Bogdan Bogdanovic, as he had made a recent habit of doing, stormed past the general manager’s secretary and directly into the office of Vlade Divac without so much as a knock or other warning of his presence.
Vlade looked mildly at his player, who seemed incensed. “What’s on your mind, Bogdan?” he asked in Serbian.
Bogdan walked right up to Vlade’s desk, put two hands down on it, and stared at the Kings GM in the eyes. “We can still make the playoffs, Vlade. If we make the right moves, the eighth seed can be ours.” His grip on the edge of the desk was turning his knuckles white.
Vlade sighed, a dismissive sound that only steeled Bogdan’s resolve to make his point heard. “I believe so too, Bogdan. But there are no more moves to be made. Our roster is what it is.”
“But the Serbian Supe-”
“Yes, I know all about your grand plan for a Serbian Superteam in Sacramento,” Vlade interrupted. “We have discussed it many times, and it will be in play for next year. This year, however, you and Nemanja alone will be our Serbian Superteam.”
Bogdan stepped back from the desk and began unbuckling his pants. “I have something to show you.”
Vlade instinctively covered his eyes. “Whatever it is you are about to show me, I am sure I do not wish to see it!”
Turning so that the front of his body was facing away from the desk, Bogdan lowered his pants so that his buttocks were exposed. “Do you see this? Do you see it!?” he asked angrily.
“I imagine I would see a pair of very white ass cheeks, if I were to dare to uncover my eyes,” Vlade replied. “Anyone other than you, Bogdan, and this would be grounds for suspension.”
“Look at the left one, you old fool! The left one!”
Against his better judgement, Vlade took a quick peek at Bogdan’s left buttock, which was indeed a very pasty white. There, tattooed in black outline was a map of California contained within a map of Serbia. Three S’s danced around a dot which indicated the capital city of Sacramento. “The symbol of the Serbian Superteam in Sacramento,” Vlade whispered.
“You have one too, on your left ass cheek, just like mine!” Bogdan said. “You were quite drunk when we had them done, but, to me, the tattoo of the SSS branded upon your rear end was a symbol of an unbreakable pact made between honorable men.”
Shaken, Vlade stood up and pulled down his own pants and underwear. However, he couldn’t get a good enough view of his backside to verify his fellow Serb’s words. “Take a picture of it, Bogdan. Show me that your words are not the blusterings of an overly haughty man.”
Bogdan got out his phone to take a picture of the GM’s exposed buttocks, knowing that if anybody walked in right at that moment, it would be very difficult indeed to explain what was going on in that secluded office. Soon, the picture was taken, and he showed the screen of his phone to the older man.
“It is as you say,” Vlade said quietly, gazing upon the image of his flabby, hairy rump tattooed with the combined maps of California and Serbia. “I am not a man to go back on my word, however drunk I may have been when my word was given. What do you want me to do?” He pulled his pants back up and sat down again at his desk, knowing that he was, somehow, at the mercy of commands given to him by somebody outside his circle of management.
“I have arranged for Marjanovic in Dallas to demand a buyout,” Bogdan said. “They have one of our former players, the man Cauley-Stein who lacked effort, to play center. It will be no problem for Marjanovic to escape that team. Then, we must waive one of our players to make room for the newly arriving Serb, and our dream of a Serbian Superteam in Sacramento will no longer be a dream, but instead be reality.”
“You’ve given me much to think about,” Vlade said. “Leave now, and we will see what happens.”
“There isn’t much time. The end of the season approaches fast!” Bogdan protested.
Vlade slammed his fist on his desk, wanting to retake control of the situation. “I said leave!” And, seeing the anger ready to burst forth out of the Kings’ GM, Bogdan did leave. But for a long time after that, Vlade sat silently at his desk, the image of his own flabby ass burned into his mind.