Swish
As is often the case in the great game of basketball, one look at the box score told the story of the night for Aaron Bud and the Los Angeles Lakers.
And while some stories are jovial in nature, light in tone, and intended for young audiences, other stories are not. Some are darker and should only be told to very brave, very mature adults. The story that the box score told on this evening falls into the latter of the two categories: a story of an aging former superstar and a team whose fanbase had been thinning out and disappearing faster than the hair on the head of an old, old man.
The story went something like this: the Lakers had played to a 125-64 loss on their home court in front of 428 fans. And while those three numbers arranged in that particular order may seem frightening, diving more deeply into the box score behind the 61-point loss only made things worse.
Starting point guard Mark Pressley was just 4 of 18 shooting and missed 7 of his 10 free throws. Forwards Eddie Fredrick and Jamal Greene shot even worse, missing nine of their attempted nine three-pointers combined. Almost impressively, towering 7’4″ center Reynaldo Diaz fouled out in the second quarter before recording a single rebound. And despite drawing fewer than 500 fans, even that number was suspect. Each of the 87 members of paid staff on hand at the arena were included in attendance counts due to management’s new policy that forced employees to purchase tickets to come to work.
Perhaps the evening’s most gut-wrenchingly disappointing line, though, belonged to the team’s highest-paid star. Despite drawing only 8 minutes off the bench, Aaron Bud managed to have the worst game of the bunch. He turned the ball over an impressive 11 times, missed all 5 of his shots, and bit three opposing players.
The life of an aging superstar in today’s NBA was rough. If I had less journalistic integrity, perhaps I’d have said it was “ruff.”
Ever since Aaron Bud had changed his name, something of him seemed to be lost. And although he regretted some of the decisions he had made to this point in his life, the name had to be changed, as he’d simply outgrown the silliness of it.
Athletes struggling to shed the nicknames thrust upon them by society and pop culture was nothing new. He had read the stories of professional athletes like Glen “Big Baby” Davis and Doug “Muscle Hamster” Martin. For Aaron, though, this was a new chapter. When he communicated to those around him, though, that he wanted to go by “Aaron,” everyone stopped using “Air.”
Truth be told, Aaron sort of missed the nickname. It was, after all, his identity for years. For his peak years, at that. But in growing up, growing old, and growing gray, he decided to drop it. He was, after all, 40 in human years.
When Bud first entered the league, he was a phenomenon. He was more than a phenomenon. Michael Jordan was a phenomenon. Air Bud was a legend.
But opposing defenses adjusted.
They grew weary of the fact that Bud stood just under two feet tall and therefore posed little threat in the low post. They began to realize that Bud, like most dogs, could not speak or read, nor could he really comprehend much of what was going on around him. He could knock basketballs into a hoop at a surprising clip for an animal, but even so, he was far below average league-wide.
Aaron Bud’s time in the league was running short, and, despite being a dog, he knew it. What had started as a novelty to get fans into seats supporting an otherwise uninspiring team had run its course. Fans enjoyed seeing a basketball-playing dog when it was scoring in the final minutes of the cross-town high school rivalry game in a movie, not when it was going 0 for 16 from the floor, averaging 14 turnovers a game, and stopping to shit on the court during fast breaks.
—
Back at the Kraft Singles Cheese Food Arena, the Lakers slowly trudged back to the locker room, heads drawn. The loss was another tally mark in a loss column that was quickly becoming overcrowded. The feeling extended beyond just the win percentage of a team that had fallen from dynasty status just a few years prior. The clubhouse was in shambles; teammates grew sick of seeing a dog make twice their salary despite drooling on the floor at about six times the league average.
The relative silence of the room was broken when the doors opened with a creak, revealing the suave, suit-wearing Ted Gary, the team’s owner.
“Bud,” he said somewhat quietly, “my office, please.”
Aaron looked up at the man but didn’t budge.
“My office,” he reiterated, the somber tone somewhat wearing off as his eyebrows raised in weariness.
The blank stare from the k9 point guard continued.
“Jesus Christ,” Gary said, eyes rolling and voice completely void of empathy. “Bud, come!” he commanded, pointing towards his feet.
Aaron obliged with a wag of his tail.
—
“It just doesn’t make sense for us to roll you out there every day at this point,” Gary explained, sitting across the desk from a dog.
“We’re cutting you,” he said, breaking eye contact.
A puddle of drool began to collect under Aaron’s chair as the aging star panted and locked eyes with crumbs from a Subway sandwich left on Gary’s desk. His tail continued to wag as the words went in one furry ear and out the other.
The man sighed and stood from his desk, towering over the 1’11” point guard. He took a deep breath and pointed a finger at the muzzle of the athlete who had once been responsible for a league-high attendance rate.
“Bad boy!” he said, sternly. “You’ve been a bad, bad boy.”
This, Aaron understood.
—
His joints ached. The hips passed down to him by years and years of inbreeding were beginning to fail, placing him under the same umbrella as a broken-legged racehorse or a blind seeing eye dog – an umbrella rife with holes and adorned with a flashing neon sign that read “Useless.”
It had been three weeks since his unceremonious firing. The team wasn’t calling. His agent, Hollywood, they weren’t calling. Kids didn’t stop him on the street to pet him, take a picture, or ask him to bop balls into hoops anymore. Shit, he was even starting to miss the ones who thought he was the dog from Marley and Me. Even the mailman brought more overdue bills than dog treats nowadays.
Aaron walked to the kitchen, the upbeat jingle of his collar bouncing as he bounded through the home absent. Opening the cabinet and nosing his way past the expired herbs and spices, he found what he was looking for. Staring Aaron in the face was, well, his own face. When he was younger. When he was happy. When he was Air.
A tin of Nesqwik, still sealed. The 1997 special edition Air Bud Browner Batter flavor. Made with 100% real dark chocolate. With a sign, Aaron — no, Air — Bud reached out and opened the tin.
