It was the last practice before the Wolves’ first game, in the gym at Claremont Middle, at seven o’clock on Thursday night.

Gramps was running the practice, as usual, but getting plenty of help from his assistant coach, who happened to be Ryan Moretti’s mom. Mrs. Moretti had played college ball at the University of Connecticut, and her team had won two national championships while she was there. She had been the kind of point guard Lucas wanted to be: could shoot a basketball nearly as well as she could pass one.

One time Lucas and Ryan had looked at a highlight film of Mrs. Moretti somebody had put together on YouTube. When it was over Lucas had looked at his best friend and said, “I’m just gonna say it.”

“Say what?” Ryan said.

Lucas said, “I want to play like a girl.”

Tonight they walked through a couple new plays that Gramps had drawn up for them, and kept walking through them until Gramps felt the players had them down. Then he said what they had been waiting to hear from the time they had shown up at the gym:

“Let’s go full court.”

As much as he loved teaching, Gramps said that competition taught players more than he ever could. It’s why he never called them scrimmages. He called them practice games. The first night of practice, he’d told them all ten players were good enough to start. He also told them that he wasn’t nearly as interested in the players starting games as he was in the ones finishing them.

“Those are the minutes you boys ought to be trying to earn, every single game,” Gramps said.

But his starters, at least to open the season, were Lucas and Ryan, Billy Goldman at center, Sharif Mustafa at shooting guard, and Richard Dichard at power forward. Even as deep as their bench was, and as talented as the other five players were, Lucas honestly felt that their starting five was better than any team in the Twin Lakes League.

But it didn’t matter how good they thought they were. They had to go out and prove it, starting with their opener against Homestead. They had to do what players on good teams always did: bring out the best in one another. It was why you played the season. It was why Lucas waited the rest of the year for the season to begin. It was why he felt the best part of his school year—or whole year—was about to begin.

Some of the things he loved about basketball also applied to his other sports, spacing and smart ball movement and imagination. Especially imagination. Even when Lucas was running Gramps’s plays, there was still room for him to be creative. To use his imagination. There were always decisions to make. There were always options. You just had to pick the best one.