Play Their Hearts Out

by George Dohrmann

  Team Cal didn’t have trouble scoring—the Rebels had no player over six foot one—but Daniels kept finding mismatches, and he slowed the game down. Team Cal led 35–26 at halftime, but given the talent Daniels had to work with, he had gotten the best of Keller. He bounded off toward the locker room waving his towel in the air.

  Demetrius made three consecutive pull-up jumpers, all from around 16 feet, to open the second half. On each shot he was well guarded, but his ability to elevate and get a clear look at the basket made the difference. Team Cal’s lead moved comfortably into double digits, but Daniels didn’t stop coaching and kept switching defenses, preventing Keller from blowing the game open. Instead of the 50-point victory and 10 dunks Keller had predicted, Team Cal won 75–60, and the closest Demetrius or Aaron came to a dunk was in the final minute when a tired Demetrius tried one and missed.

  “Joe, Joe, Joe, come on, you got to admit it. You got to admit it,” Daniels said as he trailed Keller out the gym doors. Keller would admit nothing—not that he’d been outcoached, not even that Daniels knew the game. “Joe, Joe, Joe. Come on, man. Joe, Joe, Joe …”

  Daniels joined Pickett, Mats, and others for dinner that night, and he again tried to get Keller to acknowledge that, at the least, Daniels coached his team well. Daniels reminded the group that at the previous year’s Nationals, before he became coach, the same group of kids didn’t get out of pool play. Now they had lost to the defending champs by only 15.

  “I don’t have to admit anything,” Keller said.

  Daniels’s nervous energy made it seem as if he pounded seven espressos an hour. As he pushed Keller for a concession, he stood with a foot propped on a chair. A poinsettia that hung from the ceiling kept hitting his head, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Look, I am saying you are real. Joe, you are real,” Daniels said. “Demetrius, oh, my God, he is real. But Aaron, oh, my God, he is Tim Duncan, dawg. I’m saying he’s Tim Duncan, dawg. He’s real, but you got to admit, Joe, you got to admit it, my team, they gave you a run.”

  “Joe, you’ve got to admit, he had a good scheme,” Pickett interjected.

  “Those refs were terrible,” Keller said. He looked up at Daniels. “You don’t have a single kid I would want on my team.”

  Lloyd drew back, incredulous. “Come on, dawg.”

  The ring of Keller’s phone interrupted the conversation. “Saved by the phone, Joe,” Daniels said, “saved by the phone.”

  On Sunday around noon, the boys were dropped off at a mall, where they ate lunch at the food court and went to see the movie Coach Carter. Afterward, they tooled around the shops, stopping in every store that sold basketball shoes or athletic apparel.

  Justin walked behind the pack with Aaron, his hands stuffed into his black Team Cal hoodie. Usually one of the most social players, he was quiet and distant, and when I asked him what was wrong, he said, “Everything. I am ready to be done with all of this.”

  Two incidents from earlier in the weekend had upset him, he explained. In the hallway before the game against the Hurricanes, Keller spoke with Dexter Strickland, the player two spots below Demetrius in the Hoop Scoop rankings. His team was not in the tournament, but he had come to watch Demetrius. “Why don’t you come out and play with us in Portland next month?” Keller asked him. “I’ll pay for your plane ticket and everything.”

  “We win Nationals with this team, and all Joe does is go and recruit these players we don’t need,” Justin said at the mall. If Strickland joined Team Cal, Justin’s playing time would be cut, but that wasn’t what bothered him. Over the past three years his minutes had gone up and down, fluctuating with Keller’s whims, and he had never complained before. “I guess I thought that at some point Joe would get it, see how lucky he is. He’s never going to, is he?”

  Justin was also affected by something that happened the previous night. While Keller drank Coronas, Justin, Aaron, and Blake O’Donnell, a white guard Keller occasionally used as a roster filler, ate at a restaurant near the hotel. Aaron teased Blake about not playing in that day’s games, and Blake suddenly ran out of the restaurant. Justin sprinted after him and found him crying behind the building. It had recently snowed, and both boys had left their jackets inside. Blake paced back and forth in the cold, repeatedly bringing his hands to his mouth to warm them.

