Joel Embiid noticed his teammate Jahlil Okafor looking intently at something on his phone. He walked over and leaned over his fellow big-man’s shoulder. “Whatchu staring so hard at? You find those Melania Trump nudes? I was all over those two weeks ago.”
Jahlil looked startled and moved to put his phone away. “Nothing. Not looking at anything. Just checking stats.”
“Lemme see,” Joel said, eager to see his own stats for the game they had just completed, and perhaps stats from his rival centers across the league. He could have retrieved his own phone from his pocket, but if Jahlil already had the page up on his phone, why not just use his? He reached out to grab the device from his teammate’s hand.
“NO!” Jahlil yelled, slapping Joel’s hand away. “Don’t touch my phone. Just don’t touch it.”
Joel thought his teammate sounded evasive and, inexplicably, somewhat nervous as well. Maybe his story of checking stats had been untruthful. Joel had to find out. Using his superior speed and strength, he tackled his teammate to the floor without warning and easily wrested the iPhone from his fingertips. “You asshole, what do you think you’re doing?” Jahlil snarled, hopping back to his feet to take back his phone.
“Reading whatever it is you wanted to hide so badly,” Joel replied mildly as Jahlil ineffectually beat him with his fists. “Why are you searching ‘how to reinjure someones feet’ in Google?”
“None of your business,” Jahlil said angrily, reaching around Joel’s turned-away back to try to get a finger on his phone. ”
“Is it because you want me to get injured again so you can have all the minutes you had last year?” Joel asked. “That’s not very kind of you.”
Jahlil stopped assaulting his teammate with punches and stood there in the locker room, pouting. “I’m just as offensively talented as you, but coach and everybody else has bought into your hype so hard that I barely get to play!” he wailed. “OHHHH, look at Embiid, he can shoot threes! OHHH I HAVE A HARDON FOR EMBIID BECAUSE HE CAN DEFEND AND SCORE! HE’S SO TALENTED AND MULTIDIMENSIONAL,” he continued in a mocking tone. “I can score way better than you, just so you know.”
“Sorry little man, my feet are in perfect condition and my per 36 scoring is through the roof,” Joel said sweetly, dropping the phone back into Jahlil’s hands. He took out his own phone and opened it to Google. “I wanna show you what I’m searching for just now.”
“It’s probably something stupid,” Jahlil responded sullenly.
“No, I think it’s more relevant than you think,” Joel said, showing his phone to his teammate. In the Google search box were typed the words, ‘Jahlil Okafor trade rumors.’ Wordlessly, Jahlil turned and walked out of the locker room as Joel snickered to himself.