The Sneaker Kings

by Eric McLauren

  “Yeah, well, that was Tampa.”

  “So, what happens in Memphis?”

  “Well, you said you don’t even want to be there. So I guess nothing.”

  Oh, my God! She’s such a tease! I guess the real Natasha’s coming out now.

  He snapped, “Whatever. You’re not gonna do anything but pull away from me again.”

  “Is that all you want?”

  Her question stumped him for a second. She sounded disappointed, as disappointed as he was. But Brandon wanted everything—her companionship, smile, humor, confidence, spirit, maturity, conversation and so on. There was so much to be desired. But at the moment, he would settle for the truth. So he told her so.

  “I just want you to be honest with me,” Brandon answered. “If there’s something holding you back, then I deserve to know. It’s not fair for you to play around with me. I wouldn’t do that to you. And I’m getting too old to accept the games anymore.”

  Natasha responded calmly. “You know what? We’ve only known each other for a couple of months. So I don’t know what you think I owe you, but one kiss in the stairwell doesn’t mean that you deserve something. Is that how you think? You just expect something more to happen because of a kiss and phone calls? Really? Like, the next thing is supposed to be automatic?”

  “I’m not even talking about that. I’m only talking about you not being honest about your intentions with me. If there’s a reason you’re holding back and not telling me something, then that’s not fair. Just tell me the truth, that’s all.”

  Brandon felt hot and clammy as if he had a fever. His voice was even cracking.

  Back in her room in Newport News, Virginia, Natasha had no idea what Brandon was so upset about. “What truth are you talking about, Brandon? You think I lied to you about something? I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Well, lying and intentionally not telling someone something is about the same thing. Don’t you think?”

  “Brandon, I’m not holding anything back from you. I’m simply getting to know you. And there’s no timeframe to that.”

  Brandon paused, then came straight out with it. “So, you’re just not gonna tell me then?”

  “Tell you what, Brandon? What are you talking about?” Natasha snapped.

  “So, you don’t have a boyfriend on Seton Hall’s track team who runs the quarter mile?”

  Natasha’s jaw dropped. After a short pause, she asked, “First of all, who told you that?”

  “Does it even matter? You didn’t tell me. And you still weren’t going to.”

  “Well, whoever told you that was misled. I no longer go out with him. I haven’t even spoken to him this summer.”

  “Your father told me.”

  “Oh, my God,” Natasha said, tossing a hand to her face in embarrassment. “My father told you that?”

  “Yeah, and I didn’t ask him either.”

  “Well, how did he bring it up?”

  “He started talking about you and Adrienne helping us out in New York. Then he said I might want to sign your boyfriend to The Beast Team and get him to wear our T-shirts and stuff at Seton Hall’s track meets.”

  Natasha could hear the jealous defiance in Brandon’s breaking voice. She began to smile. He is so real! I love that! You know exactly what you’re gonna get with him. He doesn’t mess around.

  “Brandon, my father likes my ex a lot. Okay? So I haven’t even told him anything about us breaking up because I didn’t want him asking me a bunch of questions about it.”

  Back in Arizona, Brandon felt like a complete idiot. But he was a happy idiot. Natasha didn’t have a boyfriend after all.

  He smiled and said, “Ah … I didn’t say anything really crazy, did I?”

  Natasha laughed. “Umm, I think you might have, but that’s okay. Women want guys to express themselves, and that’s what you did. So I can’t be mad at you for that. I’m just glad we got to the bottom of it. And now I really need to have that discussion with my father.”

  >>>

  When the guys arrived at the Memphis hotel and joined the rest of the Adidas staff, there was no special speech from Daniel Baker on what they were not supposed to do. And the guys were glad not to hear it. So when they arrived at the recreational center to man their Adidas station at the tournament games, they brought bags of their own Beast Team gear and proceeded to pass them out to the select basketball players.

  “Good game, man. You’re a beast. Check us out on Instagram and Twitter.”

