Play Their Hearts Out

by George Dohrmann

  As Demetrius walked into the gym on the first day of games, his eyes were drawn immediately to the far wall, where gigantic photos of Adidas-sponsored NBA stars Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett stretched from the floor to the ceiling. They were reminders of where a starring turn at the Superstar could take him. Later, NBA players Josh Smith and Carlos Boozer wandered in to watch some of the action.

  Despite his youth, Demetrius carried himself like the best player in the gym. He made small adjustments to his attire to assure that he stood out. Campers were given a yellow headband with the Superstar Camp logo. Demetrius, however, wore a white Adidas headband he’d brought from home. He also ignored the short white socks given to players, opting instead for his trademark long black soccer socks with three white stripes. His demeanor was different as well; he exuded a sense of entitlement. Before his opening game, he was the last of his team’s starters to leave the bench for the floor, idling behind for seemingly no other reason than to ensure that his entrance would not be overshadowed. As the players greeted one another with hand slaps or a bump of knuckles, he stood near his team’s free-throw line, waiting for the opposition to come to him. He would say later that he was so nervous his stomach hurt, but if it was anxiety, it came across as arrogance.

  Keller stood next to the bleachers, never sitting during Demetrius’s first game. Like all the AAU coaches hovering over the four courts, he prayed for a good showing by his players. At the end of the camp, Kalish and others would pick the twenty-four best seniors-to-be and the twenty-four best underclassmen (any player not going into his senior year) to participate in two all-star games. Coaches used the number of all-stars they had as a measure of their worth, and the selection process was heavily politicized. From the moment coaches landed at the Atlanta airport, they lobbied anyone with a say in the selection process. Having a kid ranked high by a scouting service helped, so the coaches schmoozed the likes of Francis as well. Highlight Athletes were expected to make one of the all-star games and would be given the benefit of the doubt during deliberations. Demetrius had to play only reasonably well, and the forces of the grassroots division would do the rest.

  In his first game, Demetrius lined up at shooting guard and was matched up with six-foot-five Matt Bouldin from Colorado, who would eventually play at Gonzaga. Bouldin was not the athlete Demetrius was, but he could handle the ball deftly, enabling him to rotate between either guard spot, and the form on his outside shot was like something out of an instructional video. He had obviously spent hours and hours polishing the small aspects of his game. The first time Bouldin got the ball on the wing, he gave Demetrius a jab step, testing his quickness. Bouldin recognized that he wasn’t going to blow by Demetrius, so he calmly set him up. He teased that he was going to drive until Demetrius leaned back, bracing for his move. With Demetrius on his heels, Bouldin stepped back, creating just enough space to launch his picture-perfect shot.

  Watching Bouldin drain a long 3-pointer in his face early in the game angered Demetrius. The minute he touched the ball on offense, he tried to drive, but Bouldin used his strength to usher Demetrius wide of the key. Demetrius retreated to outside the 3-point line on the right side and dribbled there, looking for another seam to the hoop. Bouldin shadowed him perfectly, never falling for his head fakes or reaching for the ball. Frustrated, Demetrius stepped back and launched a desperation 3-point shot that barely grazed the front of the rim.

  It was hard not to draw some conclusions from that one exchange: Demetrius didn’t know how to play on the perimeter. Ballhandling, outside shooting, defending against penetration—these were not skills Keller had instilled in him. Other than a few workouts just before they left for Atlanta, when Keller had him shoot nothing but 3-pointers, Demetrius had not been schooled in any of the skills he needed to succeed against a guard like Bouldin. The matchup with Tyreke Evans in New Jersey six months earlier had highlighted Demetrius’s deficiencies, but nothing had been done since then to fix them. He was the same player he had been that day, except now Keller couldn’t protect him with a zone defense.

