Rebirth In Kurokonobasket - Chapter 192

Shun smiled at the figure of his pouting girlfriend as she grabbed on to the hem of his shirt, not willing to go. Satsuki and Shun had spent a lot of time with each other in the summer vacation. But now, in the second half of the summer vacation, Shun was visiting Spain for this year’s FIBA summer camp, and would only return at the end of the summer vacation.

A twenty-day separation was difficult for a new couple such as them, and neither wanted to spend time apart from each other. Shun almost canceled his trip to Spain because of not wanting to separate from Satsuki, but he needed to solve the problem that was plaguing his play style and thought that the training camp would provide him with some much-needed help.

He grasped Satsuki’s hand and enjoyed watching her blush at the sudden contact. She was still not used to skinship and would blush when Shun would take her hand in his. She looked at him with upturn eyes, and that hit Shun in the heart and made it skip a beat. She wasn’t the only one to be weak to the other.

Shun: “You know this only makes it harder to go, right?”

Satsuki tightened the hold on Shun’s hand that was holding her and spoke in a soft voice.

Satsuki: “I don’t want you to go, don’t go.”

A soft, sad smile made its way to Shun’s face, and he spoke to the girl in front of him.

Shun: “I will be back before you know, and we can talk every day via video chat. I promise to be online every day at the decided time.”

Satsuki looked at Shun feeling a little better as she asked.

Satsuki: “Promise?”

Shun lightly chuckled as he nodded.

Shun: “Yes, I promise.”

From the side, two sets of parents watched their children with varying reactions. The mothers of the couple were smiling with broad smiles.

They had been patiently watching and bidding their time to see if their children will get together. Both knew that their children liked each other and watched with interest as thy progressed in their relationship. The two mothers didn’t want to interfere with the relationship of their children, but they did drop a hint or two to get them together.

Shun’s mom: “They got together.”

Mrs. Momoi looked at her friend and nodded with a smile.

Mrs. Momoi: “They sure did.”

Shun’s mom happily chatted with her neighbor and friend.

Shun’s mom: “Isn’t this great.”

Mrs. Momoi spoke as she watched the young couple talk to each other.

Mrs. Momoi: “Yes, it is.”

On the other hand, the fathers had different reactions from the mothers. The father of the girl, as you would expect from his history with Shun, wasn’t happy at all. He looked at Shun and Satsuki with an unpleasant expression.

Mr. Momoi: “Satsuki is too young. Too young!”

He was patted on his shoulder by Shun’s dad and comforted.

Shun’s dad: “Don’t worry, they are responsible children, and if it is any consolation, Shun took the birds and bees talk surprisingly well.

Our children are smart, and I am confident that they won’t do anything stupid.”

Mr. Momoi looked at his frequent drinking partner and spoke.

Mr. Momoi: “That doesn’t make me feel better at all.”

Shun’s dad smiled at his friend and offered.

Shun’s dad: “How about I treat you to a drink today, my treat. That will take your mind away from this.”

Shun’s dad would come to regret this as Satsuki’s dad would end up ranting about the relationship between their children under the influence of alcohol.

Just like that, Shun left for Spain for his second FIBA summer camp.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Shun arrived at the dormitory that they were staying and entered the room, took a shower, and slept after the long flight. He was woken up by the alarm he set for himself and saw that there was some extra luggage in the room, that he assumed was his roommates’ stuff.

Shun sat upon his bed as he stretched his arms and torso. He turned his head when he heard the noise of water from the attached bathroom.

Shun: ‘He must be taking a bath.’

Shun decided to set up his luggage in his closet, and he finished just as his roommate came out of the bathroom. Shun’s eyes widened when he saw his roommate. He had wavy, light brown hair with matching colored eyes, and he was quite tall. Shun recognized his roommate and greeted him.

Shun: “Roger! Hey, it’s been what a year. How are you?”

Roger smiled as he greeted Shun with his usual calm and composed demeanor.

Roger: “Good to meet you again, Shun. I am doing just fine. I was surprised when I saw you were my roommate, what are the chances?”

Shun nodded and commented on the thing he first noticed about Roger.

Shun: “You hit a growth spurt, didn’t you. How tall are you now?”

Roger last year was 197 centimeters tall, but Shun was now sure that Roger had crossed the 200-centimeter line and was well over it. Roger confirmed Shun’s guess by telling him his height.

Roger: “I am now 206-centimeters tall.”

Shun whistled as he calculated the height in his mind.

Shun: “That is a solid 6 feet 9 inches.”

Roger nodded as he walked over to his bed towards his luggage.

Roger: “So, any idea about who the coaches will be this time around?”

Shun shook his head and answered the question.

Shun: “Nope, no idea. I didn’t really ask, plus I slept right after I came to the room.”

Shun and Roger continued to talk about what would be in this year’s camp and what had changed in their game since the last year.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Roger and Shun were the only ones from last year’s camp to attend as they were the only ones young enough to revisit, and the rest of the previous first-stringers were all in college, thus out of the age gap for the camp.

It turned out that the coaches for the first-string were last years Sarah Snow and another new coach that neither Shun nor Roger recognized.

Shun turned to Roger and suggested to his roommate.

