Word count: 2016 Dre glanced over as another five players wandered toward the court.
“You runnin’ again?” Kobe shook his head no.
He skipped the next game.
Curt dropped onto the bench beside him with a groan, pulling his sweat-soaked shirt away from his chest.
“I’m taking one off too,” he muttered.
“Old man’s gotta recharge.” Fatigue wasn’t the reason he stepped away.
His body hummed with unused energy, capable of running for hours.
But the disconnect between mind and muscle demanded correction, and that work required solitude.
He picked up a basketball resting near the sideline and walked to the empty court at the other side, adjacent to the main run.
The chain net rattled with a metallic clank each time the ball slipped through.
He started with simple layups, not to score but to measure.
Each repetition adjusted something: a little less force, a slightly different angle, a cleaner gather.
First off the left foot, then the right.
Then off both.
Each jump taught him something: how much force the body generated, how long it took to land, and how long before it was ready again.
Next, he tried floaters.
He watched how high the ball left his hand, how the wrist snapped, and how the fingers finished.
He missed badly at first, overshooting by a foot.
He recalibrated, lowered his release point, softened the push, and watched the ball drop in with the same rotation he remembered from thousands of mornings in empty gyms.
Nothing about it was showy.
If anything, it looked like a kid working through beginner drills, except every motion was precise, tight, and logged with purpose.
Yo.” Curt’s voice cut across the blacktop.
“Are you planning on shooting a three at some point, or what?” “Relax, old man.
I’m getting there.” Curt laughed and threw his hands up.
“Man, who’s the old man?” “The guy taking a break after a few games.” The game on the main court played out behind him.
Every few moments his eyes drifted back toward the empty hoop, where Kobe continued working through the same quiet routine.
Minutes later, a jumper rattled home.
“Game!” The losing team groaned and filed off the court, arguing about a missed switch on the final possession.
As they wandered toward the sideline to catch their breath, a few noticed Kobe still doing drills by himself.
A few wandered over to his court.
Dre tried a couple of trick shots, bricked them, then planted himself on the blacktop, watching his footwork throughout the drills.
Temple attempted a three, clanked it, then shrugged and wandered back to the sideline.
Half an hour in, sweat soaked his shirt clear through, and the sun hammered his skin with a familiar ache.
He didn’t care.
The only thing that mattered was aligning the body to the mind, closing the lag between intention and action.
Kobe was mid-drill when the chatter died.
Not all at once—more like a candle going out, one voice at a time.
Across the main court, bodies stilled and faces swung toward the park entrance, pulled by the same invisible current.
Tank had arrived.
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Tank walked into the park like the court had been waiting for him.
Six-six, pushing three hundred pounds, with a build that made the word “athletic” feel inadequate.
He was a wall of muscle with arms like tree trunks and a chest that suggested most problems could be solved by lowering a shoulder and driving through whoever stood in the way.
He looked like Shaq and Draymond Green had somehow produced a kid who only ate concrete for breakfast.
Kobe almost smiled.
That was…
unsettling.
He brought four guys with him: two guards who hadn’t stopped talking since the parking lot, a kid in a red headband who had springs where other people had ankles, and a shooter Kobe recognized from a tournament they’d both played in the previous year.
Different schools, same gym.
The kid had spent the afternoon camping in the corners, making defenses pay every time they forgot about him.
The effect was immediate.
All the joking, the easy banter, and the casual foul arguments vanished, replaced by a low murmur of strategies.
Dre let out a low whistle.
“Who’s guarding Tank?” Temple snorted.
“Better double him.” J-Rock shook his head.
“Forget that; let him eat.
Just stop the shooters.” Curt clapped his hands once, gathering everyone together.
His eyes settled on Kobe.
“You in?” Kobe tossed the ball back toward the sideline, wiped the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his shirt, and stepped into the huddle.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Let’s run.” .
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They didn’t waste time standing on ceremony.
Tank’s team took the court with the slow confidence of people who had nothing to prove.
They took the first possession, checked it up top, and immediately dumped it into Tank, who parked himself a foot outside the paint and dared the world to move him.
Curt set his feet and dropped his hips, bracing for impact.
It didn’t matter.
Tank hit him like a truck, clearing space with one shoulder before lofting a feather-soft finger roll that barely whispered through the net.
No fist pump, no shout just a turn and a jog back upcourt, already locking in for the next possession.
The shooter from the tournament drew the assignment.
Kobe recognized him immediately.
Solid fundamentals.
Quick feet.
The kind of player who made you work for every catch.
It didn’t matter.
Kobe rocked into a lazy hesitation, watching the defender settle.
One hard jab sent the kid leaning just enough.
Kobe crossed left, planted, and exploded back to his right.
The defender stumbled.
Not enough to fall.
Enough.
Kobe took one retreat dribble, creating another step of space, then rose into a smooth step-back three.
The defender recovered with an outstretched hand.
Too late.
The ball left Kobe’s fingertips with perfect rotation.
Snap.
The chain net cracked like a whip.
The first few possessions were a blur.
Dre missed a tough layup, and the rebound turned into a brawl under the rim, four bodies tangled until Tank muscled it free.
