The Celtics' practice facility didn't smell like hardwood polish or sweat anymore. To Kyle, it had transformed. It now smelled like banners—like expectation stitched into fabric, pressure woven into thread. Every corner of the Auerbach Center, from the gleaming trophies in the lobby to the championship photos lining the hallways, seemed to whisper the same relentless, demanding thing: *repeat*. It was no longer a hope; it was a mandate, a burden as heavy as the iron plates in the weight room.

Kyle Wilson walked in early, hours before the official practice time mandated for veterans. The gym was a vast, empty cathedral, silent except for the lonely, rhythmic squeak of his sneakers against the perfectly varnished floor. He dropped his bag with a soft thud near the home bench, its contents a familiar collection of gear, tape, and a silent, heavy phone. He grabbed a ball from the rack, the pebbled leather feeling both alien and like an extension of his own hand. He started dribbling, the sound—*thump… thump… thump*—echoing like a solitary, anxious heartbeat in the cavernous space.

One dribble, two, a sharp crossover that would have frozen a defender, a rise into a pull-up jumper from the wing. The form felt right. The release was clean.

*Clang.*

The ball hit the back iron with a jarring, metallic clatter and bounced long off the rim, caroming into the stands with a force that spoke of a miss by inches, not feet.

Kyle cursed under his breath, a low, frustrated growl that was swallowed by the gym's emptiness. His shot hadn't been right all summer. It wasn't broken, not mechanically. It was off—haunted. It felt like there was a ghost hand, cold and intangible, nudging the ball mid-flight, stealing its true rotation. Maybe it was the Jamaica nights replaying behind his eyelids every time he blinked, disrupting his focus. Or maybe it was the fact that every time he looked at his hands, he didn't just see tools for scoring; he saw instruments that had failed to pull a friend from the ground, that now seemed stained with memory as much as with rosin.

He reset at the top of the key. A deep breath. *Dribble, dribble, a sharp step-back creating a sliver of space.* Rise. Fire.

*Swish.*

The net snapped with a clean, satisfying sound. Better. A moment of pure, unadulterated connection.

But it wasn't enough. He needed more than better. He needed perfect. He needed automatic. He needed a shot so reliable it could silence the screams in his head and the schemes of every defense in the league.

**The First Team Meeting**

By the time the others filed in, yawning, joking, stretching sleep from their limbs, Kyle was already drenched in sweat, his chest still heaving from his self-imposed gauntlet. Jayson Tatum noticed immediately, a slow smirk spreading across his face as he tugged on his custom-fitted shooting sleeve.

"Look at this kid," Tatum said, his voice cutting through the morning chatter. "Thinks he's about to play 48 minutes every single night. You know there's 81 more of these, right, rook?" The term of endearment for a sophomore was a locker room inside joke.

Marcus Smart laughed, a loud, barking sound. "Leave him alone, JT. He knows the sophomore curse is coming for that ass. He's just trying to dodge it. Can't blame a man for running."

Kyle wiped his face with the bottom of his soaked shirt, saying nothing. He offered a half-smile, acknowledging the ribbing that he knew came from a place of love and acceptance. But he also knew the underlying truth in their jokes—the curse was real. He'd seen the tapes. Plenty of rookies had exploded onto the scene, only to stumble badly in their second year under the weight of detailed scouting reports, heightened expectations, and the simple, brutal reality of the NBA grind. They figured you out. They found your weaknesses. And they exploited them without mercy.

The room fell into a loose circle as Brad Stevens stepped into the center, his presence commanding immediate, quiet respect. He didn't need a whistle.

"This year," he began, his voice calm but carrying to every corner of the gym, "is not about last year. That chapter is closed. That banner's already hung. And you know what? Nobody cares anymore. Not the Heat, not the Bucks, not the Warriors. Nobody. Every single team in this league circled our name on their schedule the day after the Finals ended. Every team is hunting us. They want to be the ones to take down the champs. You got to decide right now, today, if you're ready to be hunted."

The room went dead quiet. Kyle felt the weight of those words sink into his chest, a physical pressure settling behind his sternum. He wasn't just playing for himself, for his family, for his ghosts anymore. He was playing as a defender, with the history of the Boston Celtics and the target of a championship stitched across his chest.

**Preseason Grind**

The first week was a special kind of hell, meticulously designed to break them down before they could be built back up.