Shun: “Should we go and greet Coach Sarah?”

Roger looked at the familiar coach and agreed.

Roger: “Sure, let’s do it.”

The two players walked towards the coach and greeted their coach for the summer.

Shun: “Good Morning; Coach Sarah.”

Sarah turned to find two players she had recognized and had given her recommendations for the first-string right of the bat. She smiled at the two players who would be under her wing for the duration of the summer camp and greeted them back.

Sarah: “Ah, Roger and Shun, welcome back. It is good to see that both of you decided to attend.”

Shun: “Last time was a fun experience for me, so I decided to join this year as well, plus coach, I have a couple of problems with my playstyle that I would like you to give your input on.”

That caught Sarah’s attention as she was interested in the Shun’s playstyle as Shun had played in the sorting game as a point guard with rim-finishing skills and mid-range jumpers as go to attack strategies. She thought for a moment and instructed Shun.

Sarah: “In the next game, you will play without holding back and show me what you can do, then we will see about this problem of yours.”

Shun shrugged and replied.

Shun: “Alright.”

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Sarah was shocked, to say the least, she knew that Shun was talented, but to show that much progress in just a year was unheard of. She couldn’t believe it when she saw Shun play, and Sarah couldn’t believe it now as she watched the game footage.

Sarah: ‘I can’t believe it. How can he revamp his style to this level in just a year, and to this level.’

Sarah watched the tape as she saw Shun switch between places of operation and scored from the three-point arc, mid-range, rim-finishes, post plays, pick-and-rolls, spot-up jump shots, off-the-dribble shots. If there was a place you could score points from, Shun scored from that spot.

Sarah also noticed that Shun had gotten much better at the traditional point-guard responsibilities than last year. He was able to space the floor, move the ball around, play defense, steal passes, box out players in rebounds, sometimes go for the rebounds himself.

Sarah leaned back into her chair and analyzed her view on the game.

Sarah: ‘He is still rough around the edges, but that is to be expected from someone his ages, but he is still much better than players his age, and that is considering he is focusing on every area on the court.’

Sarah thought back to Shun, telling her about his problem and understood what he was talking about.

Sarah: ‘Shun focusing on being a positionless player requires him to play on all parts of the court, which divides his playtime among all areas, and that leads to not enough experience in playing in one section, and that has led to delay in decision making when cornered.

That lack of judgment will cause him problems at critical moments of games, and one mistake can lose you a game.’

Sarah thought of how to deal with this problem, but she couldn’t think of any feasible solutions as Shun’s playstyle was unusual. The only other player who she had seen playing like that was Ivan Petrovic. But, Ivan Petrovic had time to build his style and picked up different techniques one by one before merging them, and even then, he still tilted towards a style of play that didn’t mandate extensive contact.

Shun hadn’t taken that way and tried to learn all the techniques at the same time, plus the time Shun had spent on his new style was way less than that Ivan had spent.

Sarah decided to observe Shun for a few more days before suggesting to him something, but the next day things changed.

-*-*-*-*-*-*-

Unlike last time, Shun didn’t need to sit out in every other stretch and could continuously play as he had gotten used to the intensity of the workout before the games, but like everybody, he was taken out once so that others could get a chance to play.

Shun sat on the bench beside Sarah and picked up a bottle to hydrate himself, and as he drank, Sarah spoke to Shun while still keeping an eye on the game.

Sarah: “It seems that you were successful in merging the style of players from last year.”

Shun put down the bottle and nodded in agreement.

Shun: “Yeah, but I am not done. There are more components that I could derive from the styles of players from last year. I had to stop because of the problem of confusion on what to use. Adding any more before I sort out the existing techniques will cause my problem to grow.”

Sarah nodded, thinking that it was a smart move on Shun’s part to not cram more techniques into his style, but she was interested in what Shun had taken from different players. She could see influences from most of the players, but there was one where she couldn’t find in Shun’s style, so she asked.

Sarah: “I was wondering what did you take in from Leonal Claude? He had a playstyle backed by reflexes, I thought you would target him first, but I think I missed his influence on your game.”

Shun sighed as he explained to Sarah the deal with Leonal’s influence on his game.

Shun: “About that, I had the best starting point with Leonal’s style of play, but after I returned home and started to work on my style, I hit a bottleneck with what I wanted from Leonal’s style.”

Shun explained to Sarah about Leonal’s style and that how he was not able to make much progress in that, but as he spoke, something in Shun’s mind clicked.

Shun: “… Leonal uses the time provided by his reflexes to plan ahead of time to provide… a… smooth transition… between… moves…”

Shun stopped talking and just started to blankly stare in front of him. Sarah didn’t interrupt and stared at Shun, and after around a minute, he snapped out of his state. He turned to Sarah and said.

Shun: “I get it. I get it. It was so simple! So simple.”

Shun laughed and stood up to enter the game as he switched in for Roger. Roger looked at Shun weirdly as the later entered the game with a wide grin on his face.

Roger walked to the bench and sat on the, and talked to Sarah.

Roger: “Coach, what happened to Shun? Why was he grinning?”

Sarah chuckled and answered the query.

Sarah: “He had an epiphany.”

And thus, Shun took a step forward in the direction towards achieving stability for his playstyle.