  “I am the laughingstock of the team,” he told Justin. “I work harder than anybody, but I never get to play.”

  In practice, Keller often drew attention to Blake’s effort and criticized others for not working as hard. He held him up as an example but never gave him meaningful minutes. In that moment, Justin realized how unfair Keller had been. After talking Blake back into the restaurant, Justin called Keller—it was his call that saved Keller from Daniels’s prods—and he said, “If you don’t play Blake tomorrow I will turn in my jersey.”

  Keller’s response: “Fine. Turn in your jersey.”

  Keller convened a team meeting when he returned to the hotel a few hours later. He said that Blake understood that he wouldn’t be playing much in the tournament and that he was fine with it. Blake nodded in agreement, as if he had a choice.

  “I’m not the only person who feels like Blake is being treated wrong,” Justin said. It was unusual for a player to speak so directly, particularly in a team meeting. “We all think that he should be getting more playing time than what he’s getting.”

  “That’s not your decision,” Keller said. “That’s my decision.”

  “Well, we just feel that he’s on the team for a reason. And if he’s just here to sit on the bench, that is wrong, ’cuz he could go anywhere and play. You brought him on the team, and we feel like you are doing him wrong.”

  “Look, I’ll play him some more. Does that make you happy?”

  “Well, that’s all we were asking for.”

  It was not surprising that Justin was the first player to stand up to Keller. But doing so would come at a price. “I know he will hold it against me, but I don’t care,” Justin said at the mall. “My mom taught me that when I see something that is wrong to do something about it. … You know, this whole thing, being here for this tournament, that’s wrong too. We’re here so D can play against Lance. But why is that important? Why aren’t we playing Team Maryland or the War Eagles or another team we’ll face at Nationals? Coach Joe just wants D to play Lance so he can hype him. But D doesn’t need any more hype.”

  Sonny Vaccaro traveled to the East Coast a few days before Team Cal landed in New Jersey, and the purpose of his trip was to discuss the issue Justin raised at the mall: the wisdom of hyping an eighth-grader. The parents of Lance Stephenson were concerned about the rising interest in their son. More and more people compared him to Stephon Marbury, Sebastian Telfair, and other former New York phenoms. They didn’t know how to manage the attention or the expectations.

  Early in their conversation at the Vaccaros’ hotel room in Manhattan, the proposed matchup against Demetrius at the Martin Luther King Classic was brought up. “Nothing good can come out of this,” Vaccaro told the family. “You are a great player. The spotlight is going to come. Playing this game is like manufacturing attention, and there is no point in that. At some point in time the world will see you. Don’t rush it.”

  Stephenson wanted to play Demetrius and, one can imagine, would have liked to be featured in Sports Illustrated and ranked number 1 by The Hoop Scoop. “But right now none of that matters,” Vaccaro insisted. He then told a story: In July 2001, at his ABCD Camp in Teaneck, New Jersey, the number-1 ranked senior in the country was six-foot-six Lenny Cooke, who was also from Brooklyn. He had been the camp’s MVP as a junior in 2000 and was one of the most hyped athletes to emerge from the city’s boroughs. His spot atop the 2002 NBA draft seemed preordained. Also at camp that summer was a junior named LeBron James, a kid from Akron few people knew about. When their two teams met, Cooke was expected to dominate, but James scored 23 points, held Cooke to 9, and made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give his team the victo
ry. That one game began James’s rise to the top of basketball, and as Vaccaro saw it, it was the beginning of the end for Lenny Cooke. In a New York minute, he was declared a bust. After he went un-selected in the 2002 draft, he faded into obscurity.

  “People can judge you on one game,” Vaccaro told Stephenson. “You don’t want that game to come when you are in eighth grade.”

  Team Next pulled out of the tournament not long after Vaccaro left New York, but Keller did not get the news until Sunday, after Team Cal advanced to the finals of the tournament. He learned that Team Cal’s opponent would be the lightly regarded Reebok Raiders. Keller’s analysis: “Lance is scared.”

