Taurean Prince approached the front door of his teammate Kent Bazeemore’s house. He had been invited to the party by Kent himself, but Kent had been secretive as to the exact nature of the gathering. Taurean wondered if it was supposed to be a surprise for somebody and if a rookie like him couldn’t be trusted with all the details.
He knocked on the door and was soon let in by the homeowner. “You’re here! Everybody’s in the living room.”
Taurean followed Kent to the living room. When Taurean turned the corner and his assembled teammates and coaches saw him, they all started to clap and cheer, yelling “Welcome back DeMarre!”
It took a few seconds for Taurean to realize who they were referring to. After waiting for the applause to die down and for various teammates to stop happily patting his back, he announced awkwardly, “I’m not DeMarre Carroll.”
The party immediately went silent. Taurean stared at his teammates. His teammates stared back at him. Finally, Kris Humphries asked, “Then who are you?”
The whole situation felt very surreal. “Taurean Prince.”
“You don’t look like Tayshaun Prince,” supplied Coach Budenholzer, who was leering suspiciously at this supposed newcomer. “I think he’s lying. I think he’s trying to crash our welcome back party for DeMarre.” There were some nods and shouted “yeah’s” from his teammates.
“No, no, I’m Taurean Prince. Not Tayshaun. You drafted me, remember? I’ve been on the team for a while now,” Taurean said, wondering why he had to explain all this to people he had been around for months.
“I don’t know anybody by that name,” Coach Bud said dismissively. “It sounds made up. Is he on the list?”
Kent withdrew a list of names from his pocket and scanned down it quickly. “He’s not on the list,” he confirmed before looking back up at his unknown guest. “Sorry, man, but you’re going to have to leave before I call the cops on you.”
Too stunned to put up any resistance, Taurean turned to leave, taking one last wistful look at the elaborately decorated cake and the multiple expensive bottles of champagne that were arrayed on the coffee table. As he walked towards the front door, he could hear Kent asking, “So when’s DeMarre going to show up?”