Kelly Oubre sat in his locker, not moving, just staring intensely at the handmade doll which he held in his hands.
“Yo Kelly, playing with dolls?” came the joking voice of Devin Booker.
Kelly looked up and gave his new Suns teammate a harsh glare. “It might indeed by a doll, Devin, but I am not ‘playing’ with it,” he said. “I am contemplating its secrets.” He directed his gaze back to the small human figure which had a small goatee and was wearing a blue-and-yellow jersey.
“You lost me, man,” Devin replied with confusion. “What secrets does the doll have? Is it talking to you?”
Sighing theatrically, Kelly made an exasperated expression. “I was hoping my teammates in Phoenix would be smarter than the dumbasses I had to play with in Washington, but that hope was clearly misplaced. I’ll explain the situation to you nice and slowly so your little brain can comprehend it. This is a voodoo doll of Klay Thompson. I’m going to use it to bodily torment him from afar.”
Devin spent a few seconds processing this information. “Klay Thompson?” he finally asked.
Kelly took out his phone and presented it to his teammate. On the screen was already loaded a YouTube video titled “Kelly Oubre and Klay Thompson FIGHT”, and the playback cursor was already placed at the exact point in the video where Kelly punched at Klay’s head.
“I sort of remember this,” Devin said as he watched the short clip. “So you don’t like Klay, huh?”
“I’ve taken multiple steps to ruin his life over the past year,” Kelly answered, squeezing the Klay Thompson doll in his hands. “And when I finally master the ancient art of ninja karate and I perfect the design of my 3D-printed assault rifle, I will take the final step of killing him.”
Kelly said this last part with a casualness that apparently so disturbed Devin that he took a step back in shock. “Killing him?”
“Yeah,” Kelly replied. “But first, I’m going to see if any of the Native Americans in the area know how to cast a voodoo curse, or the Native American curse equivalent, on this doll, because I still haven’t figured it out.”
Devin handed the phone back to his teammate. “But you’re not really going to kill him, are you?” he asked nervously.
Kelly was done with conversation and didn’t answer. Instead, he directed his attention back to the doll of his foe. “I hate you Klay,” he murmured to it.