  After a game in which he scored only 6 points, all on transition layups, Demetrius said his ankle bothered him. Following his 4-point effort in a game that evening, he said it was his knee. He also blamed “selfish” teammates and even his height. “Imagine if I was six foot eight: I’d be killin’.” None of it explained his struggles. Demetrius simply didn’t know how to play against kids as big or as athletic as he was. Yes, he was the youngest player on the court and could be forgiven for not shining against the older players, but he was also one of the rawest.

  Contrasted with Demetrius’s early struggles, Aaron’s performance on the first day was a revelation. He scored in double figures in both games, collecting most of his points on 3-pointers from the corners, shots he was never allowed to attempt with Team Cal. When teams collapsed to the middle to stop the talented Mullens, B. J. kicked the ball out to Aaron for open jumpers. Aaron was not a seasoned outside shooter, but he had decent form and, like anyone, was capable of a hot streak. Back at the camp hotel that night, some AAU coaches wondered if Keller had miscast Aaron all along. He possessed good size and length for a small forward and, if the first day was any indication, a decent perimeter game. In short, his stock skyrocketed.

  Against their wishes, Demetrius and Aaron were assigned to the same room at the camp hotel. As midnight approached on Tuesday night, Aaron couldn’t sleep; he was too excited over his play from earlier in the day. He watched ESPN and took calls from his mom and others who wanted to hear about his performance. “I was wet. I was killin’,” he told them. He bragged about the players on his team, mainly Mullens. “He is real. I mean real. But he is nice too. No attitude.” The last comment was a dig at his roommate, who endured every word while wrapped up in a green comforter. Demetrius talked to his mom and his uncle, and his remarks were delivered in a somber voice. “It was terrible,” he said, more grumbling than talking. “In the first game, I think I touched the ball only twelve times. I think some of my teammates are like, ‘You’re young, you’ll have other camps, but this is my last shot.’ So they don’t pass nothing.” He started to criticize the coach of his team, saying, “My coach is, man—” but then he stopped himself. “Look, man, the only time I touched the ball was when I ran the point in the second game. But if I passed the ball like a point guard should, I never got it back. It was horrible.”

  The long gym at the Suwanee Sports Academy was filled with AAU coaches, Adidas employees, college coaches, scouting-service writers, and 220 players. There were very few parents and almost no kids who weren’t competing. Thus it was a surprise when, on Wednesday morning, Justin Hawkins paid five dollars admission and walked into the gym.

  He was in Atlanta visiting his father and had talked him into driving to Suwanee so he could watch the games. Several of Justin’s future Taft High teammates were at the camp, and he wanted to see how they and his former Team Cal teammates fared. While watching the first set of games Wednesday, he pounded his right fist into his left palm as he said over and over, “Man, I wish I was out there.” If a player he knew asked him why he wasn’t in uniform, he told them he hadn’t gotten the necessary paperwork in on time. The truth was that he lacked a sponsor. The Taft High coaches backed their older kids, and rightfully so, as they were closer to graduating and needed the camp to enhance their chances of landing scholarships. Keller had been given three spots, for Demetrius, Aaron, and G.J. There wasn’t room for Justin, not that Keller would have extended an invite even if he could have. Part of Justin’s penance for leaving Team Cal and not going to FoHi was to watch the most important event of the summer from the sidelines.

  The first to see Justin was Roger Franklin, the sensitive kid driven back to Duncanville, Texas, by Aaron’s cruel comments about his father. Justin and Roger hugged, and Justin admired the uniform Roger and all the campers wore. It included shorts and a reversible jersey in UCLA colors. Each camper wore a pair of white shoes, the newest Adida
s Ultras.

  Roger told Justin that he was having fun despite struggling on the court. “They have me playing the three, but I am really a four or a five,” he said in his Texas accent. “But I don’t care. I am just here trying to have fun.” As he spoke, he had his thumbs tucked under the straps of the sling bag given to every camper. “This is something I can learn from and then try to get better.”

