Chapter 248: CH : 238 I Never Play Friendly Games
Chapter 248: CH : 238 I Never Play Friendly Games
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*****
"Exactly! This is right!" Shaq breathed a heavy sigh of relief.
Then, he heard Kobe finish his thought.
"Therefore, I will only show sixty percent of my performance!" Kobe declared confidently, stepping onto the court.
O’Neal just stared at his back. ’Sixty percent of Kobe Bryant still humiliates a college player, let alone a middle schooler.’
’It seemed hopeless.’
’This guy’s emotional intelligence felt like a lost cause. Couldn’t he just intentionally let the boy score two layups and call it a day?’
"Can we start now, Kobe?"
Marvin’s voice sounded across the hardwood.
He originally wore a jersey and basketball shorts simply to watch the game comfortably today. He only needed to remove his leather jacket to be ready for the court.
O’Neal looked at the boy and thought with deep, fatherly compassion, ’This poor kid has no idea what he will physically experience. What a poor, doomed little guy!’
O’Neal watched as Marvin stepped up to the top of the key. The boy wore a pristine, authentic Kobe Bryant No. 8 purple and gold Lakers jersey. He stood tall and perfectly balanced on the court.
Someone from the bench bounced a basketball toward him.
Marvin casually reached out. He grabbed the speeding ball directly out of the air with a single hand, holding it up above his hip like a grapefruit.
’Wait,’ O’Neal thought, his eyes widening in shock. ’Grabbing the ball cleanly with one hand?! Palming the rock?’
O’Neal wasn’t the only one displaying stunned disbelief. People sitting in the VIP rows who actually knew the sport gasped.
The on-site commentators also sounded surprised.
"Hold the phone, Kenny!" Barkley yelled into his microphone. "This kid has heavy hands! He palms a regulation NBA ball at thirteen years old!"
"Unbelievable!" Smith agreed, leaning forward. "You can’t teach hand size, Chuck!"
Catching and palming a fully inflated, regulation leather basketball proves difficult for a child. It requires a heavy palm span and incredible finger strength. Many professional NBA guards struggled to palm a ball cleanly off a bounce.
O’Neal looked at Marvin’s grip. He looked over at Kobe. He broke into an evil grin. "Hehe. Hey, Kobe! This kid’s hands are actually bigger than yours!"
A sore fact lingered in the Lakers locker room. Possessing relatively small hands remained a point of pain in Kobe’s competitive heart. He imitated Michael Jordan flawlessly in everything—the fadeaway, the footwork, the tongue wag. But he could never imitate Jordan’s iconic, sweeping one-handed ball fakes simply because his hands lacked the size. But Vince Carter’s lanky cousin, Tracy McGrady, imitated it perfectly!
"Huh. Playing basketball requires putting the ball in the hoop, Shaq, not looking cool palming it," Kobe grumbled defensively.
Kobe’s competitive character immediately flared back up. He silently changed his mental preparation from sixty percent effort to a solid seventy percent.
Marvin casually chest-passed the ball to Kobe. He made a smooth ’bring it on’ gesture with his hand. The effortless, confident movement caused a wave of girls in the upper and lower bowls to scream in unison.
The rest of the Lakers players and the opposing Timberwolves players resting in the lounges caught wind of the commotion.
Receiving the news that Kobe Bryant planned a live, televised bullfight with Hollywood’s famous child prodigy, they ran excitedly out of the locker rooms. They crowded onto the sidelines to watch the spectacle.
Kevin Garnett, the intense Timberwolves star, leaned against the scorer’s table. He held his chest and feared no chaos.
He cupped his hands and yelled across the court, "Hey, Marvin! Kill that arrogant bastard Kobe!"
O’Neal felt genuinely afraid that Marvin would start crying when Kobe stripped him of the ball and dunked on his head. He yelled out a final reminder. "Marvin! Don’t take it too seriously, little man! It’s just a friendly game!"
Marvin walked past the center. He casually patted his arm. "Thanks for the concern, Shaq. But I never play just a friendly game."
Soon, the court cleared. Only Marvin and Kobe remained standing inside the three-point line.
