“Yo Trevor, you said you know some secret way to get into the Clippers’ locker room?” James Harden asked his teammate Trevor Ariza. James was flanked by Gerald Green, who was looking around the locker room to make sure nobody was listening too closely to their conversation.
Trevor raised his eyebrows; he knew what James was getting at. In a low voice, he replied, “Yeah. Chris told me about it. You can get all the way in there without anyone knowing what’s up. Are we making our move tonight?”
James nodded. “Yeah. You got your, uh, your Gilbert Arenas with you?”
Trevor moved aside some gym totes and empty potato chip bags in his locker to reveal a small handgun. “Always, my man.” After making sure that nobody was observing, he quickly grabbed the weapon and slipped it into his compression shorts. “You guys going in strapped too or what?”
Gerald wordlessly lifted up the leg of his shorts to reveal a hidden crowbar. James opened his palms to indicate he was unarmed. “I’ll do the talking, you guys do the damage.”
“We need a diversion though,” Trevor said. “So we can get in the secret entrance without everybody swarming us as soon as we show up.”
His sly grin mostly obscured by his beard, James chuckled. “I know just the guy.”
—
“Hopefully Clint goes through with it, he seemed like a flake,” Trevor said as the three teammates walked towards a disused portion of the locker room near the toilets.
“He’ll do it,” James said with confidence. “My generous payout convinced him.” He opened the door to what appeared to be a janitor’s closet and peered inside. “Looks like we’ll all fit. Quick, get in and close the door.”
Gerald and Trevor followed James into the closet and quietly closed the door, leaving them in darkness. Trevor pulled on the chain above his head to light a single fluorescent tube on the ceiling, and with the new light, he could clearly see another door, shorter, along the wall. “That must be it,” he said, pointing. “We’ll have to slouch though, we’re too tall for it.”
“Remember the plan,” James said. “I’ll announce our presence. Gerald will intimidate them by busting up their lockers with his crowbar. Once things get really out of control, Trevor, that’s when you start firing.”
The two other teammates nodded, and James led the way into the dark passageway.
—
“They’re talking about how there’s somebody at the main door,” Trevor whispered, his ear against the door of the supply closet they were in. “Clint came through for us.”
“Told you,” James whispered in reply. “Okay, on the count of three, we bust out. Remember the plan. One…two…THREE!” He whipped open the door and ran out; Trevor could see that they were already very close to the main locker area.
“I’M COMING FOR YOU AUSTIN!” James yelled as players started running back to see who had entered. Austin Rivers, the target of this operation, was sitting dumbly at his locker, not having gone to investigate Clint’s presence. Gerald ran up to Austin’s locker and started beating it with his crowbar, splintering the wood; when this happened, Austin dropped his phone and ducked out of the way, too stunned to speak.
“It was a decoy! Capela was the decoy!” yelled Blake Griffin as he ran in to confront the intruding Rockets players. When he saw the three of them, he immediately went to tackle James, who was approaching Austin with fists in fighting position. Gerald, seeing what was about to happen, conked Blake in the head with his weapon, creating a large cut on the top of his head that immediately began to bleed.
Now more Clippers players had entered the fracas, throwing punches at James and Gerald, who were fighting back. Somehow, Gerald hadn’t been disarmed, and was swinging his crowbar wildly. Meanwhile, James was trying to get at Austin, heedless of the attacks of other players.
Trevor, who was hanging back against the wall, ignored, withdrew his gun from his shorts and aimed it at the ceiling. After waiting for another fifteen seconds and then seeing that nobody would stop him, he fired several rounds into the air, causing a renewed panic. “They’re shooting us! They’re gonna kill us!” Blake yelled, his face covered with blood. Clippers players scattered in all different directions, none of them daring to confront Trevor directly. Soon, only the three Rockets players and Austin were left; Austin couldn’t escape from underneath James, who was landing punch after punch squarely on his enemy’s face. Gerald was slumped along the wall, moaning; it looked like his own weapon had eventually been used against him.
Finally, James landed the knockout punch and got off of Austin. “We did it,” he said proudly. “They’re never gonna mess with us again.”
Trevor surveyed the bloody, destroyed locker room, then looked at the gun in his hand, but he strangely felt no pride in what he had done. “I wonder how many games they’re gonna suspend us.”