Basketball Soul System: I Got Westbrook's MVP Powers in Another World!

Chapter 141: The Grudge That Wasn’t

The final buzzer. 111–110.

The Iron Vault was still shaking. Kamara was buried in the middle of a mob of teammates—getting pounded on the back, hollered at, his head rubbed raw.

He wrestled half his body free, spotted Darius coming over, and yelled across the scrum:

"Yo—listen, listen. Threes: I hit ten, that kid hit nine." He held up his fingers, beaming. "One more than him! I counted every single one—dead on!"

Darius blinked.

One more. And this guy had tracked it, make for make, the whole night.

Ryan was laughing beside them, about to say something—when he caught it out of the corner of his eye: the reporters and the camera guys were already sweeping in, lenses up.

He raised a hand and waved everyone off. "Alright, alright, back to the locker room." He nodded toward Kamara. "Quit clogging the floor—they’re waiting to interview the man of the night."

The team jeered and shoved their way back toward the tunnel.

In the locker room, the high still hadn’t worn off.

Kamara dropped onto the bench, slung a towel around his neck, and picked the tally right back up for Darius, taking his sweet time.

"Threes, full game: me, ten. Him, nine." He ticked them off on his fingers. "First half he’s actually up on me, six to five. Second half I reel him in one at a time—level by the third, then I drop three more in the fourth and pull ahead." He spread his hands. "One ball in it. But a win’s a win. One more is still more."

Darius couldn’t be bothered to argue. "Yeah, yeah. You won."

Beside them, Ryan wiped his face, saying nothing.

He’d had a quiet night—seventeen points, thirteen assists. Most of the evening he’d spent doing the thing he did best: feeding that scorching hand, over and over. The line wasn’t flashy, and he didn’t care. Tonight was Kamara’s night, and he was happy to fade into the back and watch the man cook.

That game-winner really had been something. A guy who’d pointed in his rival’s face and run his mouth before tip—then went out and made good on every word of it, all the way down to the final second. You had to respect that, whoever you were.

A staffer leaned in. "Kamara—presser’s ready."

Game-high points, thirty-eight, and a buzzer-beater to win it. If that mic didn’t belong to him, it didn’t belong to anybody.

Kamara stood, flicked the towel off, and tossed Darius a look on his way out. "Watch and learn."

The press room was packed, the mics already set.

The first couple of questions were standard—how the game-winner felt, how he’d found his stroke. Kamara handled them with ease, soaking up every second of it.

Then a reporter shifted gears.

"There was a lot of heat between you and Chris Harrow tonight. From the very first possession, you looked locked onto him. Is there some history between you two?"

Kamara shook his head, smooth as anything.

"History? Nah, none at all." He spread his hands, the picture of innocence. "It’s just—that first three tonight felt so good, and in the moment it hit me: hey, the guy across from me is the reigning Three-Point Contest champ. Something just lit up. I couldn’t help wanting to go at him a little. Young guys, a little competitive fire out there—it’s the most normal thing in the world."

He paused, warming up, and pivoted into talking the kid up.

"And you all saw it—I throw the first punch, and he answers right back with a three, clean as you like. Real champ stuff. That stroke, I genuinely respect it. Honestly? Having a guy out there trading shots with me like that only fired me up more, kept my hand hot. Basketball like that—I live for it."

The reporter pressed. "So, mutual respect?"

"Something like that." Kamara’s tone stayed easy. "Out there it’s war, nobody gives an inch. When it’s over, we’re two guys who’ve earned each other’s respect."

A clean little speech, airtight—the bit about getting his spotlight stolen tucked away where nobody would ever find it.

Stepping off the podium, he gave himself a quiet pat on the back.

Flawless. Didn’t let a thing slip.

The next morning, eleven o’clock. Film room.

The lights dimmed, and Crawford put his laser pointer to the screen. The Mistfoxes tape started rolling.

"Old foes. I won’t go through it from scratch." He cut to it. "Same as always—speed. All five starters can put it on the floor, first step quick as the devil. They get downhill, it’s either a layup or a kick-out three. No screens, no frills. One word: run."

On the screen, the Mistfoxes’ break came in wave after wave, a meat grinder that never tired.

Ryan leaned back, pen untouched.

Last time they’d played the Mistfoxes, he’d sat in this same room and filled a whole page off the tape—Ender, Bayne, this and that, packed margin to margin. But nothing on that page taught him half of what the next forty-eight minutes did: that boiling road floor at MistBank Arena, where the speed ran them ragged for a full game, Malik’s legs nearly gone, the thing dragged into overtime before they finally clawed it out. That smothering feeling of being run into the ground—no hundred pages of notes could put it down.