Up in the booth, the producers screamed that TNT’s national ratings grew at an insane, unprecedented rate.
---
"Hey, Jessica! Put the script down and get to a TV!" Scarlett’s voice came through the receiver in a frantic tone. A buzzing static crackled in the background as if the connection barely held up.
It happened commonly whenever she got worked up. Today proved no exception on the other side of the flip phone.
These brick-like flip phones felt oddly sentimental. Marvin gifted them to all his girls—tokens of affection and means of keeping in touch. He even sent one to Diana, a gesture feeling generous and slightly reckless given their complicated history.
"Marvin and Kobe Bryant are having a one-on-one bullfight on live television!"
"What?!" Jessica hissed. She pressed the phone tight against her ear. She looked over her shoulder at the thin, stressed indie director standing near the camera monitors. The guy delivered a long, pretentious note to the leading actor. It was almost her turn to step onto her mark for the next take.
"Are you serious right now?" Jessica whispered.
"Dead serious. Turn on TNT right now. The whole city is watching!"
"Damn it," Jessica cursed under her breath. "I don’t care. If this hack director screams at me, he screams at me. At worst, I’ll just walk off this crappy indie movie."
Jessica grew increasingly despaired by low-budget independent films over recent months. Her career stalled while she watched Marvin conquer the world. The last arthouse movie she starred in hadn’t even released in theaters. The pretentious director promised it would be a darling for the festival awards circuit. It currently sat on a shelf, likely destined to fill space in the cheap direct-to-video tape market.
She turned her back on the set. She quickly walked away from the lights and into the designated crew rest area. A small CRT television sat on a folding table for the staff to watch the news during their breaks.
She snapped it on, clicking the plastic buttons until she tuned into TNT Sports.
The screen flickered. It revealed the bright lights of the Staples Center. There stood Marvin, wearing a purple and gold jersey. He looked perfectly calm on the polished hardwood, facing down an NBA superstar.
"Oh my god," Jessica breathed. She covered her mouth with her hand. A smile broke across her face.
She wasn’t the only one. The news spread like wildfire through phone calls and mails across the country. The global fandom of Marvin Meyers collectively abandoned whatever they were doing to tune into the live broadcast. It proved especially potent among his female fans.
They felt desperately eager to see their idol performing live, completely unscripted, for the first time since his Oscar triumph.
In a recording studio in Houston, Beyoncé demanded the sound engineer cut the music.
She wanted the game feed up on the mixing board monitors. She leaned back in her leather chair. Her brown eyes tracked the boy’s confident posture on the screen. A proud, possessive smirk touched her lips.
In a gymnastics training facility, Dorothy stopped her floor routine mid-tumble. She walked over to the small TV mounted in the corner of the gym. She wiped sweat from her brow with a towel. Her mind critically analyzed Marvin’s stance and footwork against the professional athlete.
In a quiet house in the Valley, Lindsay jumped up and down on her living room couch. She screamed at the television screen. She clutched her pink rabbit plush tightly in her arms.
And just like them, the crowd kept growing!
---
"You take it first!" Kobe said. He executed a crisp bounce pass, throwing the leather ball directly to Marvin at the top of the key.
Just as Marvin caught it, a loud, grating voice echoed from the VIP courtside seats.
Jack Nicholson wore his trademark dark sunglasses indoors. He walked down from his private luxury booth to stand near the baseline.
"Well, finally!" Nicholson yelled. His voice carried clearly onto the court. "Kid, you will pay the price for making me shed actual, unmanly tears on live television at the Oscars! Let’s just hope the little Hollywood brat doesn’t go running back to his mommy crying after Kobe breaks his ankles!" The old actor finished with a raspy, wicked smirk. He took a sip from his cup.
Jack Nicholson operated as an untouchable name in the global entertainment industry. He remained the most famous die-hard Lakers fan in existence. He absolutely didn’t care about protecting Marvin’s fragile teenage mood.
Jack played a rebellious, charming gangster in his youth. His fundamental nature only sharpened as he grew old. He transitioned smoothly from a handsome Hollywood rogue to a chaotic, unpredictable old man. Right now, nothing pleased him more than playfully "bullying" arrogant young Hollywood upstarts with public pranks to test their mettle.