  On one level, the news put Keller at ease; Lance backing out of the game was equal to a victory for Demetrius in his eyes. But he had promised the boys a challenge and had promised Mats and Pickett and others they would see a show. Dominating the Reebok Raiders in the final was not what he had in a mind. Like a movie producer scrambling after a star who has pulled out of the production, Keller needed to find a headlining opponent fast. He called the organizer of the Martin Luther King Classic and informed him that Team Cal would forfeit the final. There was no point in beating up on the hapless Raiders, he said. With help from Pickett, he organized a game with a 15-and-Under team, the Boston Saintz, for the following afternoon. The Saintz had won the AAU title the year before as fourteen-year-olds, and forwards Nasir Robinson and Gabriel Fumudoh were considered future college players.

  “This will probably be the best team we have played in our lives,” Keller said.

  He had no idea.

  A few hours after Keller told the organizer of the Martin Luther King Classic that he didn’t consider the Reebok Raiders a suitable opponent, news of that slight reached the ears of Tyreke Evans. A six-foot-four guard from Philadelphia, Evans was the top-rated freshman in America. He was also a member of the Reebok Raiders’ Under–17 team, and he was upset that Team Cal had refused to play his program’s younger team. “That’s not how we do things on the East Coast,” he said. When Evans found out that Team Cal would be playing the Boston Saintz instead, he contacted their coach and asked if could join his team for that one game. He wanted to teach Team Cal, its coach, and its star player, Demetrius Walker, a lesson.

  ————

  As Team Cal walked from the parking lot to the gym at Shore Christian Academy in Allenwood, Demetrius rubbed his shoulders through his sweatshirt. “Man, I need to get drafted by the Lakers so I don’t have to play somewhere cold like this.” He was buoyed by Stephenson’s decision to pull out of their duel. In the car on the way to the prep school, he said: “If I was Lance, I wouldn’t want to play me either. I’m killing people right now.”

  Keller was equally pleased with himself—until he entered the gym lobby through the glass doors and saw Daniels standing near a concession table, eating a hot dog. “Joe, Joe, Joe,” Daniels said with his mouth full. Keller walked past him briskly.

  Keller had been told Evans might make a cameo for the Saintz, but Evans wasn’t in the gym as Team Cal went through warm-ups or when Keller tabbed Roberto, Aaron, G.J., Terran, and Rome to start the game. Demetrius would not start, Keller explained, because his back was bothering him. Demetrius showed no signs of an injury pregame and had said nothing about it on the car ride to the gym. Most likely, Keller withheld Demetrius from the starting lineup to maximize the drama. Most of the 150 or so fans had come to see him, and they would wonder why he wasn’t starting. When Demetrius entered the game—a grand arrival all his own—they would sit up in their seats in anticipation.

  Evans arrived at the gym two minutes after the start. As he strolled down the baseline carrying a box of Reeboks under his arm, all eyes turned to him. People stopped following the action on the floor; instead they watched Evans lace his shoes and eyed Keller for a sign that he was ready to unleash Demetrius. The Saintz had jumped out to a 9–0 lead, but that was preamble. The show wouldn’t begin until the team’s respective stars took the stage.

  When Mats saw Evans enter the gym, he said incredulously, “Who is advising this kid? What does he have to gain playing down against Demetrius? If he dominates, well, he was supposed to, because he is older. But if Demetrius outplays him, he looks bad.”

  It was similar to the advice Vaccaro had given the Stephensons.

  “Whoever is handling that kid is leaving money on the court,” Mats continued. “He is a nice-looking kid, with no tattoos. He can be Tracy McGrady. He’s got to make Demetrius come up to play him, not the other way around. Make Demetrius play up against [his Under–17 team]. If you are him, you don’t even acknowledge Demetrius.”

  Demetrius entered the game at the 16:28 mark. (The teams played two twenty-minute halves, high school rules.) Evans waited another two minutes more before approaching the scorer’s table. Everyone in the crowd expected them to square off immediately, but the first time Evans got the ball, he found Team Cal in a 2–3 zone. The Saintz had already made four consecutive 3-pointers, and Keller should have gotten out of the zone long ago, but he stayed in it, with Demetrius down low. Evans didn’t stretch or touch a basketball before checking in, yet he casually netted a 3-pointer from the right side to up the Saintz’ lead to 19–7. He looked to Keller as if to say, I’ll do that all day if you don’t switch defenses.

