabriel Jesus. “The opportunity, I didn’t see it,” Sancho says.

And while Dortmund was noticing Sancho, Sancho had been noticing Dortmund. He saw that Pulisic was playing regularly. He knew that Dortmund competed in Europe nearly every season. He hadn’t been there, but when he Googled the city, Borussia Dortmund came up as the top attraction. “I thought of it as an opportunity to show the world who I am and what I can do,” he said. “I thought of it like just another away trip. ‘I just need to go away and play football.'”

The deal Zorc and Beguristain negotiated called for a price of seven million euros, with a clause that gave Manchester City 15 percent of the profit from a future sale and a first-refusal option. Dortmund gave him the same No. 7 shirt that Dembele had worn. “That surprised me,” Sancho said, but it also gave him confidence. As a 17-year-old in 2017-18, he started seven games and came on as a substitute in five more. His first goal in any senior competition came against Bayer Leverkusen on April 21, 2018.

Sancho’s progression has been so rapid, it’s hard to believe that goal happened only 18 months ago. He added 12 more goals and 14 assists last year, helping Dortmund finish second in the Bundesliga, a point behind Bayern Munich. Under Favre, whose idea of perfect football is Brazil’s 1970 World Cup team, Dortmund plays a free-flowing style that enables Sancho to show far more creativity than he would for another German side. “We can play very active football because we have players like Jadon,” Favre says. “He can play short, he can play long. He can play with one touch. He can dribble in front of the goal, he can use his head. He destabilizes the other team.”

Sancho is still learning, like any teenager. He makes mistakes. Accustomed to watching young players develop, Dortmund’s supporters shrug them off. That’s not the reaction he’d be getting if he’d stayed in Manchester. “There’s just a lot of pressure in England,” he says. “The media is so hard on young players. If you have not a good game, it’s like you’re not ready, you’re not good enough. Germany is relaxed. I think a young player needs that.”

Sancho played for England in the UEFA Nations League in June. By the time he reported back to Dortmund, he was a full-fledged star. “It isn’t just that he made the team, but that he continues to build on it,” said teammate Thomas Delaney. “I would almost call it a privilege to watch Jadon every day in training. It’s spectacular. He does things with the ball I’ve never seen before. If I tried to do what he does, I’d hurt myself.”

Will Sancho leave Dortmund after this season for a Premier League club? When asked, he smiles and says he’ll do what seems right to him no matter what the expectations dictate.

It’s a quiet night in Dortmund. But then, what other kind is there?

Zorc grew up there. He spent his entire 17-year senior career playing for Dortmund as a central midfielder. Now he has placed the success of the club in the hands of players who can’t legally drink a beer in the United States. In that situation, he understands, dull is desirable. “There’s no nightlife,” he confirms. “No distractions. It’s not Las Vegas, not Berlin, not London. You have to go 100 kilometers for anything.” That allows young players to focus on their football. If Sancho fritters away his evenings playing Fortnite after the occasional ice cream, well, Zorc knows he could be doing far worse somewhere else.

Eventually, Sancho will want more, on and off the field. Lewandowski ultimately left for Munich. So did Gotze, though he returned. Aubameyang and Gundogan moved on to the Premier League, and Dembele for Barcelona. They were replaced by the next generation of hot prospects, the likes of Pulisic and Sancho. Pulisic now plays for Chelsea, a deal that enhanced Zorc’s budget by $73 million. As he was leaving, perhaps the next great American prospect — Gio Reyna, Claudio’s son, who turns 17 next month — arrived. And hidden away in Dortmund’s youth program, a 14-year-old named Yousouffa Moukoko is scoring goals by the dozen.

Soon enough, too, Sancho will be gone. It almost happened last summer, after Manchester United made its intentions known. But Zorc advised Sancho that the time wasn’t yet right, and Sancho agreed. In August, Sancho signed an extension through 2022 that pays him more than 200,000 euros a week, but nobody is under the illusion that he will finish the contract. This season in the Bundesliga is almost certain to be his last.

Sancho reflects on his decision to move to Dortmund. ‘Could I handle that next step? And obviously, I handled it very well,’ he says.

On this particular quiet night in Dortmund, Sancho has just been chosen to represent England for Euro 2020 qualifying matches against Bulgaria and Kosovo. Unlike his first senior selection, when he was expecting to be chosen for the U-21s, this one was a foregone conclusion. Very quickly, Sancho has become the best sort of problem for England manager Gareth Southgate, whose front line of Marcus Rashford, Raheem Sterling and Harry Kane will need to make room.

Sancho is the only England player who hasn’t played in the Premier League. Until Kieran Trippier left Spurs for Atletico Madrid before this season, he was the only one not playing in England. But that hasn’t hampered his international advancement. “I don’t see a negative at all,” Southgate said recently.  “Jadon’s playing before 80,000 fans at Dortmund every week. That brings huge pressure. We want our players to be feeling that intensity.”

Sancho ended up scoring twice in England’s 5-3 victory over Kosovo. That set the English media on its latest frenzy about which Premier League team he will be headed to next summer. In recent months, he has been linked not only with Man United but also Man City, Arsenal, Tottenham, Chelsea and Liverpool. He’d be open to the idea of playing in England but insists it isn’t something he needs to do, not now. That’s a point that Frederik Obasi, one of two South London brothers who represent Sancho, made before the summer. “Everyone is talking ‘England, England, England,'” he said. “But why do they assume he has to go there? There are other leagues and other clubs that would also make sense for Jadon at this point.”

For a player on the cusp of worldwide stardom, spurning an offer from one of the Premier League’s top clubs would seem counterintuitive. By next summer, he’ll be 20: a proven England international, and one of the biggest stars in the sport. Why wouldn’t he want to compete in the world’s best and most remunerative league, coming home as a superstar to a place where friends and family could watch him? To go anywhere else would be to defy logic.

Sancho smiles and says he’ll do what seems right to him, no matter what expectations might dictate. Believe him. He has done it before.

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[codename-bewareofthefangirl]

Following the lead of that overprotective GOM, may I ask for a really funny scenario of Kagami dating Momoi, and everyone in the GOM are out to threaten and kill - just kidding, they give him their "blessings" and a LIL BIT of a warning~ please make it extra chaotic, like the GOM challenging Kagami in a one-on-one and only if he wins can they properly accept him, or something like that, your choice XD Thanks a whole bunch c;

Hi dear! I hope you’re going to enjoy it, because Ihad a lot of fun writing it! It could be a bit chaotic, I hope it’s stillreadable. Also, I’ve exaggerated some characters for a more comical effect, soit could be slightly ooc, but it’s voluntary.

Have fun!

KagaMomo and protective!MiraGen

 Acknowledgement

 Kagami and Momoi were walking down the street holdinghands, trying to reach the park for an ice-cream, when a car screeched to halton the street beside them. Momoi blinked perplexed at the long, black car andthen a horrified expression flashed on her face.

Kagami looked too, noticing his girlfriend hadsuddenly stopped, and, under his shocked stare, Akashi got off.

“Akashi?” the red-haired muttered, a really badfeeling shivering down his spine.

“I’m so sorry Kagamin!” Momoi whispered, squeezing hishand, and the boy understood.

Oh, fuck.

“Kagami-kun.” Akashi started, placing himself in themiddle of the way so they couldn’t pass, “Let me ask you, what do you think itqualifies you to be our Momoi-san’s boyfriend?” Asked in his cold, politevoice. Even if there was a smile on his lips, his eyes were terrifyinglyserious.

“You told them!” Kagami whispered her through hisgritted teeth.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize it!” she apologizedhonestly and he wanted to slam his head against the nearer wall.

“Kagami-kun, I asked you a question.” Akashi repeated,crossing his arm and losing his smile.

“Actually,-” He began, scratching embarrassedly his neck.

Luckily (or maybe not) for him, a sudden voiceinterrupted him.

“I’ve to admit I agree with him, Kagami-kun.” Kagamijolted and turned to see beside himself Kuroko, a vanilla shake in his hands.

“When did you arrive?” he yelled shocked.

“From the start. I’m tailing you two from Momoi’shouse.” He explained blankly, without even trying to feel ashamed.

“Are you fucking crazy?” Kagami shouted, while thegirl became red ‘till the ears. She had kissed her boyfriend in front of hisbest friend!

“I wanted to be sure you’re enough for Momoi-san.” Headded, furrowing his eyebrows.

“You’re my partner!”

“That’s exactly why I’m not persuaded.”

“Could you please not ignore me?” Akashi interruptedthem with a small cough.

“It’s not your business!” Kagami shouted exasperatedbut the two glared at him.

“She is ourbusiness.” Stated menacingly.

Kagami was without words. What they were, a mafia’sgroup?

“KAAAAGAAAAAMICCHIIII!” From far away, the Americanboy caught a glimpse of Kise, running towards him at full force, “WAIT RIGHTTHERE!”

“Damn!” Kagami cursed and, without other alternatives,he dashed past them before anyone could stop him, dragging Momoi with him.

“Kagamin!” she exclaimed, instinctively following himand trying to keep up with his peace.

“Run!” he ordered pulling her by the hand. They had toescape, now. Those guys had gone crazy.

He heard surprised exclamations behind him.

“Get on the car, Kuroko!” Akashi yelled and the carroared.

Damn!

To avoid being followed in the street, he suddenlyturned to the left, taking the wide path that entered in the park and wherecars couldn’t come. He felt a burst of hope in his chest, still running to finda place where they couldn’t reach them, but it was too early to celebrate.

In the air echoed the noise of wheels speeding on theground and, from nowhere, on their right appeared an open trailer pulled by abicycle; on the bicycle, Takao was pedaling with all his strength and seemed onthe verge of fainting, while in the trailer was seated Midorima.

“Kagami! Don’t escape and face us properly!” Midorimayelled at him with a cold glare, “We can’t let you take Momoi-san withouthaving tested your suitability!” added, fixing his glasses.

“Not you too!” Kagami groaned hopelessly.

