Out of breath, Michael managed, "I know, I know. In my face, right?"
Jerome shrugged.
"You said it, old dude, not me. But I do love playing against legends."
"This is just practice, kid. We're on the same team."
"Knicks to the end. By the way, nice shorts."
"You don't like them?"
"Pink and aqua flowers? Very hip."
They ran up court. Sweat soaked all ten players running through the scrimmage. Their bodies glistened in the dim light.
Michael felt hot, tired, and a touch out of shape. His stomach was not helping matters much.
The upcoming season would be Michael's twelfth with the New York Knicks. He had begun, like Holloway, as a number one draft pick.
Coming out of Stanford at age twenty-two, Michael had been a superstar his first year in the NBA, winning the Rookie of the Year Award and making the All-Star team. That same year the Knicks went from last place in the Eastern Conference to second place a twenty-game swing-around. The next year Michael led them to the finals, where they lost in a seven-game showdown to the Phoenix Suns. Two years later he collected his first NBA championship ring. He had won three in his career with the Knicks, been named to the All-Star team ten times, and been the league's leader in steals and assists for eight seasons.
Not bad for an old dude.
Michael, an all-purpose shooting guard, did it all. There were many who could score like him, a few who could rebound like!
him, a couple who could pass like him, but next to none whoj could play defense like him. Add it all up and you had the kin of player every championship team needs.
"What's the matter, Michael? Feeling your age. Haul ass!"
Michael could hear himself suck in air. The voice belo to the Knick's new head coach, Richie Crenshaw. Richie had a second round pick by the Boston Celtics the same year Michael was drafted by the Knicks. There had been something of a IT between the two during Crenshaw's playing days, but for the most' part it was an amicable rivalry. The two men always got along off the court. Now Richie Crenshaw was Michael's coach and still his good friend.
Eat shit, Richie, Michael shouted. But only to himself.
His lungs burned in his chest, his throat was dry. He was getting older, goddamn it even though the gods of health had smiled upon Michael for his first ten-plus NBA seasons. No injuries. He had had a boating accident a few years ago, but that took place off-season so it didn't count. Only two games missed in almost ten full seasons and those were the result of a minor groin pull. Remarkable, really.
Unheard of. Then something must have really pissed off the gods.
Michael had landed wrong in a game against the Washington Bullets, twisting his knee. To make matters worse, Big Burt Wesson, the Bullet's 270-pound enforcer, crashed into Michael on the play.
Michael's foot remained firmly planted on the floor. His knee did not.
It bent the wrong way backwards in fact. There a snapping sound and Michael's scream filled the stadium.
Out of basketball for over a year.
The cast on his leg had been enormous and about as comfortable as wearing a jock-strap made of tweed. He hobbled around for months, listening to Sara tease him.
"Stop imitating my limp. It's not a very nice thing to do."
"Great. I married a comedienne."
"We can be a comedy team," Sara had enthused.
"The Gimpy Couple. Well limp our way to laughter. We'll be as funny as a rubber crutch."
"Awful, Horrendous. Not even remotely funny. Stop."
"Not funny? Then we'll become a dance team. Limp to your left. Limp to your right. We can switch leg braces during a tango."
"Stop. Help. Police. Somebody shoot."
Michael and Sara had both recognized that he might not be able to come back; they were prepared for it. Michael had never been a stupid jock who thought that a basketball career would last forever. There was talk in the Republican party about running him for Congress when he retired. But Michael was not ready to call it quits. Not yet anyway.
He worked hard for a full, painful year with the therapist Harvey had found for him and rebuilt his shattered knee.
Now he was trying to get himself back into playing condition at the Knicks' pre-season camp. But while the knee felt okay in its vise-like brace, his stomach was slowing him down. He had promised Harvey last night that he would swing by the clinic