Some of the players are working out in the weight room, others are on the court working on their game, some of them are second round draft picks trying to get a spot on the main roster and a different group is simply enjoying a non-intense workout before the season starts. The New Mexico Bobcats are an unusual team, all of the unwanted players had to meet in the first weeks of the organization, so when coach Laura invites all of the drafted players to the film room, leaving the rookies behind with the trainers and scouts, they don’t find it alarming, just plain odd.

The retired player rests her hips against the main table in front of the room, 10 out of the 20 seats are occupied by most of her roster, sitting on the chair behind her, Gabriel fidgets with the papers on the desk, he looks up without moving his head, letting out a sigh as he notices what is about to happen. Laura chews gun hard, arms crossed under her chest as the last player finally closes the door and finds her seat.

Clearing her throat, Laura takes a moment before starting to speak, with a booming voice she explains, “We have an extreme array of players, Africans, Latinos, Americans, Asians. Somehow we got a full cast of a woke TV show in here because there’s no way Dina’s straight.”

From the back of the room, she opens her arms in indignation yelling, “I’m an immigrant! I’m diverse without the gay shit!”

Laura dismisses her with her hand, and when the laughter dies down the coach continues, “But, y’all have something in common with each other, something that is not shared between your other teammates, do you guys know what it is?”

A murmur ripples around the players, some guesses are thrown around while other people are just questioning the need for the interactive speech, Laura puts both of her hands up, gesturing for everyone to be quiet, when she gets the attention of everyone, she explains, “Every single player in this room, is a loser.”

The next reaction of almost all the players is to yell, complain and disagree, some more loud than others, most of the words are lost in the mumbling, but all the communication is just variations of: “What?” “I ain’t no loser!” “Are we in high school? Why we being called names?”

“All right, all right, chill out! You guys are not losers, y’all are just being treated as ones—” The coach notices Dina raising her hand with an energetic stance, pointing at her, Laura says, “You don’t actually have to raise your hand, but I respect the politeness, so, shoot it”

“Uh, is this some kinda of tough love or something? ‘cause I don’t think you’re doing it right, we’re kinda missing the love.”

“Yeah! Do love, not war!” Cia proclaims from the other side of the room.

Dina answers back before anyone else, “Don’t agree with me! It makes me seem wrong!”

“Well, most of the time you really are wrong, so, y’know, it’s not that much of a difference is it?” Cia bites back.

Before their argument can continue, Laura raises her voice, again, “Can it! I’m gonna answer your question with another question, why are you guys here? Sitting in this room? Is it because we signed you in free agency? Did you get drafted here in your rookie year? Maybe we traded for you?” When she is only met with silence, she continues, beginning to walk around the chairs, “All of you are here because your old team did not want you. They closed the door of their facility and left you out, they left you without gaining anything back.”

Feeling a little self-conscious, in a low tone, Anika argues, “B-but they got off of our salaries… isn't that good?”

“Honey, Mark Davis and Tom Brady have a combined net worth of about… 3 billion, do you actually think your hundred thousand a year will make a difference? They spend that on a suit.”

Barbara holds a smile while trying to defend her teammate, “Don’t do her like that coach, c’mon…”

Laura lets out a deep sigh, running both hands through her hair while moving to her desk again, when she does speak, her voice comes out in a calmer tone, but still loud enough for it to reach every corner of the room, “I’m not trying to antagonize you, I’m explaining what every player, coach, and viewer knows, your reason to be here, is plain and simple: They didn’t think you were good enough to be one of the eight protected players. Now, are you? This team, this expansion, this is not made to lose, we ain’t the Hornets, with all due respect to their history and all that, I don’t wanna end below 500, and neither should any of you, we aren’t rebuilding, we sure as hell ain’t tanking. We are supposed to compete with the leftovers from the other teams and there’s no way we should win a ship with just that, maybe we should make trades, have some big signing in free agency, get a generational player or something.” She stops for a moment noticing that she was getting progressively angrier as her speech continued, breathing before her voice can waver even more, she continues, “We don’t have any of that shit. But we have something even better, better than their money, their chemistry, their super teams, what do we have, Gabriel?”