“Kagami please stop! I’m dying!” Takao beggeddesperately, panting as if he was going to cease breathing in few seconds.Kagami looked at him with pity, but his sense of self-preservation forced himto avert his gaze.

“I’m sorry Takao!” apologized regretfully, suddenlychanging direction and pulling Momoi in a wood, through the grass and betweenthe trees.

“Kagamin!” she whined, starting to feel tired. Shewasn’t an athlete like him.

“I’m sorry Momoi, I’m going to hide you in a safeplace, don’t worry!” Kagami muttered, giving her a fond and worried glance. Shebreathed deeply but nodded. In that moment, she was scared of his friends too.

“YOU’RE NOT!” Kise jumped out of a bush, leaves andbranches in his clothes and ruffled hair, “YOU HAVE TO BEAT ME FIRST!” Yelledpointing a finger against him.

“Die Kise!” Kagami answering, avoiding him with asharp turn and running in the opposite direction. The boy swore and ran afterthem.

Suddenly, a wild Murasakibara appeared in front of thefugitives and Kagami crashed onto him.

“Ah,” the giant exclaimed blankly, “I’m gonna crushyou.” Added opening his purple eyes wide.

“You’re all crazy!” Kagami yelled hysterically,evading his hands and dragging Momoi to the left.

He exited finally from the wood in the open spacewhere children with playing peacefully, but a well-known voice echoed in theair.

“Kagami-kun, I order you to stop!” Akashi rdered,individuating him and chasing after him under the shocked star of the localmothers.

“You can’t escape us.” Kuroko threatened appearing tohis side like a damn ghost.

“Kagamicchi!” Kise was coming too near andMurasakibara tailed them silently and menacingly.

“Kagami stop!” The apparition from the left of Midorima,by foot, completed the cage to trap them.

They were surrounded, they could only go forward beforethey finally reached them.

Without even realizing, Kagami’s body had instinctivelybrought them to the only point of the park he knew well. He found himself onthe street basketball court without realizing and then abruptly stopped, realizinghe could have made a bigger mistake.

In the middle of it, playing lazily with a basketball,stood Aomine.

“Dai-chan!” Momoi exclaimed surprised and the boyraised his eyes on them.

Kagami, panting, froze on the spot and heard thescreaming guys who were tailing them coming to a halt too. They quieted down,stopping at the border of the court, like if some sort of special event was goingto take place.

“Oi, Kagami.” Aomine called him, giving a glance tohis and Momoi’s interlaced fingers, “Let’s play.” He only said, but Kagami knewhe couldn’t refuse. No that he wanted.

“Okay.” He replied, letting go his girlfriend’s handand patting reassuringly her head before entering the court.

Aomine didn’t even wait, coming at him immediately; hedribbled past him and pointed towards the basket, Kagamitried to stop him but he just evaded him and dunked. Kagami cursed and Aomine threw him the ball again.

“Satsuki sucks at cooking.” He suddenly said, in his low, indifferent tone,“Everything she prepares isn’t edible.”

Kagami furrowed, trying to pass through his defense.

“I know. I can cook for two,no problem.” Kagami replied, focused on the match.

Aomine stole the ball without breaking a sweat and advanced.

“She always bitches about everything, is childish, annoying andspoiled,” Aomine continued, trying to shoot but Kagami stopped him and tookpossession of the ball.

“Yeah, I know. But she’s also caring, cheerful andkind. Her flaws are not a problem.” Kagami muttered with firm eyes, trying toreach the other side of the court, but Aomine stole the ball again.

“She’s the worst type of woman,” Aomine added with aknowing snort, rushing to the basket, “She never says what she wants butexpects you to understand it; she needs attentions, love and to feel cherished.”

Kagami tried to stop him, but Aomine avoided him witha fluid movement.

“I know, but I don’t care. If it’s her, it’s fine. I’mjust happy being by her side. Cherishing and loving her is not a burden.” Mumbledblushing furiously.

Aomine let out a small sigh and jumped; Kagami mimickedhim to contrast him, but in the end, Aomine won and slammed the ball throughthe rim like a wild animal. Kagami fell with his back on the ground, whileAomine just landed on his feet and picked up the ball.

“Satsuki, I’ll be honest, is going to be a realhassle.” He stopped in front of him, “So, take care of her properly, alright?”murmured with a smirk on his lips, pointing the ball to his chest. His usualcold or annoyed eyes were unusually soft and worry was evident at their bottom.

Kagami blinked, understanding, and then a wide smile spreadon his face.

“You can bet on it!” Promised, standing up and takingthe ball, and Aomine nodded in acknowledgement.

Then Kagami looked at the silent crowd who had watchedthe match, and opened his arms wide.

“Someone else?” provoked, ready to fight for Momoi,who was watching the two boys of his life so fondly that she had small tears inher eyes.

Akashi sighed, crossing his arms.

“If Aomine had given his blessing, we can only surrender.”Admitted unwillingly.

“I have to agree, even if I don’t like it.” Midorima addedfixing his glasses.

“But remember,” Akashi continued, smiling politely asif he was going to murder him in his sleep, “If you ever make her suffer, we’regoing to let you experience the rage of the Generation of Miracles.” Threatenedand his eyes shined with the colors of the Emperor.

Kagami gulped, but nodded seriously.

“There’ll be no need.” Assured and he made a note tohimself to be the best boyfriend ever or, damn, he was dead for sure.

“It seems I have to acknowledge you too.” Kurokocommented, slightly disappointed, and resumed slurping his vanilla shake.

“You were just enjoying it, weren’t you?” Kagamigrowled, rubbing his temples for the exasperation.

“I’ve never said that.” He replied deadpanned, but hisfriend knew he was smirking inside.

“You bastard…” roared.

Kise stomped his foot on the ground.

“Eh? I don’t want to accept it like this!” poutedchildishly, “Kagamicchi play against me too. You have to beat me!” Challenged him,grinning wildly.

“Oh? Bring it on, Kise!” Kagami accepted, making theball spin on his finger.

“I still want to crush him too. I’ll play.” Murasakibaramuttered, throwing away an empty bag of chips and licking his fingers.

“I’ll take Takao and then we play too.” Midorimaagreed, moving towards where he had left the trailer.

“What happened to him?” Akashi asked slightly worried,arching an eyebrow.

“He fainted in the trailer but should be fine by now.”He answered shrugging as if it was something normal.

“A good match, I approve it.” Kuroko commented with afaint smile and stretched himself., preparing to play

Kagami looked with an excited smile at all the guys, willingto play basketball with him, but then he remembered an important thing.

“Wait, I was on a dat-”protested looking at hisgirlfriend, who chuckled.

“It’s okay Kagamin!” Momoi interrupted him, tugging astrand of hair behind the ear, “Let me see you win, right?” she cheered on him,winking and blowing a kiss.

Kagami blushed, stiffening, and nodded embarrassed.

“I-I’ll win for you.” Stuttered, starting to feelpumped up.

Wrong move. Wrong words.

A cold chill made him shiver. When he turned to facethe others, a curse left his lips and his animal instinct begged to run awayagain.

All the members of the Generation of Miracles weresurrounded by an evil, dark menacing aura and were smirking devilishly at him.

“Yes, Kagami-kun.” Akashi agreed activating hisEmperor Eye, “Try your best to win.”

[junker-town]

How Obi Toppin went from overlooked recruit to NBA draft lottery pick

This is how Toppin went from recruiting afterthought to national player of the year and a future lottery pick at Dayton.

Obi Toppin pinpoints a man in the lower bowl wearing a Dayton jersey minutes before tip-off during a December game against Saint Mary’s. The two make eye contact and appear to be the only people in the building who know what’s coming next. Toppin jogs toward the hoop and throws down an achingly beautiful windmill dunk, with levitation and fury unfurled in equal parts. The crowd explodes, as does teammate Jalen Crutcher, who sarcastically celebrates next to his superstar teammate.

Toppin is ready. He opens the game with a block at the rim after switching onto Saint Mary’s standout Jordan Ford. The transition dunks pile up. The Gaels are one of the best teams Dayton will face all year, but they are no match for the Flyers’ high-powered offensive attack. Toppin finishes with 16 points and six rebounds on the way to a 78-68 win that pushes Dayton to 7-1 on the season. The school that received just one vote in the preseason AP top 25 is well on its way to becoming one of the biggest stories in college basketball.

Toppin’s rise has just begun.

Growing up in Brooklyn, Toppin came across as just another New York teenager with a basketball jones. He didn’t play in the AAU circuit and didn’t dunk until he was a senior in high school. No national recruiting service ranked him coming out of high school. A family connection might have been the only way anyone was going to see him. A friendship between Toppin’s godfather and Rodrick Harrison, the head coach of the Baltimore prep school Mt. Zion, brought Harrison to New York to watch Toppin play.

Harrison saw Division I talent, despite how raw Toppin was. He also saw a hunger in Toppin to prove himself in a crowded field of recruits with bigger names.

“You can find any 6’4 kid around the city, maybe 1,000 of them if you look hard enough, so he wasn’t sought after,” Harrison says.

Not only was Toppin behind because he didn’t gain the experience of competing against great players, he didn’t get the same exposure as other kids. Toppin desperately wanted to understand how he could distinguish himself.

“He had boundaries around him and it humbled him,” Harrison says.

Most top NBA Draft prospects never consider prep school — they’re given scholarship offers by the time they’re able to drive. Toppin took the long road. He was never ranked by any of the major recruiting services, and only started to come on after the early signing period. The eight scholarship offers made to Toppin were viewed simply as a means to add some upside depth late in the recruiting process when supply is lower than demand.

But after growing four to five inches and gaining 20 pounds from his junior year of high school through the end of prep school, Toppin signed with Dayton and coach Anthony Grant. Knowing academic ineligibility was looming, Toppin focused during his redshirt year on readying teammates as part of the scout team in practice, measuring himself up against the players on opposing teams he was imitating. At the end of the season, Toppin received the Dayton Spirit Award. Grant believes it was the first time the honor was ever awarded to an inactive player.

