Ish Smith sat with his agent in a bland conference room. They were at the Pelicans’ front office, trying to get Ish a job. As the business guys droned on about salary this and cap that, Ish wondered idly how many assists he would have to average before teams would start wine-and-dining him. Maybe ten.
“You make some good points, but I’m just not sure if Ish is the right fit for us at the moment…” one of the Pelicans executives was saying. “We already have Nate Robinson. Adding another speedy, undersized point guard would introduce a redundancy. You know that.”
Ish regarded his agent with mild annoyance as he spluttered some nonsense about “chemistry” and “fit”. Ish knew what he brought to the table, and it wasn’t either of those things. Had anybody in the room even watched any film?
Suddenly, a skinny young man emerged from underneath the table, holding an iPad in his hands. “Got you fam,” he said to Ish, who was too confused to offer a response other than, “Where did you come from?”
“I’m from Wisconsin, but that doesn’t matter right now. I got some sweet Ish highlights pulled up on my tablet if any of you stuffy losers wants to see what Ish does when paired with an athletic, mobile big man.” He set the iPad down in the middle of the table, where it played video of a late-season 76ers game.
“Sir, you’re going to have to leave immediately,” said one of the suited executives. “You are not authorized to sit in on contract negotiations.”
The skinny man looked incredulous. “Contract negotiations? If I hadn’t stepped in, there’s no way that Ish was getting anything other than a kick out the door.” He pointed at the other executive, who was watching the iPad with interest. “See? This dude’s already convinced, and there’s still three lobs left to go in that vid alone.”
“I never said I was convinced,” said the tablet-watching man, hastily pushing the device away. “If you don’t show yourself out in the next five seconds, we’ll call security to do it for you.”
“Yo, hold on,” Ish said. “I just threw a perfect oop to Nerlens. Let’s deal with this skinny dude later. Right now we’ve got some highlight videos courtesy of…what’s your name, anyway?”
“DownToBuck. DTB for short. Or ‘Pussy Slayer’. Whatever works.”
Ish privately doubted that this guy lived up to the latter nickname, but kept his doubts to himself. “We got some DTB highlight videos here that should help my agent make his case.”
As the negotiations progressed, DownToBuck sat down next to Ish and leaned in close. “We need to discuss my payment,” he whispered.
“Wait, like a percentage of my contract or what?” Ish responded.
“Cash is fine,” DownToBuck said, holding out his hand.
Ish shrugged and pulled out his wallet. “You’re lucky that I try to keep a lot of spending money on me,” he said, riffling through the large-denomination bills. “Here’s $3,500. Go crazy.”
DownToBuck smiled, nodded once, and then crawled back underneath the table. “Hey, you forgot your iPad!” Ish exclaimed, ducking to look for the the highlight maker. But DownToBuck had disappeared.
“Thanks fam.”