A lot of people thought that Aaron Gordon had turned the proverbial corner after this forty-point game. Hindsight tells us this wasn't the case, but it was a reasonable belief to hold at the time. The thought of Magic fans pegging this game as a turnaround point for the franchise is depressing me.
Original description below:
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Standing in the alley that ran past the back of the hospital, Aaron Gordon nervously adjusted his disguise as he loitered in what he hoped was an innocuous manner. From spending the past several days discreetly observing the area, he knew that this alley was where doctors often took their smoke breaks. Now he just had to wait for a doctor to walk out of the door so he could get in without having any kind of identification card.
Finally, the door creaked open and a harried-looking doctor walked out, already holding his lighter to a cigarette that dangled from his mouth. Aaron acted like he had just finished his own cigarette, then pulled the surgical white mask back over his face and darted through the open door. He was in.
With the first hurdle cleared, Aaron suddenly realized that he had no idea how to find his target in the huge hospital complex. He looked for an open computer terminal that he might be able to use to do a lookup, but all of the ones he saw were in use by nurses or administrative staff. He would just have to use his intuition and people skills.
“Excuse me, nurse? Nurse?” he asked of the first nurse that passed him in the brightly-lit hallway. “I am a visiting doctor from New York. Can you kindly tell me where the physical therapy area is?”
The nurse, who seemed awed by the immense height and musculature of this “doctor”, meekly gave him a set of directions which involved multiple elevator trips and turns off branching corridors. After having the directions repeated to make sure they were correct, Aaron set off on his way.
Ten minutes later, feeling like he had walked a mile or more, he came upon the suite of rooms where physical therapy took place. Being as suave as possible, not wanting to arouse suspicion, he walked up to the receptionist’s desk. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I’m a visiting specialist from New York here to work with a high-profile client, and I’m not sure which room he’s located in.”
“What is the patient’s name?” the women at the desk asked shortly, her red-nailed fingers clacking noisily on the keyboard in front of her.
“Zach LaVine,” Aaron replied, his heart beating faster now that he was so close to his goal.
“Room A5,” the woman said with a smack of her chewing gum. “He should be in there now.”
“Great. Thank you,” Aaron said. He walked calmly to the door of A5, took a deep breath to ready himself, then walked in.
When he saw Zach standing on a treadmill, being helped by his physical therapist with a running exercise, he could no longer contain his rage. Bellowing out an angered screech, he charged at Zach and tackled him heavily to the floor before either Zach or the therapist could react.
“I SHOULD HAVE WON THE DUNK CONTEST!” Aaron yelled as he beat Zach about the face and neck with his fists. “YOU STOLE IT FROM ME! THE TROPHY SHOULD BE MINE! WHERE IS IT? WHERE IS IT?”
“Obviously I don’t have the trophy with me now, you ‘roided out freak,” Zach said as he tried to shield his face from the punches, which were errant more often than not due to Aaron’s uncontrolled rage. “You’re lucky I didn’t land on my knee.”
Zach’s comment triggered something in Aaron’s memory. The injury! He could aggravate Zach’s injury! As he felt the therapist’s weak grip futilely trying to pull him off of his nemesis, he directed his punches toward’s Zach’s recovering knee. “You’ll never win another dunk contest,” Aaron snarled with giddy malice. “You’ll be lucky if you ever even walk again.”
“My knee’s pretty much all better, and you punching it isn’t going to re-tear the ligaments or anything,” Zach said with annoyance. “Now can you please get off me?”
“Not until you give me the trophy that you stole from me,” Aaron replied.
Zach sighed. “I told you, it’s not here. I don’t know where you got the idea that I just keep it with me at all times, but it’s actually in my house right now. If you get off me I’ll go home and grab it for you.”
Aaron promptly stopped swinging his fists and stood up. “Okay,” he agreed. “I’ll wait here for my dunk contest trophy.”
Uneasily edging towards the door, as if fearing another attack, Zach said, “Yeah. Your trophy. I’ll be right back.”
Smiling to himself, Aaron was pleased that his plan had gone so well. Now he had just had to wait patiently and the dunk contest trophy would finally be his.
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