Former Dayton star Josh Cunningham, now with the Westchester Knicks of the G League, remembers how tireless Toppin was, even then. “When I was around, he was really one of those people who attacked every practice, every workout, every lift session, every conditioning session, he really got after it,” he says.

Toppin went on to set the Dayton freshman scoring record and immediately turn NBA scouts’ heads. Though he appreciated the feedback he got from teams as he tested the waters that offseason, he knew he’d have a starting spot waiting for him at Dayton, and never really expected to leave school before his redshirt sophomore year.

NBA evaluators had a lot of praise for Toppin, noting how Grant’s system helped him show skills — such as three-point shooting and defensive versatility — that they would need from him at the next level. Toppin took what they said and brought it back to his team.

“My whole motive was to go to these workouts, get a lot of feedback to bring back here to school and help myself and help my teammates with what it takes to play at the next level,” Toppin says.

He did more than help. On his way to winning the national player of the year award, Toppin turned in one of the most dominant individual season in recent memory. He finished in the 99th percentile of points per possession throughout college basketball and had a sky-high 68.4 true shooting percentage. Thanks in large part to Toppin’s growth as a shot creator, Dayton had the country’s No. 2 offense and was poised to enter the NCAA tournament as a No. 1 seed before the coronavirus pandemic canceled it.

Though Toppin led Dayton’s improvement, the sophomore is undoubtedly a product of the program around him, the head coach atop it, and the teammates that unlocked his special style.

Take, for example, Toppin’s jumper. Sensing the versatility inherent in Toppin’s physique and skill level as a teen, Harrison pushed him hard to become a better shooter all the way back at Mt. Zion. They would take sets of 1,000 shots and practice the rhythms of spacing the floor.

“He may have looked at me like I was crazy a couple times, but he never ran from it,” Harrison says. “That’s why he is who he is now. Once he trusts you, he’s going to do anything for you.”

Toppin knows the total number of threes he took as a freshman (21) off the top of his head. It was one of the main things he heard from NBA evaluators last summer, so he knew he would have to increase his volume and comfort level from deep. Teams wanted him to be less streaky. Toppin responded by tripling his attempts from 2018-19 and nailing a solid 36.2 percent. He made at least one triple in 19 of Dayton’s 26 games.

“I just stay true to what the coaches ask me to do and what’s best for our team, and I think that’s why they have so much trust in me and why I’ve been shooting a lot more threes,” Toppin says.

Few coaches in the league, however, would have the gall to start Toppin and Ryan Mikesell in the frontcourt. Grant says he believed the reward of playing small would outweigh the risk on defense. In Toppin, he found the perfect happy warrior to pull it off, with the right dose of offensive versatility.

The threat of Toppin’s jumper turned the pick and pop into a devastating weapon for Dayton. With Toppin slipping the screen, defenses didn’t know if he would pop out for a three, roll to the rim, or settle into the post. With an improved handle and incredible passing vision, he became a threat to create a high-efficiency shot in any situation. Everything flowed from the rim, where Toppin shot 82 percent this season.

The threat of a Toppin dunk comes in every area of the game. Because of how well Dayton moved the ball, Toppin could trust that when he gave it up, there was always a strong chance the ball would find its way back to him.

When there wasn’t an immediate opening, Toppin was perhaps even more comfortable settling into the post, where nearly a quarter of his possessions ended this season. Toppin’s ability to keep his dribble and spray passes around the floor from inside was key to making Grant’s small-ball dreams come alive.

“I’m always going to trade up a hard shot for a better shot,” Toppin says. “The game started to slow down for me, and my teammates and coaches started talking to me, that with the recognition that I’m getting, the way I roll to the post, the athleticism that I have, the amount of attention that’s gonna come toward me if they double-team or triple-team me in the post, there’s always going to be someone open.”

The veteran experience at Dayton also helped. All five starters had been at the school for at least three years. That cohesiveness allowed them to improve dramatically on defense over the course of the season, though this is the area in which Toppin still needs the most work. One NBA scout who saw Toppin in-person this year believes the defense is a big enough question to negate his positional versatility.

While Toppin’s mobility is above-average compared with most college forwards, he still gets blown by on the perimeter in Dayton’s switch-heavy scheme. Though Grant’s unique Dayton scheme suited Toppin well, he was equally challenged by it, asked to play on the perimeter more than nearly any college big. Without a traditional rim protector among their core rotation, Toppin was relied upon to contain dribble drives off switches, and the results weren’t always pretty.

Because of a high center of gravity that limits his shiftiness, it will be difficult for Toppin to negotiate the NBA’s favorite action, the pick and roll, as a traditional big man defender. So in the pros, teams still should take advantage of his length and athleticism (and an “intangible ability to react” as former Dayton assistant Donnie Jones calls it) on switches. Coaches may be picking between the lesser of evils when deploying Toppin defensively. It’s not as if he’s a terrible perimeter defender. In many situations, his length and athleticism have helped him contain ball-handlers and contest their shots — it just takes more effort for him than most.

Toppin exclusively played center in college, but he might not have the size and defensive instincts to hold down that position in the NBA. He may have to be a swing big man who can play either spot depending on which look his coach wants to give — a “prototypical 4” according to Jones, who also spent time as a scout for the Clippers.

Some have compared Toppin to Atlanta’s John Collins, another tweener big man with enough size and offensive versatility to merit some minutes at center. Toppin could be more consistent as weak-side rim protector and learn to move better on defense, but he’s shown enough flashes for their to be belief in his ability to improve in these departments. The onus falls on Toppin to work on his body, earn coaches’ trust and demand the chance to prove himself. If there’s anything he’s succeed at with Dayton, it’s that.

Since before the NBA was even a dream, Toppin has worked tirelessly. Now, he’s a near lock to be a top-10 pick. Through it all, he has maintained the humility of a player who had been overlooked all his life.

“His continued effort to stay humble in spite of our team success will only make us better,” Grant says. “I’ve had the experience of 30 years in this game, and I’ve seen guys who sometimes get accolades and when they get to certain positions, it becomes hard to accept when adversity hits or when challenges come your way, so I try to stay real.”

Toppin’s focus is on the day-by-day grind just as it was when he was on the scout team, prepping guys like Cunningham for the next matchup. Now that the college season is over, and he’s officially declared for the NBA Draft, college basketball’s best player and most pleasant surprise is onto the next phase of his career.

“I’m not the person who focuses on a next-year thing,” Toppin says. “I’m always worried about the next day because tomorrow’s never guaranteed to anybody.”

[xheartsigh]

coup de foudre

(exp.) french: love at first sight

sugakookie oneshot, college basketball player/engineer student!Yoongi and photographer/cinematography student!Jungkook (they are too cute for their own good and everyone ships them so it’s fluff)

writter for @yoonkookweek‘s Day 6 - Non idol/musician AU

According to Taehyung, Jungkook’s best friend, what he's doing is borderline pathetic. Strike borderline, Jimin would correct him shouting and Jungkook would throw pillows on both of them. His roommates can be so annoying. What did he do in his earlier life that he deserved this kind of punishment? He needs to find new friends and preferably soon, before they announce to the world (okay, just the whole university) his undying crush.

“You can, you know, always ask him out?” Jimin steals a french fry from his plate but Jungkook doesn't even bother to stop him even though he hates sharing. He is too engrossed in his own panicked thoughts about the game at the weekend.

“That's out of the question. I- I don't even know if he likes boys and I don't want to...” ruin what we have, he would say but who is he kidding? They don't have anything. They aren't friends, merely acquaintances and just because Jungkook is constantly around at every basketball match and the shooting guard of the university's team thinks he loves the game so much. But Jungkook couldn't care less about basketball if it wasn’t for Min Yoongi.

“Oh trust me, he doesn’t care about that,” Taehyung speaks up his mouth still full with food, his words slurring but Jungkook perks up his ears at the new information.

“How do you know?”

The light brown haired guy chews on the last piece of his pizza slice and enjoys the attention he gets. He wipes his mouth clean with a napkin ridiculously slowly before he answers theatrically:

“Well, I spoke with Namjoon who heard from Jin who is his roommate that he swings both ways.”

He says it so simply like it’s nothing but Jungkook can't do anything but gape at him until the horrid thought crosses his mind.

“You didn't tell Namjoon that I...” he starts self-consciously while he constantly fidgets with his chopsticks but never actually touches his food that grows cold in front of him.

“That you are helplessly in love with one of his best friends? No. But I think he knows it already,” Tae scoffs rolling his eyes. For him, it's so obvious that blinds should see it too. It's also nerve-wrecking as hell to watch your friend suffering because he can't form one single sentence without stuttering around his crush. They are just tiptoeing around each other instead of kissing grossly.

“He can't. And I’m not in love, I...” Jungkook protests weakly, in no vain. “I just admire him a lot.”

“You are not that subtle as you think you are. You have a folder on your computer dedicated to your photos of his hands,” Jimin reminds him and raises an eyebrow almost challenging but the younger can't deny that.

“He has nice hands!” he says instead but it's the worst kind of excuse because vaguely 70% of his taken photos feature the baseball-player.

“If you say so,” Taehyung shrugs and shares a knowing look their roommate, Jungkook knows he is in way too deep.

Jungkook started going to the basketball games because he got into the uni’s newspaper editor team as their photographer. That’s how they met. When he was a freshman majoring in Cinematography, Min Yoongi was already a senior in Engineering but lucky for him, the older decided to enroll in Masters here and continue his basketball career too. They didn't really speak, only a few words here and there because they had mutual friends but Jungkook was present at every game he could and used the newspaper as an excuse to take numerous shots of Yoongi playing, jumping, warming up or just simply sitting on the bench. He was so sure it wasn't too obvious because none of his pictures proved that he got caught by the captain. So this weekend he does exactly what he did all the time: searching for a good place in the crowd and taking his Nikon into his hands waiting anxiously for the players (especially that handsome blondie) to set a foot on the court.

However, Yoongi wasn't as oblivious as he thought and his friends loved to tease him about it.

