Utah Jazz fan fiction... what the ****. Why didn't I think of this before?
"Defense! Defense!" cried old man Sloan. "Cover the ****ing ball! God damn it." His eyes flashed savagely. He kicked the air in frustration. "Get it through your thick ******** heads!"
At the Utah Jazz Practice Facility, the play had come to a stand-still. The players looked at each other. They looked at their coaches. The younger guys -- the weaker guys -- Hayward and Evans -- had fear in their eyes.
Al Jefferson sighed and leaned against a white wall, feeling the cold of the brick on his back. Sweat poured down his face, and he bunched up his jersey and wiped it away. He knew what was coming: Deron was itching for a fight. He could sense his point guard's mood. Lately it had been dangerous -- venomous. Deron had been slamming doors this morning. Scowling in the locker room. Glowering in the weight room. Al didn't know why. There was a black vacuum of anger in the center of his friend that Al didn't understand. Didn't want to.
Deron Williams tucked the ball under one arm with a smirk and took a few steps toward Sloan. "Don't be too hard on them, coach. Nobody in the league can guard me one on one."
Al watched as the old coach, the legend and warrior, stiffened, his shoulders canting almost imperceptibly into a fighting stance. His mood, lately, hadn't been much better than Deron's.
"That's why we rely on team defense. This look like ****ing one on one to you?" He gestured toward the other nine players, and, vaguely, to the four others who presently hovered nearby. "I guess it must, way you've been playing lately."
Deron took a few dribbles, looked at the floor, and seemed to be considering his response. Al might have said, "You're right, coach -- I've got to pass more." Or, "How can I improve?" It was too much to hope for. Deron put the ball back on his hip, looked the old man in the eye, and said, "**** you, coach." And gave a little half-smile.
Before the words were out, Sloan was charging forward with a fist raised. His face went white around the edges and red at the center. "I'll ****ing show you," he raged. But he had scarcely taken a single step before two of his assistants had his arms pinned in a duplex wrap-up.
Al was too far away to make out what they murmured to him; and it didn't matter. He crouched and flexed his knees, locking his hands together in front of him. This was not what he had signed on for.
One of the coaches -- the Layden boy -- was blowing his whistle and telling the players that practice was over.
Again, Al mopped sweat off his face as he began to walk slowly toward the showers. The coaches fell into a far corner to confer and try to calm the raging of the old man. A few factions of guys formed up as some of the players remained behind to work on their shots and rebound for each other and talk about their families.
Normally Al might have been one of them. But not today. Today he didn't have the energy. All he wanted to do was go home and get into the hot tub with a damned crate of Budweiser.
One of the guys fell into place beside him and said, "He wasn't always like this."
That was Ronnie. The peacemaker. Al wasn't sure if he meant Deron or old man Sloan. He grunted noncommittally.
"I mean it," said Ronnie.
...etc.
