"I don't know if this is a very good idea, Bogdan," said Nemanja Bjelica, speaking in his native Serbian.
"Shhhh! Don't talk so loud!" Bogdan Bogdanovic hissed angrily.
"Sorry," Nemanja replied in a whisper. "I forgot for a second that if we get caught out here breaking quarantine, they'll probably deport us. Wait, no, I didn't forget about that, because that's all I've been able to think about since you dragged me on this stupid 'recruiting mission' or whatever you called it." The sarcastic power of his words was lessened by the very low volume at which they were said.
The two Serbian basketball players were tiptoeing around the perimeter of one of the hotels at Disney World, where the postponed NBA season was about to restart. The hotel, which had some kind of whimsical tropical-themed name that was different from the whimsical tropical-themed name of the hotel that the Kings were staying at, was almost totally dark. It was four in the morning, and most of the players inside would be asleep.
"You do want the SSS to happen, don't you?" Bogdan asked, referring to a concept, dubbed the "Serbian Superteam in Sacramento", that he had become singularly obsessed with in the past year.
"I do," Nemanja answered truthfully. He wanted more than anything for a team led by three Serbs to win an NBA championship. To hold up the Larry O'Brien trophy with his countrymates while their vanquished American foes wept tears of defeat was a fantasy that he replayed often in his mind. "But there won't be any superteam if we're suspended and the team doesn't even make the playoffs."
They walked for a bit longer. Nemanja wanted to ask what Bogdan's plan was, but there was part of him that didn't want to know. He figured he might as well see it through to the end; he wanted to be able to say that he had made a decent effort at forming a Serb-based superteam. If he bailed out now, he would probably get caught sneaking back into his room anyway.
Bogdan suddenly stopped. "If I counted the windows correctly, his room should be right about here."
"He's on the ground floor? How convenient."
Bogdan looked up the facade of the building. "No, he's actually on the second floor. I'll have to stand on your shoulders."
Upon hearing this, Nemanja almost gave up and walked away. The only thing that prevented him from doing this was the beautiful vision of adding a third Serb to the Kings roster. "Ugh. Fine. Take off your shoes first, though."
After a few botched attempts, Bogdan was standing on Nemanja's shoulders. If Bodgan reached up as high as possible, he could knock on the window with his knuckles. He did this twice. It sounded very loud in the middle of the night.
Then there was the sound of the window opening. Nemanja wished he could see what was going on. His legs were getting tired. "What the hell, Bogdan?" came Nikola Jokic's voice from the window.
Now it was time for Bogdan to launch into his sales pitch. "Three Serbs. One team. You in?"
"Depends, how are you gonna convince Vlade to release you from your Kings contracts and sign with the Nuggets?"
"More like, how awesome would it be come to play for Vlade on the Kings and bring an NBA championship trophy home to Serbia?" Bogdan paused there. "The trade window is still open, isn't it Nemanja?"
Nemanja's legs were shaking. He couldn't hold up Bogdan for much longer. "Uh. Maybe."
Nikola spoke again. "Even with me on that team, you're not winning the Finals."
"Dude, Cory Joseph is pretty good," Bogdan said. He had started listing additional players on the Kings roster who he considered to be "good" when Nemanja could bear his weight no longer. They both fell down to the grass. Nemanja just lay there motionless, his legs too weak to even entertaing the idea of standing up. Above them, Nikola shut the window, as if shutting down the possibility of further negotiations.
"It's like you don't even care about the Serbian Superteam in Sacramento!" Bogdan yelled, much too loudly. The noise caused the light in the first-floor room below Nikola's to turn on. There was the sound of voices from the hotel's front entrance, which was only fifty feet away.
"Cрање! Cрање!!!!" Bogdan cursed.
"Јебем ти живот! We're done for. They're kicking us out of the bubble for sure," Nemanja wailed.
"RUN!!"
The shoeless Bogdan took off at a sprint, with Nemanja following close behind. All thoughts of secrecy were forgotten. Nemanja's only focus was to get far ahead of Bogdan so that the younger player would be caught by security first. When the opportunity presented itself, he turned down a path by a swimming pool. The path didn't lead back to his hotel, but he would wait for the dust to settle before trying to return to his room.
In the distance, he could hear the sounds of a struggle. Bogdan was getting apprehended and tackled.
"So much for the SSS," Nemanja muttered.
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