“Your loverboy is here again,” Hoseok slaps his butt while passing by him in the narrow locking room. Yoongi likes the adrenaline rush that comes with each game but nowadays he has one more reason to be excited about them. Though he would never admit it.

"There's no loverboy," he grunts and almost throws his body spray at his teammate who dares to laugh at him.

"Ah and how long are you going to play dumb and pretend not to know he has enough pictures of you he could probably sell a photobook?"

"Good for him," Yoongi puts his jersey with the university logo on and grins at Hoseok. "Just promise me you won't drool over my face once you buy it."

"Ew..."

"Hurry up, you rascals. Even pink little princesses change faster than you. I want to see you on field in a minute!" the coach yells at them yanking the door open and banging on the lockers. Everyone picks up their pace and gather around the door. The grumpy coach looks around. "Where is that giant mascot? Has anyone seen our damn mascot? He has to pee again? Unbelievable!"

Laughter and exciting chattering die away at one glare from the man above them as he points his finger at them one by one.

"I want to see you play fair and nice like you are ready to die for this team. But not actually dying, Jung! No more jumping on the hoop if you can't come down!" Yoongi can't surpass a smile thinking back at the iconic scene when his friend got a mental breakdown in the middle of the game because of his fear of heights. Fortunately, now Hoseok could laugh at it too.

A few more pointers and encouraging words later all of them cheer together. "Grizzlies, fighting!"

The game is okay. Yoongi is in his element, scoring points to ensure his team's win. It's not even a close call in the end, they win almost effortlessly because it looks like the opposite team gave up in the last round. Even though they are all sweaty and gross, they hug in joy and the audience cheers for them loudly. However, Yoongi longs for somebody specific’s cheers and he’s looking around in that high up area searching for one particular innocent face. He tries not to show it, but in the end, he turns out to be weak and gives in the urge no matter how hard he tries to suppress it. And there it is: the sparkling eyes focusing on him. But the younger boy looks away shyly as he notices the intense gaze on him. The basketball player smirks and after the lap of honour he withdraws with the rest of his teammates to the locker room to shower and change.

He drags out the time with preparing because he isn't in the mood for going to the after-party. Usually there's nobody interesting there, only booze and drunk college kids. He would rather go home and sleep or continue pining. However, on his way out of school that he believed to be empty, he hears sounds of dribbling from the basketball court and his curiosity takes him there against his will. Not that he minds as soon as he sees those dark, fluffy strands of hair.

Jungkook is just messing around, never throwing the ball at the backboard and Yoongi can't stay in the shadows for a long time.

“Wanna actually play?” he speaks up approaching the startled boy.  His steps are light hiding his nervousness. Thankfully because otherwise it would be pathetic to act like a lovesick teenager because of those damn butterflies (more like nasty bats) in his stomach. Especially when the younger looks at him through those beautiful long eyelashes.

“I’ve never tried before, I mean for real,” he blinks bashfully and stills leaving the ball untouched on the ground. Yoongi picks it up easily and lazily scores a perfect 3-pointer.

“I can teach you. It’s not that hard. You know the rules?” he asks casually and acts like he doesn’t know the other has been there for years now. Jungkook simply nods, not finding his voice and Yoongi finds it adorable.

“Come here,” he beckons Jungkook closer to him and when he complies, h maneuvers him near the center. “Bend your knees, don't be so tense and try to throw it in a high arc.”

The photographer nods once again and tries to follow the advice but he can't do anything with his jangled nerves. It may be the longest time they have ever been alone and his knuckles turn white at how hard he squeezes that poor ball before throwing it. It lands nowhere near the hoop but Yoongi doesn't laugh at him. He gives a few more pointers and brings back the rolled away ball. It takes a dozen more times but Jungkook rarely misses anymore.

“See? You’re good, very good actually,” Yoongi praises him and the younger couldn't be happier. He has lost his awkward shyness somewhere along the way and smiles openly at the shorter male.

“Beginners’ luck?” he offers with a shrug  and the captain smiles at him fondly.

“Yeah, sure.”

He can't help the warmth spreading in his chest and his following offer just blurts out of his mouth surprising them both:

“Let's play a one-on-one till 3 scores. If you win I will take you out on a date.”

As soon as the words stumbles out, he has a mild panic attack and wants to rephrase the sentence saying that by date he meant a friendly eating-out, but he never gets to that.

“O-okay,” Jungkook mutters blushing and Yoongi swears he has never seen anything cuter.

So they start the game. It’s unfair really. The older being at almost professional level while Jungkook still occasionally slips. Also, he’s an easy person to tease, especially when it comes to skinship. Yoongi would blame it on his superb defending techniques but the way he cages the slightly taller boy is nowhere near as aggressive as it should be. But he enjoys seeing the faint pink of the other’s ears none the less. He has no difficulty in elegantly shooting the ball through the hoop twice but his now even slimmer chances make Jungkook bold and competitive. He holds the elder's gaze while dribbling the ball and then he uses the same trick Yoongi did during the game and scores one.

“Nice,” the basketball player comments proudly, his grin never fading. He attacks the younger with vigour but Jungkook gets the run of it and blocks him. It's only then when Yoongi notices his wide shoulders and his hard chest and suddenly the cute bunny smiled kid is not that babyish freshman he met almost three years ago. He has grown up nicely. It distracts him for more than a fleeting moment and Jungkook takes advantage of this to score another goal. It makes things more interesting.

“Is that all you have, grandpa?” the younger teases almost cockily but the melody of his laughter is too sweet. Yoongi scoffs.

“You wish!” he reposts and quickly steals the ball out of Jungkooks hands. He withdraws until the mid-court line and even though he could most possibly throw it in with a nice jump, he waits for the other boy to attack and when it happens, he blocks it easily. They play mouse and cat, a game of push and pull and Yoongi can see when Jungkook's patience is running thin. Then, he makes a mistake: turning right when he should have gone left and now the ball is in the younger's hands. Jungkook just runs and jumps and… wins with a beautiful score.

In the silence both of them are panting hard, chest heaving and heart burning. A minute passes without them speaking and just stealing glances at each other. It’s the usually shy and quiet boy who speaks up first breaking the idyllic atmosphere:

“Why did you let me win?” He's too curious to not say anything about it because it’s obvious that Yoongi could have win if he had really wanted to. But the player isn’t an easy prey to be questioned.

“Don't flatter yourself, I'm just tired because of the game,” he explains half-heartedly but avoids the curious gaze that burns holes into his scalp. It's not necessarily a lie but it isn't the truth either.

They fidget around each other nervously, a little bothered while packing things up and getting ready to leave. Jungkook brings his camera and poppy on his cheeks. He's so young, innocent and easy to break while the older can be a little bit too wild when it comes to basketball or his studies. He's afraid of being a disappointment, but looking at that shy lip bite and blush, ha can only think of one thing: fuck that.

“So...” he shatters the silence between them, catching Jungkook’s curious eyes on him. He smiles. “How about that date?”

[flauntpage]

Extending Brett Brown is a No-Brainer

Was news of Brett Brown’s reported three-year contract extension a smoke screen for the Colangelo/Ringer bombshell?

I have no idea, but it’s not like any misdirection would be strong enough to pull us away from that story.

So on Tuesday, the most talked about Sixers’ news probably went in this order:

Colangelo Twitter allegations

Simmons dating Kendall Jenner report

Markelle Fultz doing cartwheels

Joel Embiid dunking on fools

Brett Brown extension

I could sit here and list out reasons why locking up Brett Brown is a good idea, but let’s actually do it in reverse order. Phil is not a Brown fan for many reasons, so I’ll give him the floor first to lay out his argument on why this is the wrong move.

Phil Keidel:

There’s nothing like getting it when you haven’t gotten it in a long time. For men, it can lead to “I love you” or even “will you marry me” way sooner than it should.

Some of you are nodding knowingly; a lot of you are pretending to know but you’re not fooling me.

Anyway, the Sixers hadn’t had it in a really long time — playoff basketball that is — and after winning one series against a pretty bad Miami Heat team and then getting humiliated by a crippled iteration of the Boston Celtics, the Sixers have extended their head coach for three seasons beyond the one he was already signed for.

And there’s no good reason why.

Even if you are willing to overlook the seasons where he had little talent (I don’t), judging him on only the past season still doesn’t justify this extension.

Ben Simmons won’t shoot from outside five feet. Markelle Fultz gave them nothing this season. Even if the coach didn’t draft these players, isn’t he supposed to make them better? In Fultz’s case, to make him play at all?

The Sixers won a lot of games in the Eastern Conference. The conference champion is an absurd underdog in the Finals. Making the playoffs in the Eastern Conference has little competitive value.

He worked with Gregg Popovich for awhile. Great. Charlie Weis worked for Bill Belichick, too. And Pop just fell out with Kawhi Leonard. Brand names aren’t always as good as the packaging.

Add in the multiple blown 20+ point leads — one in Game 2 of the Boston series — and the urgency to extend a 57-year-old basketball lifer just because he’s what’s here… just isn’t there.

Five years is a long time to go dry, but that’s no reason to put a ring on it before it’s even remotely necessary.”

For starters, I disagree with the stance on the Process years. I’m willing to overlook the seasons that Brett Brown coached Kendall Marshall and Phil Pressey and Henry Sims. I’m on the record saying that I considered 2017-18 to be his first year in charge of a real roster, but if you want to lump in the prior year to his evaluation period, the year where Joel Embiid played 30-some games and you had guys like Dario Saric and Ersan Ilysasova in the fold, then I think that’s probably fair.

Here’s the thing – and I mentioned this yesterday – but the modern-day NBA is less about coaching and much more about talent. How much coaching did Ty Lue, Mike D’Antoni, and Steve Kerr do in their respective conference finals? D’Antoni watched his team miss 27 straight three pointers in a game seven at home. Kerr found a way to play nine and 10-man rotations in games four and five. Lue just stood there watching LeBron James. Coaching matters to a point, then it’s all about star power from there.