Jack and Marlon Brando stood famous across the industry as unapologetic assholes who played by their own rules.
Jack remained so untouchable that his private life acted as an open secret. Hollywood circles knew he and the legendary Meryl Streep served as semi-public, passionate bed partners, despite Meryl’s marriage to Don Gummer. Even though she stayed married, the two titans of acting kept in close touch.
A few years later, Jack filmed *The Departed* in Boston. Meryl flew out simply to "visit the crew." Dozens of production assistants saw her quietly slipping into Jack Nicholson’s private star RV. She explicitly stayed inside for more than an hour and a half. The suspension of the RV visibly and regularly bounced during that time, much to the amusement of the film set.
Marvin dismissed the loud, performative threat of the sunglasses-wearing old man entirely. He didn’t flinch.
He smoothly turned his head, looked Jack dead in the eye, and replied into the hot microphones:
"Really, Jack? Because coming from a man famous for playing a fake lunatic and a psychotic clown, I have reservations about taking your basketball predictions seriously."
Jack Nicholson froze for a second. He threw his head back and laughed—a loud, genuine, barking laugh of pure delight. He sat down in a courtside chair and said absolutely nothing more, yielding the floor.
Marvin’s razor-sharp retort effortlessly mentioned two of Jack Nicholson’s proudest movie roles—the rebellious fake lunatic Randle McMurphy in *One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest*, and the terrifying, chaotic Joker in Tim Burton’s *Batman*.
It served as an undeniable display of high emotional intelligence. It showed the old man that the boy respected his legacy, but refused to be intimidated by it. It instantly made Nicholson feel a surge of genuine affection and respect for the arrogant kid.
Marvin turned his attention back to the court. He looked at Kobe Bryant. His eyes narrowed. He smiled.
"Here I come, Kobe!"
*Bang!*
Marvin slammed the basketball against the hardwood. It bounced up fast and hard. He instantly threaded it between his own legs in a lightning-fast crotch dribble, followed by an explosive kick-step to his left.
Kobe’s defensive gaze tracked sharp. He didn’t bite on the initial fake. But he could tell with just that one fluid movement that this kid wasn’t a novice. He mastered his own body mechanics. But... ’Why did his specific dribbling movements feel so eerily familiar?’
Up in the booth, Barkley screamed.
"Kenny! Did you see that? Marvin just moved! He is not a rookie out there! His passing moves look skillful. He has... wait, he has a distinct Kobe feel to his handles!"
Smith laughed loudly, slapping the desk.
"You’re right, Chuck! Marvin’s explosive left-side change of direction through the crotch... he honestly looks like a mirror image of little Kobe Bryant out there!"
Garnett stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed. He looked genuinely surprised. He muttered to the player next to him, "This kid is actually very good. He’s fast off the first step, and skilled in his low dribble. That level of ball control easily rates as a five-star prospect in high school. How old did Shaq say he was?"
O’Neal puffed out his chest. He declared proudly to the Timberwolves bench, "Awesome, right? That’s my fan!"
Garnett rolled his eyes. ’Did you think I didn’t watch the same TV feed in the lounge, Shaq?’
Back on the court, Kobe slid his feet perfectly. He stopped Marvin’s left-side drive with a textbook, sideways defensive slide.
But Marvin didn’t panic. He countered instantly. He shook Kobe’s rhythm with a hesitation "prayer" movement—a subtle, shoulder-faking hesitation dribble mimicking Kobe’s own signature move. The uncanny reflection of his own technique caused the NBA veteran to hesitate for a microsecond. His brain glitched as he tried to defend a ghost of himself.
That microsecond was all the demon needed.
*Bang!*
Marvin exploded out of the hesitation. He rushed past Kobe and into the painted penalty area like a bolt of lightning.
He didn’t pull up for a floater. He didn’t go for a fundamentally sound layup.
Marvin planted his left foot hard on the hardwood. He gathered the supernatural strength dormant in his muscles. He leaped high into the arena air.
****
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