“Anger.”

“That’s right, we’re outmatched, outplanned and we’re a weird-looking team, but there’s something that if y’all can find it, it’ll bring us to places never seen before, anger, hunger, hatred use anything to motivate you, this is an opportunity for all of you to prove them wrong. There is only one way this scrappy-ass team can win it all this year, we’re working harder than all of them, we’re playing harder for every possession, we’re gonna outlast every single player on the enemy team, ‘cause that’s what they are on the court. I don’t want you guys going there not to lose, I want you to run through their fucking skulls.”

Her assistant coach clears his throat, explaining in a low tone, “That’s not a way to talk ‘cause it makes us seem aggre—”

Before he can finish his explanation, Dina is already climbing on top of her chair, standing up on her seat, she raises her fist with a big smile on her face, yelling at the top of her lungs, “Let’s kill them all!!”

“Hell yeah! We winning this shit over them sorry asses!” Star adds on in another scream.

The excitement catches the players like wildfire, it quickly goes from a passionate speech delivered by Laura to screams and profanities being hurled at their last teams and opponents, Anika doesn’t scream because she doesn’t feel like she deserves it and Hannah keeps quiet because she just doesn’t like to yell.

Seeing the smiles on the faces of the players, including the coach, Gabriel keeps quiet about how unprofessional this whole ordeal is, he understands their vengefulness surrounding their peers. After a minute of energetic celebration he slowly gets up trying to hold his smile as the noise dies down, he explains, “This is basically our way to say that we will probably be a grittier team than what you're used to, we won]t be dirty, of course, but we want hustle, we want drive… and we want you all out of this room, go do your workouts because Laura and I will be right there.”

“Thank god! All this basketball talk was making mi head hurt!” Dina exclaims while jumping out of her chair and quickly leaving the room, promptly being followed by all of her teammates.

Feeling the curious eyes of the rookies on their every movement, Cia tries to do like the experienced players and just ignore it, but she physically can’t, she feels way too self-conscious of her movements, there’s no way for her to comfortably keep her hands while they tremble under a non-existent pressure from her colleagues, in a desperate attempt to calm her nerves, she moves to the most wise presence in the locker room, Barbara Miranda.

The Power Forward is in the middle of a conversation with the backup Center, both practicing their layups on the same basket, Star Lātūkefu is a very tall woman with broad shoulders, her skin a sepia, reddish brown color that is filled with tattoos from neck to toe, her curls styled into short dreadlocks that don’t reach over her ear. Fall was once very intimidated by her, but after a few team dinners, she likes to think of them as friends.

“Hey guys… kinda weird being around so many people isn't it? I’m still nervous and it’s not even my rookie year anymore…” She tries to give her best smile while approaching, but the hesitation is clear in her voice.

Barbara is the first to answer, “Yeah, but it’s different this time, we’re a brand new WNBA team, and New Mexico has a history of sports, there’s the Lobos and there’s no NBA counterpart for this state, so…”

“But that’s not here or there, I mean, every state has a history in sports, right? Everyone loves to throw ball into hoop” Star argues.

“Or net, everyone loves balls into something,” Barbara adds.

The stupidity of their conversation calms Cia a little bit, she forgets about the fans watching and is suddenly reminded of Laura’s words as she passes by, moving to talk to the stars of the team. When Fall turns back to the women around her, she is surprised by a ball being thrown in her chest.

As she grabs it, her eyes wander up, meeting the perpetrator of the action, a smiling Barbara who says, “Go on, shoot some free throws, I’ll rebound for you.”

“Is that a dig? I shot 79% last year…” Cia humorously argues while moving to the line.

She shoots the first one, all net, the ball moves back to her hand thanks to Barbara, she shoots another, it goes in and before she can shoot the third one, Star asks, “So… what’d you guys think about coach’s speech?”

“I like it. I mean… I don’t really wanna be… well… you kno—”

Barbara interrupts her, “You can say it, you wanna leave this shithole, right?”