Anyway, Phil mentions Ben Simmons’ inability to shoot. If you wanna blame Brett Brown for trying to mold a 6’10” ambidextrous dude into a point guard, sure, that’s fair, but I think you give it 2-3 years before deciding if it’s a success or failure. Markelle Fultz feels more like a Colangelo misstep at this point, but again, we’re a whopping one year into a kid’s NBA career. He turned 20 yesterday. Sure, Brown is ultimately responsible for improving these guys, but Markelle needs to get out of his own head and Ben just needs to start knocking down shots that we know he can make. You need a sample size > 1 season.

Yes, there’s no guarantee that assistants are automatic slam dunks. Phil correctly mentions Charlie Weis, who is 41-49 as a head coach. Romeo Crennel and Josh McDaniels were whatever at the helm after branching out from the same Belichick tree. James Borrego probably won’t do a ton with that Charlotte roster right away. I think the Spurs/Popovich thing is a little overvalued, if we’re being honest. Hiring the assistant brewer at Smuttynose doesn’t mean he or she is gonna automatically roll out a killer Old Brown Dog spinoff at your industrial park startup. The water is different and so are the co-workers and customers.

As for the blown leads, I’d simply chalk that up to a young team not knowing how to close out games. The Sixers were fast starters and came ready to play. Isn’t that a credit to the coach that his team was often prepared? You can’t blow a big lead if you don’t build a big lead, but you know as well as I do that the NBA is a game of runs, and the Warriors’ third quarters in these playoffs should prove that. It’s misguided to think that any double-digit lead built up in the 1st or 2nd period is going to OBVIOUSLY hold until the end of the game. The Sixers got much better at this as the season continued.

But more than anything, when you evaluate Brett Brown, you need to look at what he’s building here from a big picture sense. Here’s a coach that won 52 games with a rookie converted point guard and second-year big man coming off of multiple injuries. He’s constructing a high-tempo, pass-happy team that values the sharing of the basketball, three-point shooting, defense, and consistent rhythm and flow. He is diametrically opposed to slowing the game down and playing isolation ball, which he’s said on the record several times before. He doesn’t want to walk the ball up the floor and play a deliberate and conservative game just to curb turnovers and stem runs.

Now, of course you can approach that philosophically and say that it’s stupid to try to mirror what the Warriors are doing. Playoff basketball, as Boston and Cleveland showed us, is about defensive matchups, hunting mismatches, exploiting weaknesses, and game planning around or against superstars. The Sixers were a freight train built for the regular season that hit the skids in the playoffs. Brown’s biggest challenge moving forward will be to tweak his team for April and May basketball while keeping intact the fan-friendly and aesthetically pleasing brand that he’s installed over the last few years.

If you accept that, you can tolerate blown leads and turnovers, because that’s just a natural by-product of the play style. The Warriors get disjointed and sloppy, too, and they cough up the ball and go cold from the floor. But when they’re on, they’re on, and it’s the best thing to watch in the association. Similar to Chip Kelly’s Oregon, Brett Brown is not going to line up with a fullback and run out the clock. Should he learn how to do it? Maybe.

As for the timeout issue, yeah, I think Brett can be better there. I think he got better with it as the season progressed and he became comfortable with the new rules, and you’d see him often call time right the beginning of an opponent run, or when he saw something defensively he didn’t like. He’d usually nip it in the bud, so game two in Boston was a bit of a head-scratcher to me. He also should have kept T.J. McConnell in during game two and was slow to make his adjustments overall.

And when it comes to play calls, Brett Brown is not incapable of dialing up looks for JJ Redick from dribble hand-offs and a variety of off-ball screens. He’s not incapable of baseline designs that get Ben Simmons posted up on the low block. He called some beautiful “horns” sets this season and was very good in ATO and BLOB/SLOB situations.

At the end of game four in Miami, he whipped up two brilliant calls, essentially icing the game with this Redick/Embiid fake pick and roll + DHO action:

So whether or not he calls more set plays or prefers to let his players freestyle out there, that’s a really interesting thing to pay attention to going into this next season, when the stakes are higher and the excuses are fewer.

I always viewed this season as a developmental year bridging the end of the Process era to the future. For that reason, I wouldn’t have cared whether the Sixers won 52 games or 32 games if we saw significant progress. Ben Simmons looks like a stud who needs to work on his shooting. Joel Embiid became an All-Star. Dario Saric was an unheralded banger. Redick was, more or less, a natural fit. The jury is still out on post-contract Robert Covington and Fultz was really the only true disappointment of the season.

So if the alternative is to fire Brett Brown (and bring in who?), or to leave him guessing on the final year of his deal, I don’t think either of those strategies make sense. Most teams are going to extend a 52-win coach with a young core of players who like him. If he ultimately fails, like Dwane Casey, then you can always justifiably pull the plug after 59-23 and a semifinals sweep.

We’re not at that point yet. We’re not even close to it.

Extending Brett Brown is a No-Brainer published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[justball4ever]

Hosted by: http://ift.tt/2wbXgW6

This article was written by Mercer University Assistant Coach Jarred Merrill.

  Team Emphasis

The buzzer sounds and your team has just lost a very competitive road game against the top team in the league, the score is 78-77 and your kids played their hearts out, meanwhile you and your staff make the lowly walk back to the locker room and prepare to address the team. Immediately upon entering the locker room your Head Coach is asking for the stats, even though he knows that the stats take a few minutes to be printed and delivered to his hands, he is completely irate and visibly defeated.

As the graduate assistant hastily walks in the locker room to nervously deliver the stat sheet, the Head Coach snatches the sheet and quickly notices his team has shot an abysmal 9-22 from the FT line. Not many things frustrate a coaching staff more than missed throws. However, as a staff you cannot be upset with your team if you do not make it a DAILY emphasis in practice and individual workouts to enforce the importance of making FTs.

    Getting to the Line

Our 2016-17 team here at Mercer University shot 78.5% on the season and was ranked 6th in the nation according to Ken Pomeroy. We also led the Southern Conference in FT percentage. Our player’s ability to make free throws allowed us to win or stay in games throughout the season.

Unfortunately even though we shot a great percentage as a team, it was our inability to get to the FT line at a higher rate during games that helped to contribute to some of our losses this past year. We had multiple games this season where we went into halftime with four or less attempts at the line. Making FTs is very important but getting there speaks volumes to what your players like to do in your system.

For the year we attempted 17.9 FTA’s per game, we would like to see this number rise up to 19.5-22.5 attempts per game. We had a total 10 one-possession games and the Mercer Bears shot 78.8% from the line. In 2015-16 we shot 74.2% on the season, this year’s team was the best FT shooting team we have had in 9 years. If we would’ve been able to get to the line at a higher rate we would have been able to really take advantage of our excellent free throw shooting.

    Emphasize the Importance of Free Throws in Practice

Make sure that the emphasis on the importance of free throws is felt during practice by splitting the team up numerous times throughout the duration and holding your team accountable to making 70%-75% of their total shots as a team. Put three minutes on the clock and create a 1 and 1 FT situation. If the player misses the first FT it counts as two missed FTS, that player has two down and back baseline touches, miss one FT and you have one down and back baseline touch. (I like splitting the teams up evenly and making it a one or two month competition between baskets.)

No talking or jacking around during these times, players tend to relax mentally during FT time, make sure they know how important it is! If the percentage is not achieved then make the team run, if a certain basket has an awful percentage you can make the four to five players at the basket run. Coaches must stand at individual baskets vigilantly giving confidence and correction on shots attempted.

As coaches, we only get a hand full of program staples to insert into the player’s minds during practice, make sure that FT emphasis is one of them. Challenge your players as a staff to shoot 400-600 FTs per week, all while keeping a written tally of shots made and attempted, this can easily be done on their own time.

    Routine, Target, and Form for Bad FT Shooters

We have all witnessed the bad FT shooter who spins the ball to himself, takes 4 deep breathes, dribbles the ball 7 times, and then precedes to shoot the ball and miss the FT. I have always instructed bad FT shooters to keep the most simplistic FT routine as possible. Try getting players to take out all the “stuff” and eliminate the dribble from their shooting routine. By eliminating the dribble and other nonsense, the player is solely focused mentally on seeing the ball go through the net.

The nail hole has always been the starting point that coaches teach when talking about FTs. As a coach, you need to evaluate exactly where a certain players natural shooting pocket is located, whether over the top of the head, at the forehead, or at the right or left ear, moving one or two inches to the right or left will produce more consistent results.

Take some time to ask bad FT shooters what they are aiming at or focusing on before they attempt a shot, some answers will simply amaze you!! Just like all players they should be focused on the front of the rim, directly in the middle, while shooting the ball slightly over the front of the target with proper arch. When asked this question good shooters should answer, “aiming in the middle and slightly over the front of the rim, with arc on the ball.”

Consistently checking the release point and follow through is also vital, guys who do not make FTs are typically erratic and inconsistent on snapping the wrist and keeping the follow through the same every time. Keep the release point at or above a 55-degree angle, never up-never in, especially as the legs get tired during games.

Create an emphasis on snapping the wrist and locking the elbow, all one motion. Do drills that are going to help build muscle memory and create better ball flight for enhanced free throw shooting percentages.

Make players stay on the line as the ball goes through the net. Far too often players fall away from the line, especially on the second FTA, which is a terrible habit. Challenge players to finish their shots by lightly bouncing on their toes with great balance, and do not allow the tippy toe ballerina finish or players crashing down on their heels after shooting the ball.

Lastly, coaches must encourage players to limit the motion from start to finish when at the line, less motion equals less problems. Getting a bad FT shooter to start with the basketball directly in front of the chin instead of at the belly button or below will help players keep their elbows in and pointed at the target, which will reduce misses and produce more wins.

    Conclusion

Games and even seasons can be decided from the free throw line. It is something that needs to be emphasized on a daily basis with your players at an individual level and as a team. Make sure that you are on the winning side of getting to the free throw line and then making every shot count.

  Mercer University Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach

Jarred Merrill has been a part of the Mercer University Bears coaching staff since 2015. Before coming to Mercer he spent time coaching at Southern Nazarene as an assistant coach. Jarred comes from a playing background as well and spent 7 years after college playing professional basketball all over the world.