So this time he just listened, watching the familiar attacking lines on the screen, already knowing them cold.

The picture cut to one man.

That point guard, taking the ball almost without slowing—a current ripping low along the floor.

"Their engine. Javell Monroe," Crawford said. "This one I don’t need to introduce—"

Before he could finish, a lazy voice drifted up from the corner.

"Introduce him? Hardly." Kamara’s mouth curled, eyes sliding sideways toward Darius. "Somebody in this room knows him a lot better than you do, Coach."

A few heads turned, slow, toward Darius.

Kamara dropped his voice, the salt going straight into the wound. "I seem to recall last time we played ’em, a certain someone was serving a suspension—couldn’t even travel with the team. Never got his shot at the old club, never even got to look the guy who took his job in the eye. Real shame, that. So tonight—finally get to settle up, huh?"

Any other day, that was good for three barbs back, easy.

Tonight, Darius just sat there, barely lifting his eyes.

"Settle what." He said it flat. "I’ve got no beef with him."

Kamara’s brows went up—clearly not the reaction he’d expected.

Darius tapped a finger absently against the armrest, his voice oddly level.

"That whole thing back then—you all watched it like it was some drama, figured he stole my spot." He gave a small shrug. "But who starts is the coach’s call. I knew exactly what kind of shape I was in back then. He was just better. He deserved to be out there. What’s that got to do with the guy himself?"

He paused.

"If I hold a grudge, it’s against that sorry franchise and their bean-counting front office. Not him."

The room went quiet for a beat.

Ryan glanced over at him, caught off guard.

This was a guy who went off at the slightest scratch, who’d square up with anyone—and yet on the one thing that should’ve set him off, he was strangely calm. No bitterness, none of that bottled-up need to prove something to somebody. Like the page had been turned a long time ago.

Made sense. The Darius of today had this team, riding high; a name he’d built himself; a backcourt partnership that gave the rest of the league headaches. A man doing this well—who’s still clinging to some grudge from years back?

"Although—" Darius tacked on, his mouth twisting, the one bit of awkwardness he couldn’t quite hide. "No beef or not. The guy, I just don’t like him."

Couldn’t say why. Maybe it was just that—when you flat-out admit a man’s better than you, and he’s the one who replaced you, there’s a knot there. Hard to name. Anybody’d feel a little off about it.

Kamara let out a laugh. "Ha. Big circle, and we’re right back to ’don’t like him.’"

"Damn right." Darius slumped back into his chair. "Don’t like him is don’t like him. Don’t need a reason."

Up front, Crawford rapped his knuckles on the table.

"You two done?"

Both of them went quiet at once.

Crawford set the laser pointer down and swept the room.

"That’s enough on them. The rest—let’s talk about tomorrow night."

He paused.

"Malik, Gibson—you’re both sitting tomorrow."

Malik looked up. "...Sitting again?"

Last game, against the Krakens, the two of them had ridden the bench all night.

"What, gonna miss it?" Crawford’s face didn’t move. "Neither of you is exactly an All-Star—nobody at the league office cares whether I play you or not. I say you sit, you sit."

Malik opened his mouth, then let it go and took it. Beside him Gibson didn’t waste a single word—just nodded. Thirty-seven years old; another night off the legs was a gift, far as he was concerned.

"And Kamara—"

"Hold on, hold on." Kamara was up out of his chair. "Coach—you’re not saying... I’m sitting too?"

"Yep." Crawford didn’t blink. "Regular rest."

"Regular rest?" Kamara’s voice jumped an octave. "Did you forget about last night? Thirty-eight points. Buzzer-beater to win it. Ten-of-thirteen from—"

"Ten threes. I know."

"Five in the first half, seven through three, and in the fourth I—"

"Enough." Crawford’s glare cut across the room. "Count one more, and you sit the game after this one too."

Kamara swallowed the rest of it whole and dropped back into his seat, still muttering something under his breath.

"Tomorrow’s starters," Crawford went on, ignoring him. "Ryan, Darius, Sloan, Omar, Stanley."

He looked around the room, his tone flat.

"We use this one to run some new looks, try a few sets. The Mistfoxes are no easy out—but winning isn’t the point tomorrow." He paused. "Keep the legs. Keep the bodies. Three days from now, home floor, the Paladins. That’s the one we want."

Nobody said a word. They’d all caught his meaning.