December 23, 2013
The park court was empty at this hour of the morning, which was exactly what both Aaron and Drew wanted. The December cold had driven away the weekend regulars and left the court all to themselves, with the metal backboard repainted once more since the summer and the rim without a net, as always.
Aaron arrived first. He shot a few shots alone while waiting, listening to the sound of the ball against the metal backboard. Hollower, but above all, more nostalgic.
Drew appeared ten minutes later with a sports bag on his shoulder, the same blue wool beanie he had been wearing since high school, and a coffee in his hand that marked him as someone who had not slept enough. He had that look of someone who has just stepped off a long flight and has still not completely processed that he is at home.
"You're still with that beanie," Aaron said.
"It brings me luck."
"Since when do you need luck to play basketball?"
"Since I play in the Big East."
Drew warmed up with a couple of stretches that Aaron observed without commenting on anything.
The asphalt court had the marks of time: the three-point line almost erased on the right side, a diagonal crack that crossed the lane for years and which both had used as a reference for shots from the post when they were teenagers. The metal backboard resonated differently than a wooden one. The hook shots sounded different here than in any NCAA arena where both have played.
Aaron started with the sky hook from the left. It went in.
"That new shot," Drew said.
"I've been working on it since November."
"It shows. Before you didn't do it like that."
"Before I didn't reach seven feet."
Drew smiled and grabbed the rebound.
They started without further preamble: shots from different spots, their own rebounds, nothing structured. It was the type of session they did since they were 14 years old, when the park was their gym and the rules were invented as they went along.
At one point Drew tried to guard Aaron in the low post with the same aggressiveness he used in Villanova practices. Aaron read it before he finished the first movement, spun toward the opposite side, and deposited the ball in the rim.
"You can't guard me," Aaron said.
"Nobody can guard you, that's the problem," Drew responded, picking up the ball. "You are not a valid indicator of my defensive capacity."
"You never have been."
"And yet here I am still trying."
Drew tried the pick and roll from the perimeter, which was one of his key movements at Villanova and which on that asphalt court without teammates to set the screen resulted in a drive attempt that Aaron read from the second Drew received the ball and closed before he even reached the free-throw line.
"That in a real game you complete," Aaron said.
"I know. Here I don't have anyone to set the screen."
"In games you do."
Drew did not respond, but he took the ball and shot from the corner. It went in.
It was enough of an answer.
Drew had changed. He remained the same in the fundamentals, the same humor, the same way of speaking, but there was something in how he moved on the court that was different. More secure. More efficient. Each shot with a mechanic that someone had worked on with him for months.
It was what happened to anyone who entered a serious college program: habits got refined, bad movements were eliminated, improvisation became more calculated without losing its nature. Aaron had noticed it in himself too. He no longer shot the same as in high school. He no longer defended the same. The process changed you even if you didn't realize it while it was happening.
"How is Villanova going?" Aaron asked, picking up the rebound from a shot by Drew from the corner.
"Eleven and zero," Drew responded, without hiding the satisfaction.
"I saw."
"Did you see the Kansas thing?"
"I saw the score. Not the game."
Drew caught the ball that Aaron passed to him and shot it from the same spot. It went in.
"It was crazy, man. Nobody gave us anything on that court and we sent them home with a 4-point difference. Coach Wright was so calm on the sideline it looked like we were playing a scrimmage."
"That's what a good coach does."
"Mine sure is."
Drew had a clean shot. He had always had it, even when they were kids in that same park, but now it was different, more mechanical, with that automatism that only arrives after thousands of repetitions under the supervision of someone who knows what they are looking at.
"Wright has improved your shot," Aaron said.
"His assistant. Two hours every Tuesday and Thursday after the main practice."
"And it works?"
"42% from three this year. Last year I was at 36%."
Aaron nodded. That was the type of improvement that did not go unnoticed.
"In the Big East they are talking about you," he said.
"What do they say?"
"That Villanova has the best sixth man in the conference. I read it on ESPN last week."
Drew did not respond immediately. He caught the ball and shot from the same corner where he had always shot best since he started taking basketball seriously in high school.
"I know. A couple of articles from ESPN. My coach showed them to me."
"And?"
"And nothing. That it's fine but it's not enough for what I want."
Aaron looked at him.
"What is it that you want?"
"To be a starter. This year, the next, whenever. But I want to start."
"You will."
"You don't know that."
"I know because Coach Wright told you so."
"I know," he said when the ball went in. "And it's fine. But I want more."
Aaron said nothing. It was the right answer and both knew it.
They kept shooting for a bit. Aaron from the post, Drew from the perimeter, exchanging the ball with the rhythm of always.
"17 points coming off the bench," Aaron said.
Drew looked at him.
"You looked it up?"
"Yes."
"4.1 assists too," Drew added.
"I saw."
Drew paused before shooting.
"The coach told me last week that if I keep going like this the second semester he sees me as a starter next year. He didn't promise me, but he said it."
"And what do you want?"
"I want to be a starter right now, obviously. But I understand why I'm not. The shooting guard we have is a senior who has been four years in the program."
"Then wait."
"I know, I know. I'm just saying it's tough seeing the numbers I'm putting up and still coming off the bench."
Aaron picked up the ball and dribbled it twice.
"Those numbers coming off the bench are better than those of many starters in your conference. Your coach knows it. That's why he told you."
Drew nodded, although it took him a second.