  They delivered the same message each time with a T-shirt or a hat—quick and efficient, like an assembly line. They didn’t want to bring too much attention to themselves while still interning with Adidas, but it happened anyway.

  Some of the young players responded immediately. “The Beast Team? Oh, y’all the guys from ESPN, right? Ain’t David Terry down with y’all?”

  “Yeah, that’s us. Check us out online.”

  The ESPN clips, tweets and Instagram photos were all in steady rotation—Leon made sure of it. And the guys continued to build a following of more than a hundred thousand. The goal was to reach two hundred thousand by the end of summer. Once in New York, they wanted to up their number to three hundred thousand.

  >>>

  By the time the guys caught up with David Terry and his Rocky Mountain Heat, they had finished their first day of tournament games. David’s team had played and won in one of the other five gyms that were being used. There were eighty-two teams in six different age groups, and all of them were Division I programs with steep competition. The tournament featured the kind of basketball talent that had colleges and professional scouts watering at the mouth. Reps from Nike, Reebok, Converse and Under Armour were all there scouting future talent.

  “Hey, man, people been asking me about The Beast Team all day. Y’all been passing out T-shirts and hats?” David asked them excitedly. He was happy to finally see them, though he added, “But my coach told me I can’t make no money off the posters.”

  “Yeah, we know. We’ll just keep your money safe for you in a trust fund,” Brandon joked.

  David whispered, “You can do that?”

  Brandon was only jesting, but it was a thought. He whispered back, “Let’s just keep that between us.”

  “All right. That’s a deal.”

  In the background, Natasha popped up in the gym and caught David’s attention.

  “That girl right there is with y’all too, right?”

  The guys looked and nodded. Natasha wore Adidas gear from head to toe, right down to her yellow and blue tennis skirt.

  “Yeah, she’s with us. Why you ask?” Leon quizzed him.

  David grinned. “Man, she’s bad. We saw her in Raleigh when we first met y’all. Our assistant coach been trying to get with her ever since.”

  “Your assistant coach? How old is he?” Simba asked.

  “Oh, he’s only like, twenty-three, twenty-four. He’s straight out of college, trying to get into coaching. He used to run ball for NC State.”

  “Oh, yeah? So, she gave him her number or something?” Brandon couldn’t help but ask.

  David shook it off. “Nah, he said he couldn’t get it. He’s tried again though, since she’s out here. Her friend’s bad too; the pretty brown one who looks like my cousin,” he joked.

  “Yeah, she’s the mean one, though,” Leon told him.

  “So, what’s up with some new shoes? Y’all can only wear Adidas now?”

  The guys all paused, hesitant to speak.

  “When we’re out here with them, yeah. But not at home,” Leon answered. “I just had a new pair of Championship LeBron 10s and got robbed for ’em back in Arizona. Now I gotta get a new pair.”

  David looked surprised. “For real? Man, people be getting robbed and shot left and right for sneakers. That’s why I only wear those Jordans y’all sent me on special occasions when I know I’m safe. Then they wonder why basketball players carry guns.”

  “We haven’t been robbed before
though,” Simba said. He didn’t want David to think it was normal for them.

  “Well, y’all been lucky with all the shoes y’all have. What happened to those Zebra shoes you wore on TV?” he asked Brandon.

  “Oh, the D Rose 4.5s? They’re back at home. Why, you want a pair of those?”

  Before David could answer, his AAU coach stepped in. “Hey, can I speak to you guys for a minute? David, go on back over to the team.”

  “Oh, aw’ight,” David said and scampered off. The short, fierce coach was a dark-brown black man in his forties. He was slim and athletic with a shaved head and a no-nonsense demeanor. Brandon remembered him from the tournament in Raleigh when he had barked at David.

  “What is this Beast Team stuff all about? You guys work with Adidas?” he asked.

  “No, we’re just on an internship with them. The Beast Team is the name of our sneakerheads club,” Simba explained.

  “Sneakerheads? You mean people who are all crazy about sneakers?”

