“Okay, somebody needs to be in charge of luring Kevin Durant here to the Warriors,” Stephen Curry said, addressing a small selection of his most trusted teammates. “I can’t do it because I’m running my expensive basketball camp.”
“Too bad Draymond had to go and get arrested,” said Andre Iguodala. “I bet he would have all these sweet ideas.”
“Or he’d just kick Durant in the balls as soon as he saw him,” Stephen responded dismissively. “It’s gotta be one of you guys.”
“I can’t,” Andre said. “I’m running a camp too. Not as expensive as certain other people’s, but a camp nonetheless.”
Stephen ignored this subtle attack on his camp’s pricing structure. “What about you, Shaun?”
Shaun Livingston, who didn’t look enthused at the prospect of trying to lure a rival player, hesitated before saying, “Yeah. I’m running this camp, it’s, uh, for kids who are, like, tall point guards. And kids with knee injuries. Yeah.”
There was only one player left as a possibility. “You can’t possibly have a camp, can you, Klay?”
Klay Thompson shrugged his shoulders. “Funnily enough, I actually do.”
Stephen deliberated for a minute on this new information. Finally, he announced, “Okay. It’s gotta be Klay. Even if he can be kind of an idiot sometimes.”
“No way!” Klay exclaimed. “What about my basketball camp?”
“Nobody likes your crappy camp,” Stephen replied. “It sucks.”
“But Shaun’s camp doesn’t even exist. He totally made it up!” Klay retorted.
“That really hurts my feelings,” Shaun said. “I’m trying to help out children in our community who have suffered tragic knee explosions. Your camp is just a bunch of fatties eating hot dogs until their parents come pick them up.”
Stephen and Andre nodded somberly. Klay knew that any further argument would be wasted. “What am I supposed to even do to lure Kevin Durant? Give him a phone call? Send hookers to his house wearing Warriors gear? Bake him a cake?”
Clapping his teammate on the back, Stephen made to leave. “Whatever you want. Just please try not to screw it up too bad. Remember, the meeting’s scheduled in three days so you don’t have a lot of time.”
—
Klay pushed an empty shopping cart through the aisles of Party City, looking for anything that might help attract a big-name free agent like Kevin Durant to the Warriors. He was still somewhat annoyed that he had been tasked with this project without having been given any sort of guidance.
Passing by large packages of paper plates, Klay impulsively put ten of them into his cart. There would probably be some kind of food involved when wooing Durant. Food required plates. Klay felt smart for coming up with such a good idea, but as he continued through each aisle in order, he found that his inspiration had faded as quickly as it had arrived. He looked at wrapping paper, empty gift bags, out-of-season Halloween costumes, and decorative streamers, but none of them seemed appropriate. Out of frustration, he grabbed a single package of balloons in assorted colors and threw it in his cart on top of the paper plates.
Feeling like he hadn’t accomplished very much, he pushed his cart to the checkout line, where a single bored employee was waiting. As she robotically scanned Klay’s purchases, Klay suddenly asked, “Do you guys sell potato chips?”
“No,” was the employee’s uninterested reply.
“Oh,” Klay said, feeling sad that his idea had been stymied so quickly. “What’s the nearest place that sells chips?”
“Probably the gas station across the street,” responded the employee.
Klay paid for his purchases and put them in the trunk of his car. From there, he went to the gas station that the employee had indicated and purchased every bag of potato chips he could find. Hundreds of dollars later, his car was full to bursting with potato chips, and Klay allowed himself to imagine for the first time that this wooing of Durant might not go so badly after all.
—
“Really, that expensive?” Klay asked incredulously into his phone. “Give me a day to consider.” He hung up and put his head in his hands. Hiring strippers for the meeting with Kevin Durant was far more expensive than he had thought. It wasn’t though he didn’t have the money; he had plenty of money to spend on entertainment for Durant, but he didn’t want to blow thousands of dollars on some bimboey women without being able to personally vet their attractiveness beforehand. What if they were uggo?
Suddenly, he had a brainwave: there was a yoga class that met in his apartment building. He could just use the hot women from the class! Immediately, he raced up ten flights of stairs and burst through the doors of the building’s community room, where he knew they would be meeting.
“I’m paying fifty bucks a pop for you girls to come to Kevin Durant’s welcoming party wearing the tightest pair of yoga pants you own,” he breathlessly explained to the interrupted yogis. “Just for like an hour. Any takers?”