Page 66 of ClickBack

Cam has three folders open in the car when Giselle answers my question.

Maybe.

I tell her to wear the shorts next time and put the phone down. Cam looks at it, then at me.

“You planning to negotiate today or smile at that screen until the Canadians take pity on us?”

“I’m listening.”

“What did I say?”

“Coach wants to start with film. Philly approved the meeting. Nobody’s agreeing to an extension in this car.”

He closes one folder. “You could have led with that.”

“You could have asked whether I was listening.”

“I did. You smiled at your phone.”

I laugh and take the folder he hands me. He has marked the things he wants me to consider, left space beside them for the things he knows I will ask anyway. Cam trusts his preparation more than he trusts a pleasant room. It is one of the reasons I keep him.

At the hotel, I shower and change into a knit shirt and trousers. The meeting is two floors above my room. In the elevator, Cam checks a message, answers it, and puts the phone away.

“Philly wants you interested,” he says. “Don’t mistake that for them promising you a choice.”

“I’m clear.”

“Then let’s see what they’ve got.”

They have film. Good film, too, the kind that tells me somebody watched the whole possession instead of searching for a clip that makes me feel expensive.

The coach pauses me against Boston, a guard caught behind me and help beginning to move from the corner.

“Here,” he says. “More of this.”

He lets it run. I seal the guard, take the pass high, and finish before the second defender can get set. I remember the play after it, too. We ran something else and never went back to the mismatch.

“You want that in December?” I ask. “Or just in June when it looks good on a screen?”

“In December.” He brings up the next clip. “And we need this after they adjust.”

It is a possession where I give the ball up. Two defenders commit, and the pass gets to the corner before either of them can recover. I lean forward.

“What happens when that shot isn’t falling?”

“We keep getting you the ball. They stop coming, you score. They come, you make the read.”

“Who’s cutting from the weak side?”

He answers with names and a second option. I ask about the lineups. He changes the screen. Beside me, Cam writes something down, but for the first time all morning I forget to wonder how he thinks the meeting is going.

We get into defensive coverages, into who calls a switch and what they expect from me when a guard dies on a screen. The coach disagrees with me about one clip. I ask him to play it again. He does, and I show him the rotation that left me choosing between the ball and an open man under the rim.

“I see it,” he says. “I still need you earlier.”

I watch it a third time.

“All right.”