  “Yeah,” Simba answered.

  “Well, who buys these sneakers? Do you get them for free? Does Adidas give them to you?”

  The coach was real forceful, like a drill sergeant in the Army.

  “We buy them ourselves,” Brandon answered. “We don’t get anything for free.”

  Brandon was who the coach wanted to question. He remembered him from Raleigh.

  “Well, what’s these posters you’re selling about?” he asked.

  “They’re Beast Team posters—posters you hang on the wall,” Leon added sarcastically.

  “I know where the hell you hang a poster,” the coach snapped. “But David can’t accept any money from that. And you shouldn’t be making money off him either. What you think, it’s different because you’re young?”

  “We’re just promoting him,” Brandon stated. “We like his game, that’s all.”

  “Well, he doesn’t need your damn promotion. He’s already on the national radar, and all you can do is fuck it up for him and his family over some bullshit. Now stay the hell away from him. If you wanna promote somebody, you do it for free.”

  In the middle of the fire, of all people to pop up, Daniel Baker appeared. He wasn’t even in the same gym earlier.

  “What’s going on here?” He looked genuinely concerned.

  The coach looked at his Adidas shirt. “Are you with these guys? They said they’re not with Adidas.”

  “No, we said The Beast Team is not with Adidas,” Simba clarified.

  “Yeah, they’re doing an internship with us, but The Beast Team is their own thing,” Daniel confirmed.

  “Well, they need to understand the NCAA rulebook before they start selling these posters with high-school kids on them and giving out T-shirts and shoes and whatnot.”

  “We do understand the rules,” Brandon argued.

  “I don’t think you do. Not to the extent that I understand them. One little damn slip-up and they can ruin this kid’s eligibility in college. But it won’t ruin you. You’ll still have your damn privileges, won’t you?” he barked at Brandon. All of a sudden, all eyes were on their Adidas station. Even Natasha and Adrienne were staring.

  “All right, we’ll handle it,” Daniel promised the coach.

  “I hope you do,” he snarled. “Too many kids’ livelihoods are being compromised by this nonsense. Learn the damn rules!”

  >>>

  The guys spoke with Daniel and Michael about their incident back in the room that night.

  “Man, that coach didn’t have to do all that. He was making a scene because we’re young. He wouldn’t have done that to anyone else,” Leon argued.

  “What was his main issue?” Michael asked them. Since he wasn’t there, he wanted to understand how everything went down.

  “He feels we’re going to ruin David Terry’s eligibility, but we’re not,” Brandon answered.

  Daniel shook his head, disgusted by the whole predicament. “You really can’t even deal with young sports stars individually until they’re able to turn pro. So, unless you guys want to promote an entire team, you always run the risk of sparking an investigation for foul play. But my main gripe is you guys pushing this Beast Team thing at all. I thought we made that point clear in Tampa.”

  After being busted so strongly, none of the guys could argue with him.

  Michael continued, “Maybe you guys should reach out to the new young professionals instead—John Wall, Bradley Beal, Trey Burke, Kemba Walker, Damian Lillard. All of those guys can sign contracts and do what they want.”

  “Yeah, but would they even deal with us? We don’t have any upfront money to pay any of them. The young people admire what we’re doing, and they get it,” Simba debated.

  Michael took a deep breath. He remembered how money-hungry the guys were when he first met them in Raleigh. “Everything is not about money all the time. Who’s to say one of these guys won’t wear your T-shirts and take a picture just for the hell of it?”

  Leon smiled. “Yeah, maybe back in your day, but these pros all know their value now. You can’t even get close to people.”

  Brandon sat on his bed and said nothing. He was in deep thought again, trying to work his way out of all this.

  Daniel barked, “Well, I can tell you this: If I see another Beast Team anything being passed out, I’m gonna send you guys straight back home. Now that’s it!”

  Even Michael had to agree with him. “Yeah, you guys need to leave that stuff in our room, and we’ll give it back to you when it’s time to head home.”

