1 Chapter 1 - Prologue

My name is Jaylen Bowser, friends and family call me Jay. I currently live in Dallas, Texas, with my parents.

I've been a Basketball fan my whole life, which isn't much since I'm only 10.

Basketball though, the sport is the greatest. The ways you can work with the ball and the possibilities you have in this game are just unmatchable.

Due to my love for this game, I've been training with some friends at the park, at my school in the noon, plus sometimes just by myself at night for the past year.

This year I plan to be a part of my school's basketball team.

Yes, I'm not a part of it yet. A couple of reasons why, but I didn't want to be there just yet, I had to figure out a few things before going into a team.

I'm confident that I can show my game to people and make a name for myself now.

Currently, I'm really tall for my age. At about 190cm(6.2 feet) tall, and 72kg(158lbs) with a skinny defined build.

Hell yeah, I'm blessed. Genetics is a cheat and coupled with my training, I'm in pure basketball shape.

As I look at the clock, I see it's time for me to go down the stairs because my mother is going to drive me to school today.

After I left the stairs, I saw that mom was preparing her work stuff. When she saw me, she asked.

"So... how are you feeling about finally joining the basketball team?" A smile appeared on her face.

"Okay, I think. I mean, it's not as if I'm bad at basketball. There's no reason to fear." I replied, showing a small smile myself.

"Good. Are you starting today?" She continued.

"Yeah, I think so. Mike said they had just been starting training, but hoping to up the level this week, so it's perfect."

"All right, then. Let's go." She said tapping my back and walking to the door.

After 5 minutes, we arrived at my school. It's a short drive, which I could've just walked but it's also the way to mom's work, so she drives me sometimes as she likes to have my company in the morning as well as our mother-and-son conversations.

After walking through the school, I was entering my classroom. Though as soon as I passed through the door, I heard Mike yell.

"Yo, if it isn't our school's basketball team's most recent member." He said, standing up from his seat.

Everyone turned their heads to look at me, trying to notice who would the person be.

"Bring the trophy, Jay." said one of the girls joking and chuckling with her small group.

"Come on, guys. I didn't even speak to coach Kyle yet. Let me get to the team first, then I will bring it." I said while smiling and walking to my chair which is just in front of Mike, the girls laughed a bit more, enjoying the reply.

I gave him a glance and said.

"Would you like a loudspeaker? Perhaps the other classes didn't hear you about me joining the team."

"Haha.. It's just that it's been such a long time since we wanted you on the team, and when it actually happens, it's a big deal. So why not celebrate it?" He said chuckling, knowing I wasn't truly bothered, just messing with him.

Mike and I have been friends since we were three years old, our parents are great friends and we are also neighbors that pretty much live at each other's houses, so more like family in the end. There's no cheerleader better than family.

After a few classes, the first few periods were over, we had a break, and Mike and I went to the school's cafeteria to grab some food.

We soon found the other guys from the basketball team: James, Phill, Paul, and Harris.

They usually played like this:

James, a slightly below average height kid, with black messy fringe hair - PG

Mike, average height kid, with spiky dark-brown hair - SG

Phill, slightly tall kid with brown hair - SF

Paul, a stiff tall kid with common black hair - PF

Harris, a tall and big kid with moderate buzzcut - C

As for my position, I'm also a Point Guard, which sometimes makes James a little apprehensive, I feel it. Though no conflict ever rose between us, mostly due to me not having an interest in being on the team at the time, and surely I don't think there will be one if I join now.

Overall, I've played with all of them, a lot. That's how we became good friends.

Thinking about it, I remember how we actually met. It was hella' funny.

About one year ago...

A kid who happened to be passing by a park near my house recorded a video of me playing with some adults, he put the video on the school's forum, which, overnight, became the top trending subject of the school. Even the high school students were hyped about this.

The kid who recorded it was from the same grade as me, though from a different class, he knew who I am.

