Home Court (9 page)

“Y
eah, that was sweet,” said Deuce. “But we need to keep working. These tourney teams can definitely play some D. And the one this weekend is the toughest yet.”

“I'm on it,” I said.

“Yeah, right,” said Deuce, doing a quick, slick crossover dribble as he talked. “You barely even signed up for that first tournament.”

“Yeah, and who was MVP of the last one?” I shot back.

I had him there. But Deuce was right, too. The teams we were playing now definitely knew their stuff. Whatever play we ran, they'd seen it before. And it sounded like the teams this weekend were going to be even better.

“All right, let's do this!” I said, clapping my hands twice.

“Hold up, hold up,” Mike said.

I saw another kid edging onto the court. Deuce held the ball and we all turned toward this guy. He looked familiar. He was tall and thin and had a little forward lean to him, like a bendy straw. Then I remembered where I'd seen him. He was the new kid in our grade at school.

“Hey, Doug-AY!” called Mike.

Yeah, that was his name: Dougie. Deuce gave him a little wave, and he waved back. Then he headed over to where we were standing near the free throw line.

He had this complicated handshake that was like: fist bump, hook fingertips together, up tap, down tap, and another fist bump. I was surprised when Mike and Deuce both knew it. He turned to me last. His hand was out, ready for the fist bump, but I just nodded. I didn't catch all of the parts to their handshake and anyway that wasn't the kind of move I came here to work on.

Mike must've figured out what I was thinking because he said, “Dougie's been practicing with us while you were away. He's a good guy.”

“Cool,” I said. “I'm Amar'e.”

“I know,” he said. “I'm Dougie.”

“I know,” I said. We both smiled, but I still didn't shake his hand. I wasn't being mean: I still had no idea of the order!

Anyway, there were four of us now. I thought we should keep working on the pick-and-roll, with defenders on both players like in a real game. It got even more complicated with all that traffic coming together at one spot. But they all wanted to run two-on-two right away.

“Yeah, come on, STAT,” said Deuce. “We worked on all that stuff the whole time you were gone.”

That didn't help me much, I wanted to say, but I didn't mind playing two-on-two. I kind of wanted to see what Dougie could do other than bump fists. I'd get a close look, too, because he wound up being my teammate.

“He's a pretty good distributor,” said Deuce, meaning he was a guard.

“All right,” I said. “We get the ball first.”

“Why do they call you STAT?” Dougie asked as we waited for Mike and Deuce to line up and check the ball back to us.

“It's kind of a nickname,” I said. “My dad gave it to me. It means Standing Tall and Talented. It's like, part nickname and part reminder.”

“Cool,” he said.

Dougie played with the same forward lean he had when he walked. His head was always a little in front of his body. It made him look kind of like he was trying to read an eye chart, but it gave him a wicked head fake. Deuce bit on one right off the bat, and Dougie snuck by him and laid it in to give us an early lead.

We were playing make it, take it, because the trash talk was better that way, and I scored the next bucket. I got decent position down low. Then Dougie bounced the ball to me and I worked Mike over with a quick up-and-under move. It was harder than usual because of Mike's new size. He'd grown a lot in the last few months, though most of it was sideways. Just like that, we were up 2–0.

It was a pretty good game after that.

AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
, captain of the New York Knicks and a six-time NBA All-Star, is a well-respected professional basketball player. He has made a name for himself as a leader and positive force on the court and in the community. The Amar'e Stoudemire Foundation creatively inspires youth to avoid poverty through education. He is the father of three children.