  There was no more to be said about it until Danny and Michael left them and took their TBT gear.

  “So, what do we do now, Brandon?” Leon asked in their absence. “We only try to work with professionals now?”

  Before he answered, Brandon checked his new phone messages. David Terry had tried to call him several times during their meeting and so had Natasha. Brandon decided to call David back first.

  “Hold on a minute, guys. D.T. tried to call me already.” He tapped his cell phone screen for a return call. “Hey, David, what’s up?”

  “Ay, man, I’m sorry about my AAU coach. He gets like that sometimes. He’s real protective of people trying to take advantage of us. But y’all weren’t trying to do that. We were ready to make some money together,” David said with a chuckle. “I just can’t do it now.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of screwed up how they do college athletes. So, it’s like, you have to make it big in order to make the sacrifices worthwhile,” Brandon said.

  “Yeah, and what if I don’t even make the pros?” David responded. “Think about all the money I could have made. I mean, I know I’m gonna make it though, but still.”

  “Yeah, I understand. What if? But it’s a good thing we didn’t print up a whole bunch of posters yet,” Brandon said with a laugh.

  “What do you mean? You’re not gonna do the posters now?” David pressed him.

  “Well, we don’t want to sell them when you can’t make anything from it. And we can’t give them away for free because they cost us a lot of money.”

  “Well, keep selling them then,” David barked. “To hell with the coach. He’s only my summer AAU coach. You can still sell my posters, man. As long as I don’t take any money from it, right? Those posters are hot, man. That’s why everybody was talking about me. I could be the next Andrew Wiggins or Jabari Parker. People are talking about them going pro already. They haven’t even played a game in college yet. So those posters could help me.”

  “Yeah, but they can also make our relationship with you look suspect,” Brandon argued.

  “Not if I tell everybody I told you to do the posters. I can just say I like them and my family likes them.”

  “Yeah, but then they’ll say your family is getting money.”

  “But they’ll have to prove it, right? And if we didn’t take any money they won’t have any proof.”

  Brandon stopped and thought about it a minute while eyeing Leon and Simba. They
waited patiently for his report. David was squeezing him in a tight place, but he was right—The Beast Team posters were awesome! And the other young ballers were paying attention to them. So Brandon thought of using reverse psychology.

  “If we keep doing these posters, you’re gonna have to ball out, man, because people are gonna start to think that you’re overhyped.”

  “What? Well, bring the noise then. They always say that about me anyway until they play me. But after this tournament is over, there won’t be any more talk about being overhyped—they’ll already know.”

  Brandon started grinning. The kid had won him over. “Okay.”

  “Yeah, and y’all can still send me shoes though, like, once every season or something. But I don’t want them too fancy or expensive, just something cool and different.”

  When Brandon hung up the line, he felt good again. The guys read his smile and asked him for the 4-1-1.

  “He still wants us to do the posters and send him cool shoes once a season. And he knows that he can’t take any money from us.”

  Leon and Simba smiled back and shook their heads.

  “I was hoping he would say that,” Leon admitted. “Those posters are the shit, man. And David Terry’s posters are my favorites.”

  “Yeah, but the skateboard people are feeling Jay Stewart’s posters too,” Simba added.

  Leon frowned. “Of course they are; they’re skateboarders. And once we post up some samples of Danielle Lyles, the soccer people will love those.” Then he grinned. “But I still want to experiment with some sexy stuff for her.”

  Brandon grinned back and shook it off. “We’re not doing that. We have enough issues already with these NCAA rules. So, we’ll need to have a lonnng discussion with Ray when we get back home on what we definitely can and cannot do.”

  “Yeah, that’s for sure,” Simba agreed. “That coach scared the hell out of me today. And did you see how everyone was looking at us? I thought it was all over for us. I thought they were gonna send us home tonight.”

  Leon laughed. “I know what you do with a damn poster,” he mocked the angry coach.

  They shared a laugh, reflecting on the coach’s outburst.