The three names the emcee had called jogged out and huddled up, heads bent low, keeping their voices down. Two Ballers, one from Team Sasha—at each other's throats twenty minutes ago, and now shoulder to shoulder, thrown together to take down a pair of ABA players.
The emcee swung back to the stands. "Alright—our guests are one man short! And that spot? We're pulling it from right here in the crowd!"
The place detonated.
A chance to team up with an ABA star—the kind of thing you couldn't dream up. Arms shot up in waves, row over row, until the people in back just climbed onto their chairs.
"Who out there—can hoop?!" The emcee stretched the word out.
He might as well not have asked. Every kid in the building, boys and girls alike, had a hand higher than the next, voices crashing together—"Me!" "Over here!" "Pick me!" A few of the girls weren't in it for the basketball at all, hands up, shrieking, screaming Ryan's name.
