It was the last practice before the Wolves’ first game, in the gym at Claremont Middle, at seven o’clock on Thursday night.
Gramps was running the practice, as usual, but getting plenty of help from his assistant coach, who happened to be Ryan Moretti’s mom. Mrs. Moretti had played college ball at the University of Connecticut, and her team had won two national championships while she was there. She had been the kind of point guard Lucas wanted to be: could shoot a basketball nearly as well as she could pass one.
One time Lucas and Ryan had looked at a highlight film of Mrs. Moretti somebody had put together on YouTube. When it was over Lucas had looked at his best friend and said, “I’m just gonna say it.”
“Say what?” Ryan said.
Lucas said, “I want to play like a girl.”
Tonight they walked through a couple new plays that Gramps had drawn up for them, and kept walking through them until Gramps felt the players had them down. Then he said what they had been waiting to hear from the time they had shown up at the gym:
“Let’s go full court.”
As much as he loved teaching, Gramps said that competition taught players more than he ever could. It’s why he never called them scrimmages. He called them practice games. The first night of practice, he’d told them all ten players were good enough to start. He also told them that he wasn’t nearly as interested in the players starting games as he was in the ones finishing them.
“Those are the minutes you boys ought to be trying to earn, every single game,” Gramps said.
But his starters, at least to open the season, were Lucas and Ryan, Billy Goldman at center, Sharif Mustafa at shooting guard, and Richard Dichard at power forward. Even as deep as their bench was, and as talented as the other five players were, Lucas honestly felt that their starting five was better than any team in the Twin Lakes League.
But it didn’t matter how good they thought they were. They had to go out and prove it, starting with their opener against Homestead. They had to do what players on good teams always did: bring out the best in one another. It was why you played the season. It was why Lucas waited the rest of the year for the season to begin. It was why he felt the best part of his school year—or whole year—was about to begin.
Some of the things he loved about basketball also applied to his other sports, spacing and smart ball movement and imagination. Especially imagination. Even when Lucas was running Gramps’s plays, there was still room for him to be creative. To use his imagination. There were always decisions to make. There were always options. You just had to pick the best one.
At the same time you had the chance to do something just as much fun: try to think one move ahead of the other guys.
Or two.
“Some players can take a picture of where everybody is on the court at a given moment,” Gramps said. “But the gift you have is that you can see where everybody is about to be, once you make your move.”
That’s the way it happened tonight, at the end of their practice game, the two sides tied. Lucas had the ball after a made basket. Matt Sample was guarding him. Bobby Clapper was guarding Ryan.
Lucas yelled out, “Utah!”
He saw Ryan smile as he did, from the low blocks on the left side. “Utah” meant they were going to run a classic pick-and-roll that the Jazz used to run when they had John Stockton and Karl Malone. Both of them had ended up in the Hall of Fame, Lucas knew.
The pick-and-roll helped get them there. Mightily.
Now Lucas and Ryan were going to run it at Claremont Middle, with every player on the court knowing what was coming.
Let them try to stop it, Lucas thought.
Now he felt himself smiling.
The play had been effective for the starters the last two times they had used it. Both times Lucas had been the finisher. One time Matt had fought through Ryan’s screen, but Lucas had still beaten him off the dribble and ended up with a layup. The other time Bobby Clapper had switched out on him, but not quickly enough, because Lucas had enough time and enough room to step back and make his longest shot of the night.
The other three starters, Billy and Richard and Sharif, were on the right side of the court. The key, both Lucas and Ryan knew, was that Ryan couldn’t rush the action and pop out too soon. When he did come running at Lucas, Bobby Clapper yelled “screen,” the way they’d been taught. Matt would come up now on Lucas and guard him closer than he already was.
Lucas was sure it wasn’t going to matter.
He’d stepped back to his left last time. The time before that he’d driven right. Matt guessed Lucas was going right again, because right meant a layup. Lucas took one dribble to his right, then crossed over, as if about to use his great first step and drive.
From behind Ryan, Bobby Clapper could see that Lucas had a step on Matt, and a clear path down the lane unless somebody jumped out on him from the other side of the defense.
That’s what the picture looked like right now.
Lucas had a different idea about the way he wanted the court to look next. And if Ryan was reading his mind the way he so often could, so did he.
As soon as Ryan had set the pick on Matt, he was gone, reverse-pivoting, on his way back to the low blocks on the left. Instead of driving, Lucas pulled up at the free-throw line, went into his shooting motion as if about to take a jump shot. Travis Brady was in front of Lucas in the lane now, long arms in the air.
They just weren’t long enough.
Lucas elevated as much as he could, which wasn’t a whole lot, and without even looking, passed the ball to Ryan. Ryan caught the ball with the softest hands on the team, chest high, and seemed to shoot it all in one motion. Easy layup, off the backboard, through the net. Practice game over. Ryan came over and gave Lucas a quick high five. They went to get water. If a practice game like this hadn’t gotten them ready for the season, nothing would.
Gramps came over, sat next to Lucas on the bottom row of the bleachers, and put his arm around him.
“I know how hard you work at this, son,” he said. “But I know you’ve got a gift for this game too. And you’ve got to make sure you always honor it.”
“I will,” Lucas said.
The old man pulled him closer.
“Promise me,” he said, his voice suddenly husky.
“Promise,” Lucas said.
“If you don’t,” Gramps said, “you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Lucas looked up at him. For a moment he thought his tough old grandfather might cry. That was the thing about Gramps, he thought. He could always surprise you, sometimes when you least expected it.