The red headband kid went baseline and tried to sky, but Kobe met him at the rim, blocking the shot so clean the entire park went silent for half a second before erupting into a chorus of “OH SHIT!” Tank’s shooters kept firing from deep, stretching the floor every chance they got.
For a while, it looked like no defense would be enough.
But on the other end, something started to click for Curt’s crew.
Kobe controlled the rhythm without saying much.
He read every cut before it happened and anticipated every switch a beat early.
If Dre flashed to the rim, the pass was already on its way.
If Temple needed an extra second to square his feet, Kobe slowed the possession with a patient dribble.
When J-Rock slipped behind his defender on the baseline, Kobe found him without even looking.
Possession after possession, the offense became less about individual plays and more about trust.
The ball rarely stuck.
It moved from hand to hand until someone found daylight.
Each trip down the floor, the machine ran a little smoother.
After a missed three, Curt ripped down the rebound and immediately fired an outlet to Kobe streaking up the middle.
J-Rock filled the left lane while Dre sprinted along the right.
Kobe pushed the break just long enough to freeze the lone defender before slipping a no-look bounce pass to Dre, who pump-faked, stepped around the contest, and kissed the ball high off the glass.
Tank’s team answered every basket.
Nothing came easy.
The shooters set ruthless screens; Tank absorbed punishment and doled it out in equal measure.
Curt drew a charge that nobody believed, then spent the next possession gloating so hard he almost missed a defensive rotation.
The game tightened with every possession.
Sweat dripped onto the blacktop.
Fouls came harder.
Conversations disappeared, replaced by the slap of hands on the ball and the scrape of sneakers across concrete.
Every basket mattered now.
The score seesawed until, late in the run, Curt found Kobe with an entry pass a step beyond the three-point line.
Tank switched onto him without hesitation.
A grin spread across the big man’s face as he settled into his stance.
“You sure you wanna try me, young blood?” Kobe didn’t answer.
He dribbled once, twice, then faked left and darted right, low to the ground.
Tank kept up, but on the third step, Kobe planted, spun, and launched a fadeaway.
The ball sailed, hung for a beat, then dropped in clean.
No one cheered.
The sound was all oxygen, everyone holding their breath.
Next play, Tank came right back, backing down Curt until he was three feet from the hoop, then spinning off for the finish.
14-14.
Next point wins.
Curt caught the ball at the top of the key, the red-headband kid crowding him.
He faked a drive, then actually drove, but bodies clogged the paint.
He kicked it out to Temple, whose jumper clanged off the rim, but Kobe was already there, having slid into rebounding position before the shot even left Temple’s hands.
He grabbed the board, dribbled out to reset, and saw the defense scrambling.
Dre drifted toward the corner with his hand up, but Kobe saw what no one else did: Temple’s defender had taken one step too far into the passing lane, leaving the baseline wide open, and Tank was a beat late rotating.
The lane was open.
He took it himself.
One hard dribble.
Then another.
Tank was already there.
He’d read the drive before Kobe left his feet, and now he stood rooted under the glass, arms fanned wide, three hundred pounds of consequence.
“Not in here,” he shouted Kobe gathered off his left foot.
The world slowed down.
Tank exploded upward to meet him, certain the challenge was over before it had begun.
He had seen many guards try this before, and they were either swatted away or they ended up changing their minds halfway up.
But Kobe was different; he kept rising.
Tank’s confidence cracked.
His eyes widened as Kobe’s shoulders climbed higher…
then higher still.
For a split second, they were face to face.
How the hell is he still going?
He thought as he reached the top of his leap.
Kobe hadn’t.
His body seemed to hang in the air, balanced between earth and sky, seventeen-year-old legs fueled by the instincts and timing of a man who had spent a lifetime perfecting the impossible.
Tank started falling.
But Kobe was still climbing.
At the peak of his jump, Kobe cocked the ball behind his head.
Then he brought it down with everything he had.
BOOM!
The dunk exploded through the rim with both hands.
Metal groaned.
The chain links sang a single, sharp note of FATALITY.
The force drove straight through Tank.
Tank’s feet went out from under him first, skidding on nothing, and then the rest of him followed three hundred and some pounds of consequence hitting the blacktop with a sound like a car door slamming shut.
He slid a full foot on his back.
The crowd drew one sharp, collective breath.
Kobe released the rim and landed lightly, taking a single step forward before turning around.
For one impossible heartbeat…
The park fell silent.
Then the entire court erupted.
“OOOOOOOH!” Players and spectators alike broke from wherever they stood, converging from every direction.
“Holy shit!” “No fucking way!” “He got him!” “You see that shit?!” Dre grabbed the top of his head in shock.
“Goddamn!” Temple could only laugh.
“I told y’all he was different.” Curt was the first to reach him, throwing an arm around Kobe’s shoulders and pulling him into a headlock.
“That’s a body!” he shouted.
“You just put that man on a poster!” Laughter exploded around them.
Tank remained on the ground for another second, staring up at Kobe with a look that had replaced his confidence with disbelief.
For the first time all afternoon…
And for the first time in his life…
The biggest man in the park looked small.
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Two chapters today!
I honestly didn’t expect us to reach that milestone this quickly.
Y’all are making me work extra hard…
but I can’t complain.
I hope you all enjoyed Kobe catching a body.
😭 As always, thank you for reading!