#nbablr

Luka managed a weak, exhausted smile, wrapping his hands around the cup. "I'm losing it. It's all starting to sound like gibberish."

JJ pulled out a chair and sat. "That's how you know you're almost there. You'll be fine."

"You don't know that," Luka mumbled.

"I do," JJ said. It was the same voice he used in his lectures, a voice that commanded respect and exuded a certainty Luka desperately needed. "I've watched you do this for three years, Luka. You've got this."

Three years. It has been three years already.

Luka's mind, desperate for any escape from practice questions, drifted back through them. It started with a heart shattering text message.

It was his graduation party. He was eighteen, the king of his world. The MVP trophy from his high school national championship was on the patio table, next to a pile of unopened college recruitment letters, Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, which were all rejected, because he was about to accept the life changing NBA contract offer from the Dallas Mavericks. His future was a straight, bright line to basketball superstardom.

Then his phone buzzed. A message from Kristaps, his boyfriend of four years.

"Luka, we need to talk. It's over. I'm moving to Boston. I got into Harvard undergrad. Pre-law. This is my future. We both know you wouldn't… fit into that world. It's better this way."

The words "wouldn't fit" had echoed in his head, drowning out the cheers of his friends and the proud chatter of his family. Kristaps was heading to an Ivy League to become a lawyer. Luka was heading to the NBA. In Kristaps's eyes, they're no longer compatible.

The NBA contract suddenly felt like a trap, a confirmation of everything Kristaps thought of him.

In a fit of defiant, heartbroken pettiness, he made a decision that shocked the sports world. He turned down the immediate millions. He said goodbye to his NBA dream. And so he did all the work, then finally got accepted to Harvard. Right in Kristaps's new territory.

Luka's own family doubted him. His mom said, "Honey, you are too blonde for law school. If you don't want to join the NBA, I can get you modelling contracts."

His dad said, "Luka, boy, law school is not for you."

But he was determined. He was going to become a lawyer. He was going to prove he was smart enough. He was going to win Kristaps back.

The first year had been a special kind of torture. He felt utterly lost.

And then there was Professor JJ Redick. The youngest, sharpest professor at the law school, a former Duke standout who had traded the court for the courtroom and gotten his juris doctor from Yale. He was intimidating, brilliant, and initially, Luka paid him no attention. All he thought of is being with Kristaps again.

One day, Luka was lost in Property law. JJ used a basketball comparison to explain it.

"Think of the Rule Against Perpetuities like a shot clock," JJ had said, spinning a stress ball on his finger. "The interest has to vest within a life in being plus twenty-one years. The play has to develop and the shot has to be taken before the clock expires. The remote possibility that someone's great-great-grandchild might get the property is like a play that takes too long. It violates the shot clock."