“Hey, it’s not like that, like you said, this is… New Mexico is nice, Santa Fe is nice… but it's not a… big market, I know I have a team option and all, but my agent says that if I can average more than 12 points per game on good efficiency I can ask for a trade in free agency.” Cia shoots again, the first miss.

While Barbara moves to get the ball, Star asks, “You’re gonna demand a trade in your second year? Aren’t you being too arrogant?”

Receiving the ball with her left hand, Fall explains, “I-I got a pretty good deal, I have a two year that ends this season and then management can take a team deal for two more years, so I could be very valuable if I show my worth… and I’m not demanding it, I’m… asking politely for one.”

Barbara chews on the inside of her cheek before shrugging, “I think she’s right, it’s not like this team is built to win it anytime soon, and you can only become a big market with success.”

“You don’t think we can make a run? Isn't that… the whole deal Laura was talking about?” Star asks.

The older woman thinks for a moment before negatively shaking her head as Cia makes another free throw, “That’s just… yeah it’s a cool thing to say, but just look around, we got no window.”

Cia hums in understanding, “window” is thrown around the league more than the ball, every team wants to open the window, close the opponent’s, extend their own, and so on. No team, no matter how good, can win every single year and every team has an opportunity to have a window. Be it a blockbuster trade to get stars, a big leap from one of their roleplayers or just the right amount of chemistry between their roster. But just as quickly as it comes, it goes away. With drama between players, aging stars, the WNBA has no time for the pleas of those unworthy, you need to have something to get a ring.

“I mean, we got a superstar, I watched more of Yuki’s tapes than college classes,” Star argues as Cia misses another one.

While the center reaches for the rebound, Barbara answers while looking up, “Nah. Too different, and they may seem like friends, but there’s something more there, that intensity goes over the game, they hate each other for sure.”

“Hannah more than Yuki,” Fall adds.

“Yeah, but who wouldn't? She lost five times in Yuki’s hands.”

While making another shot, Cia looks down. She really didn’t think about all of this, even after the speech in the conference room all she could do was worry about her offseason, getting stability and a good following, but she still needed to play this year, when she receives the ball back, Cia asks, “So you just gave up? You’re… older, I can’t imagine you have more chances at being a champion…”

Barbara laughs at the politeness as she is being called old, “I would love to win it, but it's just not realistic anymore, I have more important things in my life… my kid, my hubb– my husband, my money, I’m already setting my sights on becoming a coach on a college team.”

Star throws her head back, waving one finger from side to side to show her disapproval, another shot misses, this one, an airball, “I call bullshit, I know that you still have that dog in you for a really good run, from the plays the coach is drawing up, you’re gonna be a starter in the opening match. And don’t give me that “they are too different” bullshit, the reason we ain’t winning has a name and a surname.”

Barbara scoffs, too concentrated in their argument to go rebound the ball she puts both of her hands on her waist as she explains, “I already told you, all those stories are just rumors.”

“What stories?” Cia asks while closing the distance between the three women, the free throw training forgotten in their gossip.

Star leans down, whispering while looking around, “Dude, I’ve been around the block too, I talked to Patricia after she left the Fireflies, she told me that ever since her rookie year she was already a terrible teammate, she would cuss people out, be an arrogant prick, not understand leadership, clearly she just thought way too highly of herself, and now that she is actually something, how can we really trust her? I tell you, in about two months half of us will be treated because she’ll poison the ear of the GM.”

“I heard her and Yuki got into a fight at her hotel, like… a physical one.” Cia builds on the conversation.

Rolling her eyes, Barbara begins, “Look, I think she’s just really, really competitive, when I played with her she did complain a lot, but it was like she did with Anika, nothing personal, just basketball related, rude? Yeah, especially coming playoff time, but still way less than the stories…”

Cia questions, “Do you think her style is winning basketball?”

“If I think 27,5 PPG with 5 Assists on 58TS% is winning basketball?”

Star shakes her head pointing out in a disappointed tone, “AIn’t no way you memorize her stats, that’s why you can’t see how terrible she is for the team, you’re a servant of the ice queen, just like those thirsty girls on Twitter.”