    The post Creating Better Free Throw Shooters appeared first on Basketball HQ.

 Source: Ball4ever.com

[junker-town]

A day with Hornets assistant coach — and NBA lifer — Stephen Silas

See the intense work that goes into every game.

Stephen Silas, the associate head coach of the Charlotte Hornets, is the ultimate NBA lifer. He was literally born into the league in Boston, where his father Paul, a former NBA star and coach who spent more than 40 years in the league, was helping the Celtics win a pair of championships. Stephen can remember toddling around the Kingdome while his dad completed his playing career for the Sonics under Lenny Wilkens.

While born to a great player, Stephen has always considered himself the son of a coach. More than that, he wanted to be around his dad as much as possible, so he grew up going to practices in San Diego when Paul coached Donald Sterling’s Clippers. Later, he was a ballboy for the Knicks while his father was an assistant under Pat Riley.

Young Silas played games of HORSE on the Garden floor with Patrick Ewing’s son (little Patrick) and mopped sweat while Big Patrick was shooting free throws. He also learned an essential lesson in those years.

“Being on the sideline I knew I had to be quiet when Pat Riley was coaching,” Silas says. “Be seen and not heard was how I grew up.”

That may as well be the essential credo of assistant coaches everywhere. Do your work, stay on top of things, and keep out of the spotlight. Some teams go so far as to keep their assistants completely off limits. The Hornets are not one of them.

They’ve granted me access to Stephen while the team prepares for a mid-November game against the Celtics. I’ll be with him from shootaround through pregame and postgame, with a film session sandwiched in the middle, to document the largely opaque daily world of an NBA assistant coach.

His boss, Hornets head coach Steve Clifford, shrugged when I thanked him for agreeing to the project. He knows what it’s like to toil in anonymity. Silas, frankly, doesn’t need the extra publicity. He has interviewed for the head jobs in Charlotte and Houston and annually shows up on lists of up-and-coming coaching candidates.

If Silas is unknown to the general public, he’s practically family within the larger NBA ecosystem. He worked with the retired players’ association after graduating from Brown with a double major in sociology and management. Later, he cut his teeth as an advance scout working both the college and the pro circuit, where he first met Clifford almost 20 years ago.

When a job opened up on his father’s staff in 2000 with the Charlotte Hornets, friends suggested he hire his son. Paul wasn’t sure. Neither was Stephen, for that matter. Enough people convinced them it would be a good idea and Stephen had his first coaching job at the age of 27, then the youngest assistant in the league.

“To be Paul Silas’ son in the world of basketball wasn’t necessarily something I wanted to do right away, but it was a way in,” Stephen says. “Being my dad’s son has always been great. That’s one thing I’ve just had to deal with.”

Photo by Mike Lawrie/Getty Images

Paul Silas

Father and son stayed together through stops in both Charlotte and Cleveland. Stephen later worked with the Warriors under Don Nelson before returning to Charlotte in 2010, where he’s been ever since.

After almost two decades on the sidelines, the 44-year-old Stephen has outgrown his father’s shadow. His fellow coaches find him to be thorough and meticulous. Players respond enthusiastically to his even-keeled, yet demanding, approach.

“He’s always been around the game,” says Hornets forward Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who has worked with Silas since his rookie season. “He knows it inside and out. He coached my cousin in Cleveland, Dajuan Wagner. It’s like damn, feel me? He’s old, but he don’t look old.”

In a league that is trending toward more and more toward specialization, Silas’ coaching profile is broader and more diverse. He’s done offense with Nelson and defense with Clifford, two of the game’s great tacticians. He’s worked individually with guards, big men, and wings. He’s coached summer league.

“There isn’t much in the NBA that I haven’t done,” Silas says.

There also isn’t anyone he doesn’t know. As we chat following a practice session at Emerson College, Silas nods toward an Emerson coach. “That’s my guy,” he says. “We met at Dave Cowens’ camp.”

9:30 a.m. Shootaround

There’s something about the cold quiet of the morning shootaround that says it’s time to go to work. There are no frills to be had in this environment, least of all heat. The players and coaches arrive on buses in their workout gear, while the support staff stocks their locker room with uniforms and equipment.

After watching film, the Hornets hit the court at 10 a.m. for a 50-minute walkthrough, which, like all NBA walkthroughs, is closed to the media. There’s 25 minutes of offense and 25 minutes of defense. Everything is planned in advance.

“When I first started, shootaround would be literally, shoot around,” Silas says. “You go and play some shooting games, maybe walk through four plays. And that’s it. Everybody get on the bus and go.”

Things change. Under Clifford, the Hornets are known for preparation and attention to detail. Before they get to the Garden, the coaches will have gone through a thorough scouting report that was compiled by one of the assistants.

“Cliff is so detailed,” Silas says. “He’s got it down. If we have an opinion, we’ll give it to him. As the years have gone on he’s leaned on us a little more.”

When Clifford got the Hornets job four-and-a-half years ago, he didn’t even bother to interview Silas. He simply asked him if he’d like to stay on staff. As the number two man, Silas runs practices on occasion and takes the lead in game-planning. During games, he’s responsible for substitutions.

“He can do everything,” Clifford tells me. “It’s healthy for the team to not have to listen to the same voice 82 times. I have so much trust and he’s so thorough and knowledgeable in what he does that I’m never worried. The preparation is going to be as good or better.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas talks with Kemba Walker

That’s in addition to his other duties, which include working individually with the wing players. If Silas has a speciality, it’s player development — Clifford was immediately drawn to how Silas interacts with players.

A special education major in college, Clifford notes something a former professor had told him about teaching: “If you gain the right type of communication with your group they will try hard to meet your expectations,” Clifford says. “That’s what he’s very good at. He has a way to gain their respect and establish the right kind of credibility so they know he can help them. There’s nothing more important than that.”

Silas is perhaps best known by hardcore NBA aficionados for his work with a young Steph Curry. He taught Steph his two-basketball dribbling routine and he gets a chuckle when fans come to the arena early to watch Curry’s pregame workout. Their relationship has deep roots.

Silas had known Steph since he was a kid growing up in Charlotte. His niece and nephew went to the same school and Paul Silas had coached Dell Curry with the Hornets. They were both sons of former players and hit it off immediately. Curry would come over on off days and watch games or eat dinner. They’d go to church together or go to the gym and get up shots.

“He’s like the perfect student,” Silas says. “He listens all the time, asks great questions, challenges you a little. You can tell him something and he’ll get better right after you tell him. He stretches you, which was good for me as a coach.”

After the walkthrough is completed, everyone heads back to the bus for the short ride back to the hotel. Now it’s time to think about a future opponent, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

12:30 p.m. Film work

Still in his sweats from shootaround, Silas has a tablet setup on a stand next to his MacBook, where he’s watching film of Cleveland’s game against Houston. We’re in a suite on top floor of the Ritz, where the team is staying. Being the number two man has its perks.

Like most teams, the Hornets divide the scouting work, with each assistant taking 20 games. Silas has the lead for the Cavs, which consists of watching five games worth of film and compiling his notes into the scouting report that goes to Clifford. He’ll then go over the report with the head coach before they present it to the group.

In his early days, Silas would travel with a plastic bag full of VHS tapes. He once spent a lonely Saturday night in a Los Angeles Walmart looking for two VCRs so he could make his edit on the road. Now the team has its own software for watching film.

As with everything, there is a routine. Silas likes to watch two games back-to-back, which helps him recognize patterns. He never watches live so he can skip past commercials and free throws. He keeps the sound on because he can occasionally pick up a tidbit or two based on what they’re talking about on the broadcast.

Once he has his five games he’ll compile the scouting report, which sounds a lot cooler than it actually looks. The report is only a few pages long, but it’s crammed with offensive and defensive keys, matchups, and individual play sets. Silas and the other assistants draw the sets in black ink and make notes in red because Clifford prefers it to computer generated diagrams.

“Our game plans are pretty substantial,” Silas says.

Before he even gets to the video, Silas will have received an email from the team’s advance scout, Drew Perry, who sees each team live at least twice. Perry tracks all the play calls and forwards them to the team’s video department.

The video team then syncs them with the film so they appear on the bottom of the screen. They also catalogue them for the scouting report software they use where Silas makes his notes on the tablet. After watching games all the way through, he can jump back and forth between specific sets, individual personnel, or outcomes.

Perry will also send along a playbook consisting of diagrams as well as his own notes. Silas flips through the diagrams that run on for several pages detailing how the Cavaliers try to score: early offense, secondary offense, post-ups, corner, high posts, Hawk cuts, UCLA cuts, zippers, catch and shoot, loop action and spread, Princeton, dribble hand-off, step ups, horns, middle pick-and-roll, side pick-and-roll, side out of bounds, deep corner out of bounds, baseline out of bounds, ATOs, and crunch time plays.

It’s literally everything you could ever want to know about how the Cavs run their offense in every conceivable situation. Even for someone who consumes a ton of NBA basketball, the diagrams look like hieroglyphics. For coaches, they’re an unspoken method of communication.

“Drew is unbelievable,” Silas says. “He’ll do seven different options on double drag, which is just two picks in transition. It’s a little bit of overkill, but it’s better to have more than less.”

Advance scouts are the true information brokers in this league. They see everything from play calls to player reactions on the bench and in the huddle. Silas learned the art of scouting from his days doing advance work and it was an invaluable apprenticeship. He used to diagram everything. Now, he instantly recognizes actions and traces them back to the root.

“Slice 4 Pop,” he says as the Cavs run through a set. “A Kevin Love play. This is actually a play they used to run for Amar’e Stoudemire in Phoenix where the small will pin down on Kevin Love coming up to the top.”

On the screen, all of this happens in a few seconds. A guard runs toward the baseline to set a screen on Love’s defender that will allow Love to catch the ball about 18 feet from the basket near the top of the key. Within that set are variations, and within those variations are options if the play breaks down. Silas can diagnose all that in less than the time it takes to watch the full clip.