  Keller ignored the challenge. He kept Team Cal in the zone, and the Saintz continued to bomb away from outside. Robinson made five 3-pointers in the first half, Evans connected on all three of his attempts, yet Keller refused to switch to man-to-man. It made sense to start the game in a zone, to negate the Saintz’ size advantage and experience, but as the Saintz lead grew to 30 and beyond, Keller’s refusal to get out of it came across as an attempt to shield Demetrius from Evans.

  On offense, when Demetrius got the ball on the wing with Evans guarding him, he instantly sent the ball back to G.J. at the point. He acted like a facilitator, like Rome or Justin, and not the star. He played so passively that it threw off his teammates. Aaron scored a few times inside, and G.J. smartly got into the lane and was fouled on back-to-back possessions, but the offense had revolved around Demetrius for so long that when he refused to engage Evans, it stalled.

  Robinson’s final trey of the first half put the score at 53–17 with 3:14 left, and Keller—having endured shouts from the crowd, repeated looks for Evans, and pleas from his players on the bench—finally pulled Team Cal out of the zone. Evans immediately demanded the ball and, after more than ten minutes courting a matchup with California’s best, he got the ball on the right wing with Demetrius between him and the basket.

  Evans dribbled in place as Demetrius crouched low, his left hand raised and pushed toward Evans’s face. Demetrius overplayed Evans slightly, urging him to go to his right. Evans had to decide between going where Demetrius anticipated him going, trusting that his speed would get him by, or tricking Demetrius by faking in that direction and then cutting back to the left. Pulling up for a 3-pointer was also an option, but a jump shot could be perceived as a concession that he couldn’t get past Demetrius.

  Evans elected to test Demetrius’s quickness, and he broke to the right, exploding forward in a blur. Demetrius somehow got in front of him, forcing Evans to change directions. He cut left, but as he dribbled the ball across his body, Demetrius knocked it loose with his left hand. It fell between them, and Demetrius dove to the ground and wrapped his arms around it at the same time that Evans grabbed it. The referee whistled a jump ball, and the possession arrow favored Team Cal.

  “That’s right!” Demetrius shouted as Terran helped him up.

  G.J. was fouled shooting a 3-pointer eight seconds later, and he made two of three free throws. It started a 10–0 Team Cal run that cut the deficit to 53–27. During a free-throw attempt by Aaron with thirty seconds left in the half, Demetrius walked over to the bench and shouted at his teammates, “This ain’t over! Get ready! The second half is going to be a war!”

  On the final possession before the in
termission, Evans and Demetrius dueled once again. Evans got the ball atop the key with Demetrius on him. He dribbled casually, letting the clock tick down, while Demetrius stayed low in his stance and crept closer and closer, a sign of the confidence he’d gained from their first showdown. With 0:05 showing on the scoreboard clock, Evans leaned forward and crossed the ball from his right hand to his left and then back again. He showed Demetrius enough of the ball that Demetrius reached for it, at which point Evans spun to his right, around Demetrius, and then powered into the lane and rose up and over Aaron for a spectacular layup.

  At halftime, Keller delivered a speech unlike any the boys had heard from him before. “The second half is a brand-new half. Forget the score,” he began. Team Cal had put so many teams in that position over the years, playing only for pride in the second stanza, and it felt odd to have the tables turned. The players’ mood was good despite knowing that they couldn’t win the game. By any count, Demetrius had stopped Evans once and been beaten by him once. A draw. He hadn’t tested Evans on offense, and that would have to change, but his reputation remained intact, as did those of the other boys.

  As Mats settled in a seat above Team Cal’s bench, he said, “We’re going to learn a lot about Demetrius this half.” Mats didn’t care how many points Demetrius scored: He wanted to see him compete against Evans, to court the type of one-on-one situations that ended the first half. “The game is over. The score doesn’t matter. So this is when Demetrius needs to go out there and demand the ball and say, ‘I’m going to show what I can do against one of the best players in the country.’ That’s the attitude you want to see.”