  Justin asked how Demetrius and Aaron looked, and Roger lowered his voice. “I walked past Demetrius last night in the hall at the hotel. I said hello and tried to talk to him, but he just nodded and kept right on walking.”

  As for Aaron, Roger conceded: “Aaron got a lot better. He looks good.”

  Just then Aaron bounded down the baseline to the corner where Justin and Roger stood. Finding success on the first day had transformed Aaron into a sociable camper. Before the morning session, he buzzed around the different courts. He joked with Mullens and another teammate near one court, then walked out of his way to ask a guard about his injured leg. On the way back to where Mullens stood, he got sidetracked by another group of players he’d met at the hotel. He slapped a ball away from one and started a game of keep-away. He eventually bounced over to where Roger and Justin stood, and he immediately hugged Roger as if they’d never had harsh words.

  “Did you see? They got me ranked among the top twenty guys in the camp,” Aaron said. The Hoop Scoop had posted rankings of the players in the camp on its website, listing the top overall, by position, and the top seniors and underclassmen. After the first day, Aaron was ranked as the eighteenth-best player out of the 220 at the camp.

  “Where is D ranked?” Justin asked.

  “He’s not,” Aaron said, with a little too much enthusiasm. He then pointed to the court farthest from the door, one left unoccupied so players could practice before games. Demetrius was alone at one end, shooting 3-pointers. He kept missing, and after chasing down one rebound, he quickly heaved up another shot as if he were trying to get all the bad shots out of his system.

  “I don’t think Demetrius will talk to me about it, but if he asked me, I would tell him that he shouldn’t worry about how many points he scores and just be thankful that we get to be here,” Roger said. “Think of all the players that didn’t get invited.”

  Justin nodded, keeping to himself that he was one of those players.

  ————

  Demetrius and Aaron played simultaneously on adjoining courts Wednesday afternoon, and Keller positioned himself on the top row of the aluminum bleachers between the courts. From that perch, he could spin around and watch either game. Just before tip-off, Keller stopped Dave Taylor, who was one of the camp coordinators, and said, “Watch how much pull I have. Demetrius will be playing the point this game. I got it done.” He had spoken to the coach of Demetrius’s team about how little Demetrius touched the ball on the first day, he said, and he threatened to get Kalish involved.

  Taylor waited until the start of Demetrius’s game and, upon seeing him open as his team’s point guard, said, “Way to go, Joe. You’re important. Now let’s see if D knows how to play the point.”

  In a development sure to boost Demetrius’s confidence, Roger drew the assignment of guarding him. He was the same age and height, but he was slower than Demetrius. He was also as uncomfortable playing defense twenty feet away from the basket as Demetrius was trying to score from that distance. There might have been no player in the gym less prepared to defend Demetrius. Yet Demetrius inexplicably shrank from the challenge. The first three times up the court, he passed the ball off rather than charge at Roger. On his team’s fourth possession, seven-footer N’diaye stepped out and screened Roger, but instead of coming off the screen and driving strong to the basket, Demetrius ran off the screen, bounced to the right, and fired a 3-pointer that missed badly. A few minutes later, he chased down a long rebound and blew past others for a transition layup, but that was the lone highlight in his six minutes on the court.

  “He’s playing like he’s afraid,” Taylor said, “like he’d rather not shoot than miss or have his shot blocked.”

  Spinning around to Aaron’s game, Keller saw him make a 3-pointer from the right corner, then, a possession later, sprint free on the break and, after blowing the layup, hustle to collect his miss and put it in. Keller didn’t react positively to Aaron’s strong play; it annoyed him. Aaron remained on the court, but Keller spun back around when Demetrius reentered his game. He saw Roger make a 3-pointer over Demetrius, who was late finding him in the left corner. Demetrius’s attempt at atonement was a wild, ill-advised jump shot that he let fly while drifting to his left, and it never reached the rim. Keller quickly spun back to Aaron, but he was exiting the game, so he reluctantly turned to the unraveling of his prodigy.