That video was posted on Saturday, and as I arrived at school Monday morning, everyone was looking at me.

I might have a lot of friends but I don't know everyone at school, so pretty much everybody looking at me definitely felt weird.

Finally, when I entered the classroom, Mike immediately assaulted me with a question.

"Dude, how did you get so famous by just one video?!" He asked excitedly.

"Well, not even I saw this video." I showed a confused face.

"Here, take a look." He then reached for his phone in his pocket and played a video.

The video had a title and a description. "Kid finesses adults - Streetball". The description had my name and school class. Like I said, the kid who posted it definitely knows who I am.

As the video played, I was receiving a pass on the left wing from a guy to my right. After dribbling the ball a little, I did a cross between the legs, pulled the ball a little to the left while hesitating and faking the drive, just when the defender twitched, I snatched it back to the right.

The defender had just switched instances to prevent the drive to the left but he had to change his feet again to stay in front while I drove middle. Then he did another mistake and tried to reach the ball, the sudden imbalance had the guy end up with his butt on the ground.

Not only that, his teammate as the help defender tried to cover for him, coming from the right block, positioning in front of the rim with his arms raised. Quickly reacting, I picked up the ball and initiated a great-looking euro step that left the second guy frozen in place, finishing with a layup at the basket behind him.

After finishing watching the video, I saw it had about 1600 views. Basically, not only the school, but outside people probably saw it too, since it was posted on Y0utube.

"Well, now I see why everyone is looking at me in the hallways," I said as I sat on my desk, slightly dull now.

"No sh¡t, dude. That's a great move. Why didn't you tell me that you were at the park? I could be in this video." Mike said with a slightly mischievous grin.

"I was just bored at home, and by the way, I texted you but you only answered later." I smirked.

"Damn it!" He dropped his shoulders disappointed.

A while after that, on the same day as we were on break, James and the other members of the school team came to me, saying that they wanted a 1v1.

At the time I wasn't familiar with any of them.

The reason why they came to me was because the boys and girls in their class were teasing them, by saying our school's team hasn't great players compared to a kid from the same school playing at a random park and doesn't even play for the school. Even Coach Kyle, the team's Head Coach was advised to prob me, the video reaching some of the staff from our school.

After classes ended for the day, we headed to the school's gymnasium. In a funny exchange of paper, rock, scissors James, Harris, and the others decided who would be first.

The lucky one was James. We walked to the free-throw line and shot for the ball, which I won after James missed and I hit.

Checking the ball and positioning himself on the free throw line, I stared James. My plan was to simply attack, maybe use a few size ups since he didn't know how I play and just go.

Doing a few crossovers, I slightly moved my foot right, dribbling in the same direction. Then I advanced my body and lowered my chest close to my knees. Then, when James twitched as well, I crossed back to the left hand as if driving in that direction, a quick low dribble to the right hand again and I blew by him as I pushed the first step.

James had just changed his weight to his right leg, and when I suddenly pushed right, it made his body get off balance, his stumbling steps as I was left alone towards the basket.

Simple.

For the others, I entered the paint and scored so fast that James couldn't react.

As we agreed to only play one attack for each person, so if one of us scored, it was game over. And recovered from the initial surprise at how quick James got beat, the next was Harris.

As the center, Harris wasn't even closely fast as me, even though I was just slightly shorter. I danced with him pretty easily, and also got a 3-point shot. His big frame didn't help him to move around easily.

After that, I even got to repeat the video that brought me here, the part where the defender fell on his butt, my moves a bit too deceiving for Phill. The last member of the challengers, Paul, didn't want to try after watching his teammates.

Paul was the only one who really didn't care about challenging me from the start. The guys that lost also weren't that mad after it happened, and Paul, knowing he is mostly on the same level as his friends, there really wasn't a reason for him to try.

Following that event, we started to hang out a few times on weekends to play at the parks over the city, becoming pretty good friends with each other through Mike, who was also on the team at that time.