Chapitre 6: Pickup game: part 1

swish*

I held my hands up to follow through the shot as I saw the ball swish through net. Damn! basketball is the best! I think that should be all the daily missions for the day, now to get some of those goodies.

System, I said in my head and a screen appeared in front of me.

[name: Nakamura Kaen

Age: 6

Height: 28/100 (projected height growth: 191cm)

Shooting: 3/100 (level:1)

Handles: 5/100 (level:1)

Lay-ups: 3/100 (level :1)

Post scoring: 1/100 (level: 1)

Size: 10/100 (level: 1)

Athleticism: 6/100 (level:1 )

general points: 5 ]

What should I invest my points in? I wondered. Well, my game is mainly based off driving to the basket, but I can only do that by creating separation due to my shooting. But handling the ball is also a major factor in getting to the basket, if my handles are trash I might get stripped off the ball before I even make it to the basket.

I decided to split my points, investing in all 3 skills as the same time. I put 2 into shooting, 2 into lay-ups and 1 into handles.

"Hey, kid ! Wanna play a pickup game. There's another kid here who's about your age also wanting to play."I heard someone speak to me.

I turned around and saw an adult of average height and stature talking to me. This shouldn't be too hard. I thought to myself.

"Sure, I'm in. So we playing ones and twos right. But where is the other kid though?"

"Nice, we got another player. Yeah, its four against four, ones and twos first to 11. The kids over there, he's the dark kid with blue hair."

I froze when I heard what he said. Dark kid with blue hair? There's only 1 person I know in the entire anime universe with that appearance. I looked around and saw him.

Aomine Daiki. The ace of the generation of miracles. The guy who tore up a storm in middle school and high school. The king of streetball was standing a few meters away from me, dribbling the ball.

Damn! I did not expect to meet him here. Nice, I now have some good competition to play against.

"Hey guys, stop standing around. Let's go!" The man I spoke to earlier shouted. We gather at the court and split into our respective teams.

I looked around at my teammates, one was a decent shooter and the other had little skill, but he was 1.9 meters tall, so he could catch every rebound. This was a decent bunch I had to work with, maybe I could get this W.

"Hey kid you start." One of my teammates told me. I knew he was just being kind to me as I was a kid. He probably wasn't expecting me to be any good. Can't really blame him, most kids my age don't even have a proper shooting form, they just chuck the ball. Well, time to put him in place.

I checked up my defender, Aomine, and went into a triple threat stance. It is the most basic but effective stance in basketball. Every player who receives professional training knows this move. However, most look down on it. Most young players like flashy plays, crossing the opponent, dunking or taking contested shots. But the thing that made them stand out was the thing that never let them go far in the basketball world. Most NBA players focus solely on fundamentals, even for those players who regularly make highlight plays, majority of their shots are efficient shots. As the saying goes, out of every 100 plays, it is 99% fundamentals and 1% highlights. Well, now back to the game at hand.

I got the ball, swung around and moved into him, trying to push him back as much as possible. Wow, this is easier than expected, I'm pretty sure Aomine was not this weak in the anime. I expected it to be a struggle but I was pushing him back pretty well. I then stepped back, got into my shooting motion and let the ball fly. Oh, that felt good.

I held my hands up as I watched every thing in slow motion. The ball rotating around as it curved towards the basket. My teammates looking in shock as they did not expect me to take that shot and Aomine, he was looking at me grinning wildly, as if he just found a new toy to play with.

Swish* The ball hit nothing but net and everything went back to normal. It was our possession again, I got the ball and passed it to my teammates. The game was just getting started and I already stole the show from the start anyway.