Kiyoshi Teppei

After class, I said goodbye to my newly made friends and rushed down to the basketball gym. Today was going to be my first day at practice and I wanted to set a good impression.

Everybody knows that the most hardworking baller is always the first one at the gym and I wanted to let everybody know that it was me.

However, when I got to the gym I could already hear the ball bouncing. Who could be at the gym at this hour? I wondered.

I went through the entrance and saw Kiyoshi Teppei, standing on the court practicing his shooting, his body already drenched in sweat.

Damn, I know people in this world are hardworking but I didn't expect it to be at this level. This guy is literally being a Kobe Bryant, spending every minute of his time at the gym.

Kiyoshi realised I was here, and spoke to me:"Oh, you are the first year kid who made it to the team. Practice was supposed start at 3, what are you doing back here at 2?"

I could say the same to you I thought.

"I wanted to get some reps in before practice, you doing the same?" I asked him back.

"Yeah, I was just practicing some moves which I don't usually do in practice, but now that you are here, I got a perfect practice buddy. Wanna play some 1 on 1?"

"Sure" I replied, I then quickly pulled out my basketball shoes and started wearing them. I like to wear the curry 7's as I'm obviously a curry fan.

"Okay, you start."He told me, tossing me the ball to check me up.

I received the ball and jabbed to the right. He shifted slightly to the right, I thought he had bit the bait and burst towards the left. However, he recovered in astonishing speed and placed me in a really though position. I did a jab stop and attempted to push him back a little, but I ended up shooting a contested mid range shot which clanked off the rim.

How? How did he recover so quickly I wondered?

Kiyoshi then received the ball and started backing down to the basket. I tried my best to stop him but was simply incapable. How do you expect a 1.75 meter tall guy to defend someone who was 1.85 meters.

After scoring on me a few times, Kiyoshi finally missed a fadeaway jumper and I got a chance to score again.

I received the ball and did a crossover from left to right. I then shifted my body slightly to the left, causing Kiyoshi to also move to the left. I then drove right and found myself having a wide open lane to the basket. I jumped and tried to lay the ball in, only to find it pinned against the backboard.

Kiyoshi turned to me and said:"You may be skilled, but you know nothing about defense. All your current skills will help you win against mediocre defenders, but when you are placed against a truly good one, you will realize how weak you are."

He then continued:"I'm not trying to let you down, I'm just speaking from experience. This was what happened to me when I first joined the first team. Did you wonder why I recovered so fast in the first play. I had pretended to shift to the right, I did not actually put any weight into my right leg.

You also do not know how to defend someone in the paint do you. You are trying to use your body but what about your hands and legs, there is so much strength there that wasn't used.

And from the last play, you should learn to watch out for defenders trailing you. I gave you an open lane on purpose so you would try to attempt a simple layup. This type of layup is not a problem for many of the bigs in the nationals, you must learn to work on these problems before then."

Kiyoshi continued to rattle on and on about the areas I was lacking. I had thought that the system was all I needed but now I realized that I was wrong, very wrong.