"And you?" he asked finally.
"Me what?"
"The draft. Are you thinking about it?"
Aaron shot from the post. The ball went in cleanly.
"Yes."
Drew processed that while picking up the ball.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm eighteen years old and I have twelve college games. I'm not sure of anything yet. But yes."
"Number one," Drew said, with a tone between a statement and a question.
"I don't know."
"I do know," Drew said, with the same direct conviction with which he said everything when he was sure of something. "If you finish the season the way you are starting it you are the one. There is no discussion."
Aaron did not respond to that. He received the pass from Drew and shot another shot.
"And do you think about declaring?" he asked after.
Drew let out a short laugh.
"Are you asking me seriously?"
"I'm asking you seriously."
Drew picked up the ball from the ground and held onto it for a moment.
"I don't know, man. The numbers are fine but I don't know if they are draft numbers."
"Wait," Aaron said.
"Wait for what?"
"To be a starter. Those numbers coming off the bench are one thing. The same numbers being a starter for the team is another completely different conversation. For a reason he told you."
"So you are telling me to wait another year."
"I'm telling you that if you come out of the draft this year with those statistics you get second round with luck. If next year you have a full season as a starter in the Big East with the numbers you are putting up now, the conversation changes."
Drew considered that in silence, dribbling the ball slowly on the asphalt.
"And what if they don't make me a starter?"
"They are going to make you a starter. Your coach told you himself."
"He said he saw me as one."
"For him to tell you that he sees you as a starter is the closest to a promise that man is going to give you. Trust him."
"Look, man," Aaron said, placing himself in front of him with the ball under his arm. "Your numbers are good. They are very good. But in the draft you don't compete against the starters of your own team. You compete against the best college players in the country and against international prospects who have been years in professional leagues."
"I know."
"Then you know that seventeen points coming off the bench in one of the best conferences in the NCAA is one thing. Being the offensive engine of the number one team in your conference for an entire season is another."
Drew let go of the ball and let it bounce alone until it stopped.
"And if that year doesn't come?"
"It will come. Trust me."
"I don't know, man."
"Drew."
"What?"
"Jay Wright personally invited you to join the team. He has been twelve years at Villanova. If he personally invited you it's because he saw something in you."
A silence.
"How do you know so much about my coach?"
"Because he tried to recruit me too."
Drew opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Wait, he tried to recruit you?"
"Among others. But I chose Kentucky in the end."
"You hadn't told me that."
"It wasn't relevant until now."
Drew processed that for a moment.
"So if you had chosen Villanova you and I would have played together again."
"Probably. I don't know."
"But probably at Kentucky."
Aaron did not respond. The logic was more or less correct but speculating about that led nowhere.
"The important thing is that you are where you are and you are doing well," he said.
Another silence. The ball kept bouncing.
"All right," Drew said finally. "I'll wait."
They kept shooting for a while longer without talking about that. The conversation drifted toward other things: Christmas plans, whether the taco restaurant on Jamaica Avenue was still open or if they had closed it as the neighborhood rumored for months, a streetball game from the previous summer in which Drew swore to have made a shot from half court that nobody else remembered.
"I made it, man."
"You didn't make it."
"Hector saw it."
"Hector was looking at his phone."
"He confirmed it to me later."
"Hector confirms to you what you want to hear."
Drew smiled but did not yield. Neither did Aaron yield. It was exactly the type of discussion they could have for twenty minutes without either of them getting bothered.
At a quarter past twelve the cold began to win the match definitively and Drew rubbed his hands.
"I'm going to lose my fingers out here."
"You're soft."
"I'm a soft guy from Villanova. We are used to training indoors with heating."
Aaron picked up the ball and put it under his arm.
"March Madness," Drew said while picking up his bag.
"What?"
"That I'll wait for you in March Madness. With the eleven and zero we have and how Kentucky is playing, the most probable thing is that we see each other there."
Aaron looked at him for a moment.
"That is still far away."
"I know. But sign me up now."
They left the park together with their hands in their pockets, their breath visible in the cold December air, with the noise of the neighborhood around them exactly the same as it had always been.
"The taco one is still open, by the way," Drew said when they reached the corner.
"How do you know?"
"I passed by there while I was coming."
"And you didn't tell me anything?"
"I'm telling you now."
Aaron shook his head.
"This afternoon."
"This afternoon," Drew confirmed.
They separated at the corner. Aaron walked back to the building with the ball under his arm and the cold on his face.
He thought about the draft conversation, about what he had said to Drew about waiting to be a starter, about whether he himself was making that decision for the right reasons or simply because it was what made sense to say out loud.
He thought about March Madness. About the Final Four. About the name that would appear first on the draft board if everything went well.
He thought about Drew telling him that he already knew what it meant when he said we'll see. About how his best friend had been observing him for four years from the exact distance necessary to see him with more clarity than any other person, and that he was probably right.
Then he stopped thinking about that because the taco restaurant on the corner of Jamaica Avenue was open and the smell arrived from half a block before.
Drew was right about that too. About almost everything he said when he wasn't disputing the streetball shot.
He entered without hesitating. He ordered two chicken tacos and one barbacoa and ate them standing on the sidewalk with the December cold on him and the noise of Jamaica Avenue around him.
Some things did not change. And when they did not change it was because they did not need to do so.
It was enough for now. More than enough.
Authors thought
What did you think of today's chapter? Give me your opinions and thoughts.
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