Clint Capela finally had it. After much harrassment of Dwight Howard’s friends and family through Clint’s own network of proxies and middlemen, Clint finally had Dwight’s new cell number. It was sitting there in the contact list of his phone, waiting to be dialed for the first time.
Petting his cat ‘Juwon with one hand and hitting the green “call” icon with the other, Clint again rehearsed what his opening line would be. He wanted to make an impact quickly just in case Dwight decided to hang up on him.
“Hey, you’ve reached Dwight.”
“You know happened when you left Houston, Dwight? Everybody got just way happier. The team even threw a party the minute you walked out the door. There was a cake shaped like a tumor, you know, because you were a cancer on the organization. It said ‘Bye Dwight you Really Sucked’ on it in frosting.”
There was a heavy sigh from Dwight. “Man, I don’t know why you get off so much on telling me I suck, but it’s getting really tiresome.”
Clint couldn’t stop himself from smiling with glee. “Well, James told me yesterday that not only do I mesh better with his style of play, but I’m actually more skilled technically than you. Then Mike D’Antoni walked over because he overheard us talking about you and you know what he did? You know what he did Dwight?”
“What did he do?”
Clint started to giggle. “He just laughed in this really mean way and then he walked off. He really hates your guts. Meanwhile he’s making me like a focal point of the offense because I actually want to run pick-and-rolls for easy points instead of what you did, which was forcing up crappy hook shots with your one post move. I mean, you played in Los Angeles with like the best pick-and-roll point guard in the universe and all you did was whine about your back hurting.”
“I think I’m going to end this call now,” Dwight said. “Call back when you’re an MVP runner-up.”
“Yeah, well YOU call me back when you get more than one post move. Everybody’s been waiting your entire career so I’m not really expecting it to happen.” Clint wanted to get more words in, but Dwight had hung up. Setting down his phone and corralling ‘Juwon into his lap, Clint again reviewed the piece of paper he kept in his pocket at all times. His personal list of players to get rid of. A new name resided at the top of the list:
James Harden.