With the female entertainment lined up for the Warriors’ pitch to Kevin Durant, Klay had moved his attentions towards what he and his teammates would do/say during the meeting to make the biggest possible impact.
The Celtics had convinced Tom Brady to hang out with Durant and pretend to be bros with him. Klay had timidly called a few Raiders players to try to line up someone of comparable star power, but had only gotten one confirmation, and that was from the Raiders’ long-snapper. The plus side was the guy looked a little bit like Aaron Rodgers, so, if Durant was sufficiently distracted by other things, Klay might be able to play it off like he had gotten the NFL’s biggest star to show up.
Now, he sat at his desk, hunched diligently over a piece of lined notebook paper. He had already written down a few lines for his teammates to say when they were meeting with Durant. One was, “It’d be hella lit if you joined the W-Squad.” Another was, “We’re the Lords of the Rings,” (to be said while everybody simultaneously shows Durant their 2015 championship ring). “You don’t have to play with Russell Westbrook,” would be emphasized more than once. But now he had run out of ideas.
Setting aside the paper, he figured that his teammates would come up with some good ideas once they all met up before the meeting began. Just as Klay was pondering this, his phone buzzed with a text. He grabbed it and saw it was from Stephen:
“if durant doesnt sign here it will be ur fault. just so u remember.”
Klay smiled to himself. He knew that if his efforts failed, it would be quite easy to pin the blame on Stephen himself for not being the kind of pure point guard that Durant might be craving. Besides, there was already a lot of sweet stuff lined up to woo Durant. The Celtics didn’t stand a chance.
—
Klay was just putting the finishing touches on the snack table when Stephen walked into the conference room where the meeting would take place. “Uh, Klay? Do we really need that many bags of chips?”
Looking up at the towering pile of bags that almost reached the ceiling and covered the entirety of the folding table, save for some bottles of Sunny Delight, Klay shrugged. “So maybe I got a little carried away. But at least we have enough plates.” He pointed to the corners of the room where he had stacked hundreds of paper plates in various configurations. “And check out all the hot babes in yoga pants!”
Stephen looked at the small group of women, all in their late 20s early 30s. They were just standing around, not having been given any directions. When Klay noticed Stephen’s disapproval, he told the women, “When Durant walks in, just stand kinda near him and shake your butts around a little bit.”
Andre and Shaun had walked in. “Yo, what’s up with the TV? Is that…VeggieTales?” Shaun asked, walking over to the small CRT television that featured a built-in VHS player.
Klay rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “So, about that. I forgot to book a D.J., but my plan B was to show vintage basketball videos on that thing, but then the box I thought they were in had nothing but VeggieTales tapes and it was kinda too late to do anything else.” To change the subject, he checked the time on his phone. “Damn it. Aaron Rodgers is late. Can’t trust that guy.”
“You got Aaron Rodg-” Andre started, before Steve Kerr ran into the conference room.
“Durant’s coming! His entourage just pulled up! Everybody get ready!”
“Well, this is going to suck,” Stephen said flatly. “I knew it was a bad idea to put you in charge of this.”
“I’m so sick of your lame ‘Klay is stupid’ narrative!” Klay burst out, his feelings hurt. “If you wanted it done the way you wanted you would have done it yourself instead of charging kids a thousand bucks for your stupid camp!”
“Shut up, shut up, he’s coming!” Shaun said. “Everybody act like you like each other.”
Sure enough, Kevin Durant walked into the room not fifteen seconds later. Klay could see his eyes sizing up the potato chip mountain. “It’d be hella lit if you joined the W-Squad!” Klay exclaimed without prompting as his female entertainers slowly walked up to Kevin and started awkwardly gyrating.
“Klay, that’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” Stephen hissed. “I’m so sorry about my stupid teammate,” he said, turning to Kevin. “We usually don’t let him talk.”
“That’s okay. I think I made my decision already, anyway, so it doesn’t really matter what any of you guys say,” Kevin said.
Shoulders slumping, Klay looked sadly at the floor. “The Celtics,” he said. “I knew we couldn’t compete with Tom Brady.”
Kevin laughed. “I was going to say that I had decided to join you guys here in the Bay. This is the realest free-agency pitch I’ve ever been a part of.”
“Really?” Klay asked, looking back up at Kevin. Stephen, Andre, and Shaun all wore identical expressions of surprise.
“Really,” Kevin confirmed.
“Told you it would work!” Klay gloated, turning to his teammates. “Let’s celebrate! We got chips and Sunny-D!”