Former NBA All-Star Caron Butler and acclaimed author Justin A. Reynolds tip off the first book in a new middle grade series about a young boy trying to make his mark on an AAU basketball team coached by a former NBA star in his hometown. Perfect for fans of The Crossover and the Track series. *A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection!
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Shot Clock by Caron Butler and Justin A. Reynolds, which releases on September 6th 2022.
Tony loves basketball. But the game changed recently when his best friend, Dante, a hoops phenom, was killed by a police officer. Tony hopes he can carry on Dante’s legacy by making the Sabres, the AAU basketball team Dante took to two national championships.
Tony doesn’t make the team, but Coach James likes what he sees from Tony at tryouts and offers him another chance: join the team as the statistician. With his community reeling and the team just finding its footing on the court, can Tony find a path to healing while helping to bring the Sabres a championship?
THE WARM-UP
It’s two against one. Not that it matters.
The twins were trash-talking all day at school, saying Dante should just punk out now, save himself the humiliation. “The hurting we gon’ put on you, man, like, I almost feel bad,” the slightly taller twin says as he checks the ball to start the game.
“It’s not gon’ be like last time, bruh,” the other twin promises. “We really ’bout to mop you, D.”
But D doesn’t snap back. Just smiles like he knows something they don’t.
But I know, too.
D was the number-two-ranked high school player in the whole country last year. As a sophomore. But this past year, I watched him elevate his game to new heights, Sunday through Saturday, he put in work—days drenched in sweat during the July heat wave, December nights half-frozen as we shoveled mountains of wet snow off Paradise Court so he could work on his footwork.
I was right there with him. Putting up thousands—no, tens of thousands—of shots, zigzagging around the orange cones Coach James gave D, dragging the dirty orange construction barrels from the potholes they weren’t fixing on Ellison Ave and pretending they were defenders, hurdling them as we knifed in for layups, corkscrewed for one-handed floaters.
Some nights it’d be raining so hard Mom made me stay in—said, What kind of ball player you gonna be when you catch pneumonia, Tone?—and I wondered if D was gonna skip practice, too, but then, from my bed, my window slightly open, I’d hear:
Chu-kaa. Chu-kaa. Chu-kaa.
Most nights I listened to D dance all over the court till my eyes were too heavy to keep open. The sounds, always the same.
Thwack, thwack, shwerrrp, chu-kaa.
Translation: dribble, dribble, spin + pull-up, swish.
Or thwack, thwack, crrnch-crrnch, chu-kaa.
Translation: dribble, dribble, stepback, swish.
The crunch only happening when you were on the north end of the court, where the concrete’s crumbled so bad it’s basically gravel. But whatever, that’s not stopping anybody from jab-stepping behind the spray-painted three-point line and splashing on whoever wants it—
Especially when the ball’s in D’s hands. Like now.
I told Mom I pushed my bed under the window so I could catch the breeze because in the summertime it’s hot enough to melt an ice cream truck, but to be real, I just wanted to be able to sit in bed and watch the court. Sometimes I pretend my fourth-story bedroom is the Fiserv Forum—where the Milwaukee Bucks play—and I’m sitting way up in one of those skyboxes like a celebrity. I act like the TV cameras are aimed at me, and I smile and salute, or I make as if I’m so into the game I don’t even notice them.
But the twins? They are most definitely noticing D right now.
No question he has their undivided attention.
Every time the ball leaves D’s hands, people standing around the court chime cha-ching, cha-ching, like the cash register at the corner store; that’s how money D’s jumper is. Sometimes he doesn’t even watch it sail through the net . . . he’s already walking back to the line for his next possession, updating the score:
6–1, me.
7–1, me.
8–2, me.
But sometimes D pauses to admire his work, his eyes following the ball’s perfect arc, its beautiful rotation, until it splashes through the tattered nylon.
Every time his new KDs leave the asphalt, it’s like he’s launching into space, his chest square, elbows bent, ball rolling off his long fingertips.
You match up against D, the outcome is always the same. Like watching reruns of your favorite show. It’s just a matter of how you want it.
That’s about as much trash talk as D serves up. That and his other favorite phrase: all day.
As in, I can do this all day.
D will put you on skates with his crossover, then pull back and wait for you to regain your balance—and you know he could’ve blown past you and gotten to the rack, but he’s toying with you. And after you pick yourself off the ground, dust the gravel from your knees, he looks you dead in your scared eyes, and asks, How you want it?
As in, You want this jumper?
You want this dribble drive?
You want this spin move, up and under?
I’m telling you—I’ve seen this episode so many times.
THE INTRODUCTION: Some dude swears on his mama he’s gonna lock D up, all He ain’t about to get nan points on me, watch—and then D working the perimeter, launching jumper after jumper dead in the defender’s grill. Cha-ching, chu-kaa.
THE CONFLICT: Now the defender’s all in his feelings cuz everybody’s posting his butt-whupping on the Gram, plus they’re oohing and aahing and cackling, and D’s not even saying nothing cuz his game is his mouth, but the defender’s heated, like, Whatever, man, all he got is that pull-up, bring that weak stuff in the paint, see if I don’t swat it five hundred light-years into the future.
THE RESOLUTION: D only smiles, then goes right at dude with an array of spin moves so dazzling he’s got washers and dryers drooling—finishing with every kind of layup, left hand, right hand, up and under, off glass, every angle. All day, D says softly, walking back to check-ball. So, how you want it now?
But sometimes, every now and then, the defender timed his jump perfectly with D’s, the defender’s long arm stretching, his fingers reaching to reject D’s layup. He’s happy—you can see it on his face—because he’s finally about to shut D up, put THIS on YouTube, he’s thinking . . . only to see his eyes widen in surprise the moment he realizes that while he’s on his way back to the concrete without even getting a fingernail on the ball, D’s still rising, elevating, the kid practically levitating, up up up, the sun over his shoulder gleaming bright enough to make everybody squint, the ball scooped between D’s wrist and forearm, the two halves of his body seemingly going in opposite directions, before he lets the ball glide off his fingers, spiraling as it kisses high off the backboard. The net doesn’t even move as the ball slips through.
That’s the thing about D.
He has everything going for him.
Handles, deadly jumper, range for days, the kind of suffocating defense that made the dudes he was guarding mad frustrated.
D’s built for this game. Tall, strong, crazy quick. He jumps out the gym.
Seriously, nobody gets up like D. Nobody.
So, who would’ve guessed that only a few hours later, D wouldn’t get up at all?