On defense, he’s looking for coverage patterns. Do they shoot the gap on a stagger screen or lock-and-trail? Do they get up in the passing lanes and deny everything or lay back and pack the paint? Always, he is looking for tendencies in pick-and-roll coverage. “That’s the nitty gritty of offense,” he says. “Try to get two guys to the ball.”

Despite all those tactical adjustments, there is a fairly consistent collection of sets and calls from team to team. The difference is philosophy, as well as personnel. Right on cue, as the Cavs bring the ball up in transition, LeBron James waits a half-beat and then hits a trailing Love for an open three at the top of the arc.

“Those transition threes,” Silas says, shaking his head. They will be an adjustment for Dwight Howard, a traditional center in a world that emphasizes speed and shooting.

“Dwight is programmed to run back to the rim,” Silas says. “But with the game changing and more spacing [for centers], he has to be conscious of staying up. So when I do my writeup it will talk about all those aspects. Kevin Love running into that trail three.”

When his film work is done, Silas will have a few hours to himself before heading back to the arena.

5 p.m. Arrive at the Garden

Before every road game Silas will catch a ride with forwards Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Treveon Graham 30 minutes before the first bus leaves from the hotel. Guards Jeremy Lamb and Malik Monk will arrive around the same time, and the next part of the workday will commence.

They are his guys and they run the gamut of experience levels and roles. They all need something different from their coach. Silas is responsible for them and takes ownership over good plays and bad ones. The bad ones linger. Maybe he could have found another clip or talked through a coverage one more time.

“You’re always thinking about your guys,” Silas says. “Every guy is completely different. You can’t approach it the same way. Some guys are better learners on the floor. Some guys need 20 clips, they want to see everything. Some guys want 10 of their good and 10 of their bad.”

Each player gets his own individual time with Silas for a pregame shooting routine and going through more film on the bench on a laptop. The order is set and never deviates.

Graham is up first. The 24-year-old from Virginia Commonwealth caught on as an undrafted free agent last season after a year in the D-League. Graham earned a role off the bench in the absence of Nicolas Batum, but he’s out with a thigh contusion. Coach and player sit on the bench and talk.

“For him, it’s, ‘Are you good? Is there anything you need a little more work on?”’ Silas says. “If it’s a veteran that’s not playing much they’re completely different than a young guy who’s not playing much. They have to know you have their best interests at heart and you understand what they’re going through. If a guy’s not playing much you can’t hammer them all the time because they’re going to hate coming to work every day.”

Kidd-Gilchrist, a low-maintenance defensive stalwart, takes the court next. He always gets exactly what he needs. No more. No less. Before a game against the Rockets, Silas sent him a clip defending James Harden. The next day Silas asked if he got the text and MKG nodded. Silas laughs. “I can’t get a thumbs up, or an OK, or a black fist or something?”

That’s MKG: quiet and dependable. They’ve been together for six years and their connection grows deeper every season. “He’s more than a coach, man,” MKG tells me after finishing his pregame routine. “He’s a friend. He’s a mentor.”

Lamb, a thrice-traded former lottery pick from Connecticut who is off to the best start of his career, is up next. His emergence as a starter in place of Batum has been one of the team’s positive developments. It’s early in the season, but Lamb appears to finally be achieving a breakthrough six years into his career. Then again, it’s not that early. He and Silas spent much of the summer working out in Charlotte.

“It was real this summer,” Silas says. “That’s a win. A good summer is a win and now he’s had 11 really good games. He’s super confident, he works, and is very conscientious.”

Jeremy Brevard-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Silas

Lamb always has to get shots up after practices and shootarounds. They hit the same areas of the floor day in and day out. Devising a routine and sticking with it has been an important part of his development. And he’s always asking for clips. Silas makes it a point to mix in positive plays so Lamb can leave the session feeling good about himself.

“When you do have a coach who cares about you and really likes to develop players and make people better that’s huge,” Lamb tells me. “You don’t always find that in the NBA. People always talk about how hard players work and stuff like that. At the end of the day, they never get a day off. He’s always texting me, ‘What time do you want to go tomorrow?’ Even when I’m late, he’s there. It’s great having a coach that believes in you but also pushes you.”

Because he is a rookie, Monk gets the final pick and winds up with the last shooting slot right as the arena countdown clock gets to 90 minutes. “He got the best time,” Silas says with a bemused look. “Go figure.” Silas has to bring Monk up to speed quickly but not overload with him with too much information. It’s a delicate balance.

“This is completely different than anything he’s ever seen before,” Silas says. “It has to be enough but not so much that they don’t tune you out, which I would have done when I was 19 and someone was showing 20 clips of pick-and-roll protection.”

Monk, who is already getting important rotation minutes, is full of boundless energy and enthusiasm. On our way off the court for a quick interview, he stops to sign an autograph and winds up signing for every person in the section. This is still new and fresh and he’s eager to please. I ask Monk if Silas ever loses patience with him.

“Never. Never. Never. He doesn’t get mad,” Monk says. “You make a mistake, he’s going to tell you and you learn from it. In the tone that he talks. No get mad, no get frustrated, nothing like that. Coach Clifford is the one that gets mad.”

After their workouts, there’s still more time for film and final prep. The crowd is starting to arrive and the Garden is coming to life.

Gametime 7:30 p.m.

The gameplan has been well established since early this morning. On offense, they want to run multiple actions to try and gain an advantage against the Celtics’ switching defense. Any possession that ends with one pass or or one screen is probably not a good possession. On defense, they want to keep the Celtics’ new star point guard Kyrie Irving out of the paint and off the three-point line.

The Hornets catch a break when it’s announced that Al Horford won’t play because he’s recovering from a concussion. That solves one issue since Horford is a mobile big man who takes opposing big men out to the perimeter, and the Hornets prefer to pack the paint. His replacement, Aron Baynes, also isn’t as likely to switch on pick-and-rolls. They catch another break when Irving crashes into Baynes and suffers a facial fracture less than two minutes into the game.

The first half goes according to plan. The Hornets limit transition and dare the C’s to beat them from the outside. The offense runs through multiple sequences and keeps turnovers to a minimum. Even though All-Star guard Kemba Walker struggles with his shot, he still hands out 10 assists in the first half as the Hornets build an 18-point lead.

They’re still up a dozen points going into the fourth quarter, but that’s when things fall apart. Walker is suddenly the only player who can score and the Celtics make an inspired comeback to extend their winning streak to 12 games. It’s a brutal loss for the Hornets, even more so because it’s their fourth straight defeat and they won’t play again for five days.

As I head down the tunnel to catch up with Silas, Celtics coach Brad Stevens pulls me aside and says the Hornets were as prepared as any team they’ve played this season. “Whatever we did, they were on it,” Stevens says.

I relay the complement to Silas, who grimaces. “Great,” he says. “What does that get us?”

The Hornets mood is forlorn, even angry. Coaches and support staff walk by sporting thousand-yard stares. It’s only November, but these setbacks hurt. I ask Silas how he deals with the losses. “Not well,” he says.

He’s got family waiting for him and he’d rather not deal with any of that right now. There are postgame duties to handle on the plane ride home, and he’s already thinking of clips to show his guys. The Cavs’ report is waiting to be finalized when he lands.

The bus is leaving for the airport in 10 minutes, and it occurs to Silas that they’ve been on the road for a week and a half. As he searches for something positive, he says, “It will be good to go home.”

[madpicks]

New Post has been published on https://www.madpicks.com/sports/nba/giannis-antetokounmpo-dream-becomes-reality/

The Giannis Antetokounmpo dream becomes reality

The Greek phenom is becoming what we hoped he might be right before our eyes.

BOSTON — It was early in the NBA tenures for both Brad Stevens and Giannis Antetokounmpo when the Celtics’ coach first laid eyes on the Greek phenom. Scanning the court, Stevens took in all 6’11 of the skinny teenager and thought, “Holy s.” (In the retelling of this story, Stevens really stopped short with the letter S, being the considerate Hoosier that he is.)

“He does some things,” Stevens said. “That’s the best way to put it.”

Giannis does indeed do many things. He’s not really a point guard, per se, but he brings the ball up the floor on occasion and initiates the offense. More often than not, the Bucks run their system through him in the high post, making him more of a point forward. Even that relatively modern designation isn’t exactly right because our terminology has yet to catch up to Antetokounmpo’s game.

In the open court, Giannis is breathtaking. He barely needs but a dribble or two to transverse the length of the court and his liftoff area begins around the free throw line. “Him in transition,” Stevens said. “I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anyone like him.”

He is also good for a dozen holy shit (sorry, Brad) plays a night. Some of these wind up on the nightly reel of gifs and highlights. Many of them, however, are subtle, fleeting moments. A behind-the-back pass here, an altered shot there. You simply can’t take your eyes off him at any moment and expect to get the full show. Blink and you’ll wish you hadn’t.

Sergio Estrada-USA TODAY Sports

Giannis’ rise has been both steady and spectacular. He was a curiosity as a rookie, a phenom as a sophomore, and an intriguing talent in his third campaign when the Bucks began tilting their offense more and more in his direction. The wins, however, remained stagnant. The Bucks were a playoff team in his second season and a disappointment in his third, not that either were directly attributable to him. For the first three years of his career Giannis was a big part of a large ensemble, but not quite the man yet.

That’s all changed. What has elevated Antetokounmpo from the ranks of the young phenoms into a full-blown All-Star has been the melding of his phenomenal talents with a keener understanding of the game. That he has not had to sacrifice any of his spectacular gifts to reach this point makes him one of the most exciting prospects to come into the league since … ever, really. There is no precedent for a hyper-athletic 7-footer who plays like a forward and commands the game like a guard.

In his fourth season Giannis has experienced the biggest jump of his career. Everything is up, from scoring and shooting to playmaking, steals, and assists. Most importantly, the Bucks are winning games and their trajectory is once again pointed in the right direction. As we head down the stretch of the regular season, they are the most dangerous low seed in the entire bracket and the one that makes potential opponents in the East wary.

All that, and Giannis is still just barely 22 years old.