  When Demetrius converted two layups late in the second half, Keller broke a long spell of silence. “That’s six points. He needs to get to ten to have any shot at the all-star game.” Demetrius didn’t score again, however, leaving the game, like the two before it, marked by an array of turnovers and wild shots.

  Keller stared out onto the court at the end of Demetrius’s game. He’d missed Aaron’s finish, which included another 3-pointer from the right baseline, then a blocked shot with his team ahead by 3 and only seconds remaining. Aaron’s final line of 9 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 block was not overwhelming, but it was impressive for a freshman-to-be. He affirmed that he could play his new position well and that he was willing to contribute in small ways to help his team win.

  Keller briefly congratulated Aaron, then set out to repair Demetrius’s psyche. He had long preferred tough love to babying him, but with Demetrius’s struggles continuing into a second day, Keller took a different approach.

  “D, listen. Are you good? Yes, you are. Are you playing good right now? No. It’s because you are trying too hard. If I gave you a million dollars to make one free throw, would you make it? No, because you’d try too hard to make it. You are putting too much pressure on yourself. Relax and just play.” They were standing along the baseline of one court. “Do you hear me? Just relax. It’s just a game. Play like it’s just a game.”

  For five years Keller had hammered home the idea that every game was life-or-death; Demetrius’s future was on the line whenever he stepped onto the court. Now, in the midst of his worst experience as a player to date, when he could see the college coaches watching and he felt as if his future was indeed at stake, he was supposed to treat basketball as if it was just a game.

  Demetrius reached down to pick up his bag, and Keller put his hand on Demetrius’s neck and squeezed. “It’s gonna be okay, D,” he said.

  “I gotta go,” Demetrius said, and he walked slowly down the length of the gym and out the back exit. Just before getting on the bus, he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, as if to hide his face from the other players waiting to be taken back to the hotel.

  ————

  Keller’s signature player, the kid who’d made him, was struggling, but that didn’t stop Keller from pushing his business interests. Nights at the camp were reserved for networking and deal-making, and Keller thrived in that environment. One night, he sat at a table at a T.G.I. Friday’s across from the hotel with an AAU coach from Atlanta and an assistant coach at a small private college in the area. He was close to a deal with the AAU coach on a Jr. Phenom Camp franchise (one of five he would sell that week), and he showed him pictures of the trailers he brought to transport equipment to and from the Jr. Phenom Camp. He talked of the money the coach would make from operating a camp, stopping only to sip his cosmopolitan or down a watermelon shooter or order another round for the table. When Mats entered the restaurant, Keller yelled across at him, ridiculing the matching golf shirts all the EBO coaches wore. When UCLA coach Ben Howland walked past the table, Keller stopped him and asked if he’d speak at the Jr. Phenom Camp. Howland said he was taking his family to Hawaii that weekend, “but had I known about it sooner I would have rescheduled the tr
ip.” He discouraged Keller from having Lute Olson speak at the camp, because Arizona was a Nike-sponsored school. “Hey, Nike isn’t doing us any favors,” Howland said.

  Keller loved talking shop with a big-name coach like Howland, but he loved making money more, and his most important meeting of the week occurred Wednesday in a conference room at the hotel. Keller met with the head of girls’ grassroots basketball for Adidas to discuss the inaugural girls’ Jr. Phenom Camp. Keller asked White for $50,000 in product for the camp and $35,000 to cover expenses. Keller sensed that the amount of product would not be a problem, but the Adidas rep balked at the $35,000. Keller smoothed him over with small talk and, when he thought the rep had warmed a little, he turned the discussion back to the expense of operating the camp. The rep said he would be willing to give Keller $25,000, but Keller had to agree to kick $10,000 back to him, an under-the-table payoff that Adidas would never know about. “But that will fuck me up on my taxes,” Keller remarked. The rep said that he could cover the tax hit with his profits from the camp, and in the end Keller agreed to the deal, as he was still coming out ahead.