The League

I used to be a pro basketball player.  Back when there was only one league – his league.  You know who I’m talking about – Jose Rosebloom.  The owner of the World Basketball Federation – the WBF.  He’s the one that started fixing the games.  At first, he kept it secret; just paying off the refs to ensure that the more marketable teams would win.  Then, as viewership waned, he started upping the ante.  Soon enough, he implemented automatic scoring baskets and got rid of human scorekeepers.  At the time, it seemed like Jose was simply trying to keep up with technology.  Then, he got rid of most of the referees.  This was another move that he claimed would make the league more sustainable financially.  Unfortunately, more and more obvious calls didn’t get called, because the ref never seemed to be in the right position.  Still, most people were unaware that games were being fixed.  Until those finals, that is.

It was 2045; Sacramento was playing London.  London was the underdog, though they brought in drastically more fans.  Fortunately, so the fans were led to believe, they were able to keep up with Sacramento, and the finals were tied 3-3 going into the final game.  In the fourth quarter, London was losing by two points, and Sacramento had the ball.  That’s when I made my move.  I played for the German national team – it was up to me to make sure that a European team won the Finals.  So, I ran on the court while both teams were on the other end of the court, and I made a three-pointer for London.  Since the referee was on the far side of the court, he never saw what happened.  The entire crowd was in an uproar, and I can only imagine what was happening as people watched the game around the world.  How could this count?  Sure, the score was kept automatically, and so the three points put London ahead, but wouldn’t someone stop the game and arrest me?  I mean, everybody saw it!  But, nothing happened – no replay, no reversed decisions, and no arrests.  I think that’s when a few people wised-up that the game wasn’t as pure as they had always believed.

After that Finals, run-ins became more and more common; especially on televised games.  When the most popular teams played each other, there was rarely a clear-cut victory.  Between “missed” calls, players from other teams running on to the court to “get revenge” against a team that cost them a game, you couldn’t really tell who the best teams were anymore.  Sure, you could see who won the championships, but you didn’t know how good any of their players were.  But, that’s just how the league is.  Nobody really believes it anymore – well, except for kids. 

But, this story isn’t about the WBF, it’s about me.  And, a few years after the original Finals where everyone learned my name, I was scheduled to make another run-in; this time when Paris played against New York.  My team was supposed to get along well with the other European teams, and so I was supposed to help Paris win.  It was the same basic setup – Paris was up by one point in the final game of the championship.  This time, to add extra drama, I wasn’t supposed to run onto the court until there were only two seconds left – and I was supposed to shock the world by helping New York win against Paris.  So, I waited, and I did my part.  I ran onto the court, just in time, and I took my shot.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a clean swish like the last time – it bounced around the rim… until it was too late.  My shot went in, but the automatic baskets stop scoring at the final buzzer.  My shot didn’t count.  Paris won the championship, despite my efforts. 

I got fired.  Jose said that I was a disgrace, and that if he couldn’t count on me, then he had no use for me.  With nowhere else to turn, I began playing in the illegal street basketball leagues.  The ones that were run by bookies, and the ones where they actually still had multiple refs - where they actually let the skill of the teams determine the outcomes.  Once word got out that the WBF was rigged, people were looking for ways to resume gambling.  At one point, some of the leaders of the street leagues had tried rigging games to make more money, but when people got wind of it, all of the money dried up, so that didn’t last, and they were forced to let the teams actually compete.  I was forced to play the game on my own, and I only got to win if I was better than the other players.  And, as it turns out, I was better than the other players. 

When I realized how good I really was, I started to get paid better; at least compared to the other guys in the league.  But, I wasn’t satisfied.  I didn’t want to be remembered as the guy who got fired from the WBF.  It seemed like no matter how well I did in the street leagues, I couldn’t shake that mental image.  And so, I started doing the stupidest thing I could think of – I started betting all of my money.  Any time I got paid, I’d bet whatever I had on my next game.  Sure, I lost a lot of money, and several times I had to start over, but we got on a winning streak that saw me actually start to make some real cash.  Eventually, I had a few million, and I had an idea.  I saw that the worst team in the league, the Bayside Ballers, had five thousand to one odds that they would win the championship.  And I bet it all on them. Fortunately, there were no real contracts in the league.  So, as soon as I placed my bet, I quit my team; and became a Bayside Baller.  I still didn’t know if I was going to lose all my money, but I had a chance to become a billionaire.  And, though it was a tough season, I made it.  I had $20 billion. 

Well, at least I was owed $20 billion.  But, in actuality, the bookies didn’t have nearly that much cash.  So, they gave me what they did have – ownership of the street league.  Now, I was the most powerful man in the world of real basketball.  My first step was to make the street league legal.  I hated Jose Rosebloom, and I saw my new league as a way to compete with him and to try to take him down.   And, though my league didn’t have the history and the fame of the WBF, I had the distinction that my league was real.  Unfortunately, the WBF had turned basketball into a joke, and so nobody would take us seriously.  We couldn’t get any news publicity.  Even though our games were real, all of the news outlets had stopped covering basketball.

My frustration with the WBF boiled over; as did the frustration of my players.  There were fights between my players and players from the WBF.  There were even occasional death threats.  Though the news wouldn’t report on any of our actual games, these stories made the news.  Everyone heard about our feud, and it escalated more and more until eventually, it happened.  A plane that Jose Rosebloom was piloting went down in the mountains, killing him instantly.  With nobody left to run the WBF, I was able to easily purchase the league and merge it with my own – keeping the best players, and forcing them to actually compete.  There were no run-ins and a full complement of referees was used in each game.  In the wake of Jose’s tragedy, interest in basketball had begun to return.  Jose’s untimely death had been a blessing in disguise for the sport that he had affected so much.  At least, that’s what the news reported. 

And as long as Jose keeps a low profile, we should be able to keep it that way.