Deandre Ayton lounged in his locker after his strong opening-night performance. Teammates and trainers were occasionally dropping by to give him high-fives, which he received in between sips of Gatorade. But there was something missing. What was it?
In the adjacent locker, Trevor Ariza noticed his teammate just staring off into space. “I know what you’re thinking about,” he told Deandre.
“You do?” Deandre asked. Even Deandre himself didn’t know what he was thinking about. The emotion he was feeling was new and inexplicable.
“You want to rub it in somebody’s face,” Trevor answered with a grin. “The fact that you came out of the gate strong and dominated. You want people to know.”
Deandre shrugged. “I think they know already, but, yeah, it feels good to gloat every now and then.”
Trevor was digging through his bag, looking for something. Finally, he pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, which he flattened out and showed to Deandre. Deandre scowled at it, trying to make sense of the lines and figures. “Man, what is this? Some kinda blueprint?”
“The building plans for this arena,” Trevor replied. “I stole them when I signed my contract, they were just sitting out on a desk, those idiots. You can see where all the ductwork goes and everything.”
Deandre was confused. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with this information. It certainly had nothing to do with his seemingly innate desire to lord his dominance over his vanquished opponents.
Trevor sensed Deandre’s confusion. “I see you’re not getting it, so I’ll spell it out. These plans basically give you a tailor-made way to sneak into the visiting locker room and make an surprise visit to a certain somebody. You know who I’m talking about.”
Deandre nodded. It was making sense now. “Yeah. I know who you’re talking about.”
—
The heating duct was surprisingly sturdy, Deandre decided as he crawled on top of it above the drop-ceiling that covered the visitors’ locker room. It barely groaned or shifted at all under his massive weight. Following the plans that Trevor had given him, Deandre saw that when he got to the next bend in the duct, he would be right above the shower where Mavericks players would be attempting to wash away the bitter stench of defeat from their naked bodies.
Finally, he got to the spot. He could hear water running and some faint light was making its way up through the vents. Peering through one of these vents, he saw the player whom he most dearly wanted to target just standing underneath the stream of water, eyes closed and not moving.
Abandoning the stability of the duct, Deandre rolled off of it onto the tiles of the ceiling, which weren’t designed to support the weight of a human body. He loudly crashed through the tiles and landed directly on top of Luka Doncic, essentially bodyslamming him.
“I owned you! I totally owned you!” Deandre yelled as his body lay perpendicular to Luka’s. “You looked like trash. I can’t believe anybody thought you would be the first pick. You shoulda been picked last.”
Luka groaned in response, apparently having been concussed by the sudden aerial attack. Other Mavericks players in the area were staring at them in stunned shock. Himself uninjured, Deandre stood up to get out of the still-running water. “If they have a ‘Bust of the Year’ trophy, you’re winning it for sure. Meanwhile, I’m getting the real hardware. Rookie of the Year baby!”
Word of his arrival must have spread, because DeAndre Jordan ran into the showers with his facial expression clearly indicating he wanted a fight. Deandre ran past him and out of the locker room before the situation escalated, laughing like a maniac.
Trevor had been right. This had been exactly what he needed.