Page 10 of On Merit Alone
“Good,” I said through my teeth.
He didn’t go back and forth with me. Just backing out of the little area we shared in the gym. When he was far enough that I began to lose sight of him, he turned his broad shoulders away. “See you around, Six.”
It was only after my final shots—after I obsessed over ‘overcorrecting’ my tired limbs and favoring one side and refused to admit to myself that maybe there was some truth to what that annoying jerk was saying— that I realized something.
He called me by my number.
Chapter Four
Merit
IgnoringIra King was like ignoring a hot air balloon passing overhead. You couldn’t not look at it. Marvel at the ingenuity. Take in the beauty. In my case however, he was like an airplane ripping through the sky. Loud and disruptive and impossible not to hear.
Ever since the night he decided to bless me with his presence and advice, I couldn’t get him—no, what hesaidout of my mind.
Honestly, the nerve of that guy. How dare he try to tell me how to do my job? How arrogant. How self-important to think I wanted his advice.
He might also be one of the highest-scoring point guards in Defenders history. He might have been a top performer in the organization as a whole and one of the biggest names to grace the game since the early two-thousands. He might even be the man who came back from the exact same “career-ending injury” that I was attempting to come back from now.
But you know what? So was I.
As of my last playing season, I wasthetop scorer in WNBA history. I wasthehighest percentile player to ever compete in thewomen’s game. And I wasthehighest-ranked pick to ever come into this goddamn city.
Just because the general public had a propensity to highlight men's accomplishments on a way larger podium than they did for women didn’t actually make him more important than me. It didn’t mean he was better than me and didn’t give him the right to give me advice.
The media must have truly gotten to his head for him to think himself so amazing that he was automatically the voice of all things basketball. Wrong! A good player didn’t automatically make a good coach. It took a good eye, good instincts, and the ability to deliver a message to be a good coach.
I knew that…
So why couldn’t I get what he said out of my head?
Two games had passed since Mr. Tall-and-Annoying graced me with his opinion in the gym. Two more losses. We were officially O-and-five on our record and headed into a very tough matchup. We couldn’t afford to lose any more games. If we were going to turn things around, we really needed to win this one. And while I was supposed to be thinking of something to say to my team right now, something inspiring and motivating and fitting of the goddamn team captain, I could do nothing but replay those same stupid words in my head.
You start to bend weird… You favor one side… throwing your whole rhythm off.
“Holy shit… they did it,” a voice said, cutting through my spiraling thoughts and bringing my attention back to the present. Blinking up, I noticed basically my entire team on the other side of the locker room, huddled around someone’s shoulders as they looked at a phone screen. “They tied itagain.”
I immediately rolled my eyes.
“They” were none other than the Defenders. And what they’ddone was comeback from a losing streak to tie the score in the third round of the playoffs.
I had to admit it was pretty impressive of them to be down three to nothing in a seven game series and comeback and tie it. My newfound rivalry with their star player aside, even I could admit that was a difficult thing to do, especially when the game to tie them took place in the opponent's house.
The fact didn’t stop the annoyance from slipping under my skin as I lifted myself off the bench and started toward my teammates. “Alright, guys. C’mon, let’s focus and huddle up before Coach gets in here.”
I tried to rally them, but not a soul listened to me. They just continued watching the phone. Emily, in the middle, held it up a little higher and said, “Cap, come look at this.”
My eyes rolled once more as I rounded the back of the group and stepped onto a bench to see over some of the tallest of us standing at six-four and six-five. I let my hands fall to the shoulders of Dylan, a six-foot, five center from Nebraska and Donna, a post from Russia as I leaned over the girls. While I wouldn’t call these ladies myfriendsexactly, I would definitely liken them to something like sisters—at least when we were in these uniforms. I didn’t actually have anyone close enough to be my sister outside the confines of this organization. Which is why I was totally comfortable using them as a balancing beam. Them too, as they both wrapped an arm around my back and absorbed me into their little huddle.
Focusing on the phone propped up in the middle in Em’s hands, I watched the National Sports Channel highlight the men’s game in San Francisco. They started off down in the first half. King and Rogers, the star pairing, had no groove and were giving away shots and turnovers left and right. The team wasn’t clicking, and in the sixth game of the series, they were starting to look sluggish.
Whoever was working the camera seemed to be zooming in onIra King’s profile a lot. As he ran up and down the court, as he took a shot, as he walked away from the sidelines with his hands on his hips and his head down low. Decked out in the Defender white and red, and a compression sleeve running up the length of his shooting arm. I also noticed the brace that bracketed his left knee.His injured knee. The one that apparently made him an expert on knees and the correct way to bend them.
Cue more eye rolling.
It was like whoever this camera operator was had my own personal torture in mind. There was barely any footage of the rest of the team. Every other clip was Ira, Ira, Ira. It was annoying me for more than the obvious reason—because hewasannoying.
No. It was annoying because, as I watched it, I started to notice things thatweren’tannoying. Like how focused he looked as he stared down the court before the whistle blew. How his free throw ritual consisted of exactly one movement—a singular bounce of the ball before he lined up and took his shot. How he was the first to every one of his teammates who went down, offering a hand to pick them up.
