March 13, 2014
It had the feeling of a normal
day at Delaney Park's basketball gym in Southwood, Tallahassee, Florida.
That is, until Zachary Brian Dickens, former B+ grade recipient only a
day earlier, showed up a few minutes after the continually tardy Kris James
arrived at the Court. Zach ran around the basketball court taking
ridiculous practice shots and making everyone uncomfortable with how weird his
shots looked. As the old saying goes, "practice makes perfect"
as Zach stumbled wildly through the five games played that evening (ultimately
resulting in a 2-3 record). A stat sheet provided to me shortly after the
game noted that Zach accounted for 10+ turnovers(statistician lost count after
sobbing on the tenth one), 25% shooting, and zero quality defense played.
Although Zach initially appeared humble in succinctly describing his
performance as "terrible," he went on to state that "I do not
feel bad, especially for Ta'Ronce [Stowes]" because, in his opinion, his
poor performance was due to "Ta'Ronce not catching my passes."
Where did all the humility go? Presumably with his wayward passes.
When asked what Zach did poorly
yesterday, Ta'Ronce "Ta'Roncé" Stowes--the high scorer in a rivalry
game back in high school in the middle of nowhere--stated simply "playing
defense." After he provided Zach with a quick tutorial on how to
play adequate defense, Ta'Roncé was heard telling Zach, "Next thing we are
going to do is take you to the outlets to shop for a left hand." After
thunderous laughter, Ta'Roncé returned to his naturally serious state and said,
unprovoked, "Kris [James] is the only person not entitled to an
opinion" presumably because Kris was nominated for the Least Valuable
Player of the Game Award. This was perhaps Zach's only saving grace for
the evening. Kris James, the former walk-on invitee of the Florida State
University intramural basketball B team, was seen playing zero defense, doing
the opposite of hustling, and generally getting outrebounded by players half
his size. Perhaps that explains why Jorge scored 75% of his team's points
through the three games Kris participated in.* Now on to the grades,
which will be denoted with the player's team's estimated wins
added (EWA) if he were traded for a replacement player.
*Kris did not respond to our
efforts to contact him for this story.
KRIS JAMES - his team would receive 35 wins
if he were traded for a replacement player.
ZACH DICKENS - 28.
Ta'RONCE STOWES - 2