“I know for you guys it’s different, but when you see him in the gym every day and you see the work he puts in, it’s not really a surprise,” Greg Monroe said. “He’s never tired. Ever.”

18-year vet Jason Terry compared his work ethic to that of Dirk Nowitzki and marveled, “He has so much more basketball to go.”

His coach Jason Kidd attributed Giannis’ growth to his ability to listen, which sounded like a perfunctory compliment at first but made sense in the reasoning.

“He wants to be great,” Kidd said. “He thrives in the challenge of us putting more responsibilities on him, but I would say his ability to listen and digest what we’re saying (and then) to translate it onto the floor. To be given the ball at 21 years old at 7-feet tall, to run the offense and understand what we’re trying to do. There’s going to be some good and there’s going to be moments to learn from. He digests not just the good, but the bad too.”

Giannis himself echoed that refrain when asked the same question, reinforcing the messaging that his coach is providing.

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

“Listening,” he said. “That’s the most important thing. Usually when you’re this young you think you know everything but really you don’t know nothing. You got to keep listening.”

Even as he grows into his featured role, Antetokounmpo remains an unabashed delight. He is young and fun, commanding the post-game DJ role with glee. His English is fantastic and his manner is playful. He has not yet been beaten down into giving cliched, canned answers, bless his heart.

Responding to an on-court altercation with Celtic provocateur Marcus Smart that led to a flagrant foul on Smart, Giannis noted: “I thought he just flopped a lot. I wasn’t even mad about him tripping me. I touched him but I thought he oversold it. He’s a smart player. That’s why his name is Smart.”

On 24-year-old teammate Malcolm Brogdon, who it must be noted is two years older than Antetokounmpo: “He’s not a rookie in my eyes.”

Told that Stevens had made a similar comment, Giannis didn’t miss a beat: “Great minds think alike.”

Giannis can be charming and goofy and the stories of his early indoctrination into American culture were both hilarious and endearing. But as he told SI’s Lee Jenkins earlier in the season, “I’m not really that kid anymore.” Where once he was a League Pass fever dream, now he’s a legitimate franchise player.

That’s the biggest development of this Milwaukee season. With Giannis leading the way, the Bucks have suddenly become a very good basketball team even without injured scorer Jabari Parker. They have the best record in the East since the All-Star break and were tied with Portland for the most wins in the month of March with 13 heading into the weekend. While not particularly proficient on either end of the floor statistically, they have become a solid proposition each night with players sliding seamlessly into roles that work for them.

Much of that has to do with the return to form of Khris Middleton, a wonderfully underrated player who can shoot, score, and defend. Middleton has brought balance to the Bucks, providing a secondary scorer whenever Giannis is on the court and a primary option when he gets his rest. Kidd has made a point of staggering their minutes so that one of them is always on the floor.

With Middleton back in the lineup, there’s ample shooting around Giannis and dependable size down low, thanks to the revitalized play of Monroe, who should get Sixth Man of the Year consideration. Veteran characters like Terry, Matthew Dellavedova, and Tony Snell provide steady shooting and interchangeable versatility. Brogdon, the aforementioned old rookie, has been both consistent and a revelation all season.

Steve Dykes-USA TODAY Sports

What makes the Bucks unique is they have so much length. Even when they go “small” they are still enormous. All that speed and wingspan creates a chaotic match-up nightmare and all that comes back to Giannis.

Consider the game against the Celtics, who used no less than four different players from all the major position groups to guard him. First it was Al Horford, who at least had the length and savvy, if not the speed. Horford’s other talents directing the defense were wasted on the match-up, however, and after Giannis popped a couple of threes and the Bucks raced out to a 10-point lead, Stevens turned to Jae Crowder. What he gave away in length, Crowder made up for in strength and quickness. The two battled for most of the game, with Smart and Avery Bradley also taking their turns.

As is typical with Smart’s brand of brutalist defense, his encounters with Giannis helped make it a tight, tense contest. It was not the kind of game that lends itself to heroic maneuvers or breathtaking aerial ballets. Rather, it was the kind of game for a young team to prove itself on the road, which Milwaukee did. The Bucks held off a couple of Boston rallies in the fourth quarter and emerged with an important win on the second night of a back-to-back.

Giannis was tremendous, if not dominant, going for 21 points with nine boards, along with three assists, three steals, and three blocks. It’s the kind of line that shows up only a handful of times during the course of the season, made the all more extraordinary by how casual it all was.

In the joyful din of a jubilant young locker room, Giannis offered one more possibility forture.

“Hopefully one day I can be able to lead this team deep into the playoffs,” he said. “And hopefully to the Finals.”

Of such pedestrian pursuits are the most epic tales of Greek mythology born. Giannis Antetokounmpo is crafting his own legend and he’s still just 22 years old. Holy shit.

[justball4ever]

This article was written by Mercer University Assistant Coach Jarred Merrill.

  Team Emphasis

The buzzer sounds and your team has just lost a very competitive road game against the top team in the league, the score is 78-77 and your kids played their hearts out, meanwhile you and your staff make the lowly walk back to the locker room and prepare to address the team. Immediately upon entering the locker room your Head Coach is asking for the stats, even though he knows that the stats take a few minutes to be printed and delivered to his hands, he is completely irate and visibly defeated.

As the graduate assistant hastily walks in the locker room to nervously deliver the stat sheet, the Head Coach snatches the sheet and quickly notices his team has shot an abysmal 9-22 from the FT line. Not many things frustrate a coaching staff more than missed throws. However, as a staff you cannot be upset with your team if you do not make it a DAILY emphasis in practice and individual workouts to enforce the importance of making FTs.

    Getting to the Line

Our 2016-17 team here at Mercer University shot 78.5% on the season and was ranked 6th in the nation according to Ken Pomeroy. We also led the Southern Conference in FT percentage. Our player’s ability to make free throws allowed us to win or stay in games throughout the season.

Unfortunately even though we shot a great percentage as a team, it was our inability to get to the FT line at a higher rate during games that helped to contribute to some of our losses this past year. We had multiple games this season where we went into halftime with four or less attempts at the line. Making FTs is very important but getting there speaks volumes to what your players like to do in your system.

For the year we attempted 17.9 FTA’s per game, we would like to see this number rise up to 19.5-22.5 attempts per game. We had a total 10 one-possession games and the Mercer Bears shot 78.8% from the line. In 2015-16 we shot 74.2% on the season, this year’s team was the best FT shooting team we have had in 9 years. If we would’ve been able to get to the line at a higher rate we would have been able to really take advantage of our excellent free throw shooting.

    Emphasize the Importance of Free Throws in Practice

Make sure that the emphasis on the importance of free throws is felt during practice by splitting the team up numerous times throughout the duration and holding your team accountable to making 70%-75% of their total shots as a team. Put three minutes on the clock and create a 1 and 1 FT situation. If the player misses the first FT it counts as two missed FTS, that player has two down and back baseline touches, miss one FT and you have one down and back baseline touch. (I like splitting the teams up evenly and making it a one or two month competition between baskets.)

No talking or jacking around during these times, players tend to relax mentally during FT time, make sure they know how important it is! If the percentage is not achieved then make the team run, if a certain basket has an awful percentage you can make the four to five players at the basket run. Coaches must stand at individual baskets vigilantly giving confidence and correction on shots attempted.

As coaches, we only get a hand full of program staples to insert into the player’s minds during practice, make sure that FT emphasis is one of them. Challenge your players as a staff to shoot 400-600 FTs per week, all while keeping a written tally of shots made and attempted, this can easily be done on their own time.

    Routine, Target, and Form for Bad FT Shooters

We have all witnessed the bad FT shooter who spins the ball to himself, takes 4 deep breathes, dribbles the ball 7 times, and then precedes to shoot the ball and miss the FT. I have always instructed bad FT shooters to keep the most simplistic FT routine as possible. Try getting players to take out all the “stuff” and eliminate the dribble from their shooting routine. By eliminating the dribble and other nonsense, the player is solely focused mentally on seeing the ball go through the net.

The nail hole has always been the starting point that coaches teach when talking about FTs. As a coach, you need to evaluate exactly where a certain players natural shooting pocket is located, whether over the top of the head, at the forehead, or at the right or left ear, moving one or two inches to the right or left will produce more consistent results.

Take some time to ask bad FT shooters what they are aiming at or focusing on before they attempt a shot, some answers will simply amaze you!! Just like all players they should be focused on the front of the rim, directly in the middle, while shooting the ball slightly over the front of the target with proper arch. When asked this question good shooters should answer, “aiming in the middle and slightly over the front of the rim, with arc on the ball.”

Consistently checking the release point and follow through is also vital, guys who do not make FTs are typically erratic and inconsistent on snapping the wrist and keeping the follow through the same every time. Keep the release point at or above a 55-degree angle, never up-never in, especially as the legs get tired during games.

Create an emphasis on snapping the wrist and locking the elbow, all one motion. Do drills that are going to help build muscle memory and create better ball flight for enhanced free throw shooting percentages.

Make players stay on the line as the ball goes through the net. Far too often players fall away from the line, especially on the second FTA, which is a terrible habit. Challenge players to finish their shots by lightly bouncing on their toes with great balance, and do not allow the tippy toe ballerina finish or players crashing down on their heels after shooting the ball.

Lastly, coaches must encourage players to limit the motion from start to finish when at the line, less motion equals less problems. Getting a bad FT shooter to start with the basketball directly in front of the chin instead of at the belly button or below will help players keep their elbows in and pointed at the target, which will reduce misses and produce more wins.

    Conclusion

Games and even seasons can be decided from the free throw line. It is something that needs to be emphasized on a daily basis with your players at an individual level and as a team. Make sure that you are on the winning side of getting to the free throw line and then making every shot count.

  Jarred Merrill Mercer University Assistant Men’s Basketball Coach

Jarred Merrill has been a part of the Mercer University Bears coaching staff since 2015. Before coming to Mercer he spent time coaching at Southern Nazarene as an assistant coach. Jarred comes from a playing background as well and spent 7 years after college playing professional basketball all over the world.

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