The First Spark

One viral thread read: I AM NOT SAYING WE ARE GOOD, BUT I WOULD DIE FOR THIS BENCH UNIT. Another replied: I booed Marcus in preseason. I was young and foolish three months ago. Daniel read none of it during the day. At night, he read too much. He also kept a private document titled Mistakes. It listed every decision that had nearly broken them: trusting Price too long, underestimating Luka's conditioning curve, failing to add a backup handler, letting Marcus drown in early traps, speaking too coldly to Jamal after a missed rehab session. Daniel had learned that NBA general managers were not chess masters moving silent pieces. They were weather forecasters standing inside the storm, wrong often, useful only if they adjusted before lightning hit.