Two-a-days that left muscles feeling like frayed rope. Conditioning drills that felt like running into death itself—suicides where the lines seemed to move farther apart each time, sled pushes that burned the lungs and screamed at the quads. Weight room sessions where Kyle's entire body trembled and threatened to betray him under plates he didn't think he could possibly push one more time.

"Up! Don't you dare quit on me now, Wilson! This is where separatin' happens!" the strength coach barked, his face inches from Kyle's as the young man's arms shook violently beneath the bench press bar. The spotter's hands hovered, ready but not touching.

Kyle's teeth ground together, a guttural roar escaping his lips as he shoved the bar up, his chest burning, every vein in his neck and arms standing in stark relief. *Don't quit. Never quit.* The words weren't his coach's; they were Derrick's.

On the court, in the live, frantic chaos of the scrimmages, he quickly learned how much faster and more physical everything moved. He wasn't the unknown rookie anymore, the blur opponents underestimated. They knew his name now. They closed out on his shot harder and higher, their hands in his vision. They bumped him off his line on drives, their bodies stronger, their intentions more violent. They swiped at the ball on every dribble, testing his handle, probing for a weakness.

"You're not sneaking up on nobody this year, young'n," Marcus told him bluntly in the huddle after Kyle had turned the ball over on three consecutive possessions, each one a more frustrating struggle than the last. "The element of surprise is gone. They know you now. They studied you all summer. They know you like to go right. They know your spin move. *Adjust or drown.* It's that simple."

Kyle nodded, his chest still heaving, towel over his head. He knew Marcus was right. This was a new game. It was chess, not checkers, and he was just learning the moves.

**The Film Room**

The film room became Kyle's new classroom, his new battlefield. He sat next to Jaylen Brown in the darkened, chilled theater, the glow of the large screen the only light. Clips of their intra-squad scrimmages flickered, paused, rewound.

"See that?" Jaylen pointed, using a laser pointer to highlight a defender on the screen. "He's sagging off you. Right there. Giving you a full step. They're daring you to shoot the pull-up from deep. They're betting you're not consistent enough yet to make them pay."

Kyle leaned forward, elbows on his knees, frowning. "They didn't give me that much space last year. Ever."

"'Cause you was a rookie. An unknown. Now they think they know your tendencies. They read the same scouting report you did. You got to break it. You need counters. A hesitation-and-go. A step-back three when they play for the drive. You gotta make 'em guess."

Brad Stevens chimed in from the front of the room, freezing the film. "Kyle, your first step is elite, we all know that. But your finishing numbers in traffic dipped by 12% in the playoffs. You can't just bulldoze your way to the rim anymore. They're loading up. You need pace. You need to change speeds. You need to use angles, and you need to develop a softer touch off the glass. Power is good. Precision is better."

The words were clinical, analytical, but they cut deep. They laid his flaws bare for the entire team to see. Yet Kyle didn't flinch. He opened his notebook—a simple black moleskine—and scribbled down the notes, his jaw tight. Every flaw they pointed out felt like an open wound, a vulnerability. But he understood. Wounds could be treated. Weaknesses could be sharpened into weapons. This was the process. This was the price of the hunt.

**Off the Court Shadows**

Late at night, though, when he sat alone in the cool, modern silence of his apartment, those X's and O's weren't what replayed in his head. The strategic adjustments faded into static.

It was the sensory memories that ambushed him. The specific curve of his mother Nichola's smile when he'd made the honor roll in fifth grade. The overwhelming, finality of the dull *thud* of dirt hitting Derrick's coffin. The low, threatening whispers on certain Kingston street corners, whispers about debts that didn't die with the debtor.

Sometimes he'd wake up bolt upright in bed, drenched in a cold sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs, convinced he'd heard a knock on the door—not a friendly tap, but a heavy, deliberate, pounding knock. The kind of knock delivered by men who came for debts back home. He'd scramble out of bed, grab his phone like a weapon, and check the locks on his door twice, three times, pacing the length of the living room until his breathing settled and the paranoid adrenaline faded, leaving him feeling hollow and exposed.

Then he'd sit back down on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, and his eyes would land on the unopened ring box sitting on his dresser. One championship. The ultimate goal for every player who ever picked up a ball. And already, it felt like cold, lifeless ash in his hands.

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