Simulating Sucess - The Story of Rick Charisma

Year 7: 3PG

Read the whole novel right now! click here. https://gum.co/zrlgY

"Who are we starting this year at point guard, Coach Rick?" Coach Danny asked. "We've been playing all three of them on different squads. When the real games start, we're going to have to put them on the same team."

I had promised Gio that I'd develop him as a point guard when I recruited him. Jaison had been challenging for that starting point position ever since Andrew Wiedemann graduated. And Damon Hendriks was doing all he could to keep it. Hendo had been improving his shot from beyond the arc. J-Wall could always score, but now he could get everyone involved too. Gio reminded me too much of Ron Harper, back when he was Hollywood. They each made their squads play really well. Our scrimmages in practice had never been so competitive before. It was as if all the positions, minus center, was wide open.

I decided to redshirt four of the six freshmen recruits who signed with us. Jordi Geli Holden, or JG to his teammates, Joseph Bowens, or Z-Bo for how much he reminded me of Zach Randolph, Phil Powell, or Metta World Powell, MWP, for how big of a human being he was on the wing, and Ljubisa Copeland, aka Hopeland, were all getting redshirted. They were too good of players to lose a year of eligibility behind the players before them. Lubos Hatten, known now as LuBron, gave me too much toughness on the wings to redshirt. That left only Armein Amous, who the team had nicknamed Moose because of his unbelievable strength given his diminuitive size. I decided not to redshirt him.

"We've got four point guards on the active roster, and only one basketball." I had to hire a new assistant coach this year. Coach Porter was getting a lot of face time for being on the front lines of the team's community involvement a year ago. There were a lot of programs that saw his actions as a big plus, and offered him. To be honest, he should've been gone years before. I was really glad for him. I hired Garik Toole to replace him. He and Danny O'Sullivan got along immediately, like two peas in a pod. His background was from more traditional styles.

"Honestly, I like them all," I answered, tired of the same question posed over and over again in different ways. "There's no rule in basketball that says more than one point guard couldn't be in the starting line-up at one time."

"Isn't there?" The other thing I liked about Coach Garik was how he wasn't afraid to challenge me on something if he thought it was ridiculous, unlike Coach Danny, who'd often just find a way to make it work. "There're five different positions on the starting line-up that also needs to be filled, too. Or should we just try to play five point guards as well?"

"Look, basketball is a game of five people. Every team puts their best five on the court at one time. Nobody ever said the majority of them could not be the same position," I answered. "We're from the Summit, we don't have the luxury to play the same way all the other large programs play like. Now, if you want to get technical about it, Giovanni Nelke is 6'6", a small forward's size, and Jaison Waller is our best 3point shooter at 6'4", a shooting guard's size. If you look at it like that, then it doesn't matter that the three of them are on the floor together."

"What do we do for a bench?" Coach Danny was afraid of what I was going to say.

"Ira Willis is our sixth man. He can play both a stretch-4 and a traditional wing." It was true. Next year, I'd be playing him and his twin brother DB on the floor at the same time. Both were over 40% from behind the arc. "Burton Ballinger will back up Deke, and Lubos will get some minutes at a wing. In the rare case that all three need a break, then we can bring in Armein to back them up."

"We'd be at a disadvantage defensively if we did," Coach Garik replied. He was right.

"Then for those one or two minutes, the opponents can have their little advantage," I responded. "What were they going to do for the other thirty-eight?"