Feb. 27, 2002

BY MATT PALMQUIST
SF Weekly

With seven minutes remaining in the first half of a mid-February game, the visiting University of San Francisco Dons begin to break away from their West Coast Conference rivals, the Loyola Marymount University Lions, building a nine-point lead that leaves little doubt as to which school boasts the more athletic, disciplined, and explosive basketball team. In the face of a burgeoning blowout, many of the 2,500 faithful in Gersten Pavilion, a snazzy arena perched on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean to the west and downtown Los Angeles to the east, exercise their right as fickle Southern California fans to turn away from the court and chat among themselves. Even the LMU students occupying The Cage -- a few rows of midcourt seats enclosed by a chain-link fence and named for the supposedly lionlike roar emanating from their rowdy inhabitants -- are reduced to shaking the fence in frustration as their Lions commit yet another ticky-tack foul.

"John Cox to shoot," says the PA system announcer as USF's sophomore shooting guard strides to the line for his first free throw of the game.

The crowd's steady murmur continues unabated, but the hard-core fans in The Cage clearly have read the program bios for the visiting team. Taking up their megaphones, the students unleash a stream of jeers that pierces the hushed arena and is certainly audible to the 6-foot-4 195-pounder at the line.

"Kobe, Kobe, Kobe!" shouts one fan as the referee bounces the ball to Cox. "Kobe -- you ---!"

Cox never flinches as he raises the ball to shoot. But just before he releases, the jeers reach a fever pitch, with one member of The Cage lifting his voice above the generalized taunting: "Hey Cox, you're no Kobe!"

The ball clangs off the rim.

Backpedaling into defensive position, his elbows cocked and legs pumping in what seems to be a frighteningly precise impersonation of the L.A. Lakers superstar who owns this town and also happens to be his cousin, Cox evinces another mannerism that appears borrowed from Kobe Bryant: a self-conscious head wag, a public display of dismay at blowing a free shot.

The missed free-throw is a rare gaffe in one of the most complete performances of Cox's college career, which is finally beginning to blossom after limited playing time in his freshman year and no basketball at all last year because of injury. En route to a convincing 80-67 victory over Loyola Marymount, Cox leads all players with 19 points on 6-of-9 shooting (including three 3-pointers), eight rebounds, five assists, no turnovers, two blocked shots, and three steals.

After the final horn, two giggling young girls catch up to Cox as he threads his way through the lingering crowd into the visitors' locker room. Wearing a sheepish grin, he obediently scrawls his name on the scraps of paper they thrust at him, well aware that such adulation is not normally directed at a sophomore guard averaging 12 points a game on a .500 team in a second-tier conference.

But hey, at least they're asking Cox for his autograph.

"It's worse at home games, when I see the same kids and they ask the same question: "How's Kobe?'" says Cox, who pronounces his cousin's name as if it rhymes with "robe" rather than "Moby," as the rest of the world says it. "I owe, like, a hundred kids his autograph. Sometimes, when they won't stop asking, "Are you Kobe's cousin?' I just say, "Naw, I'm not. That's just a rumor.'"

But spend 10 minutes watching John Cox move across a basketball court, and you know it's true. He shows flashes of his cousin's breathtaking quickness, the ability to close fast on an opponent's lazy inbounds pass or to explode suddenly down the base line for a twisting, improbable layup. He shares Bryant's defensive tenacity, the fundamental attentiveness to footwork, positioning, and ball movement. He's got the same lanky build, although Bryant is two vital inches taller, and the same game-time grimace. When yanked off the court by his coach, Cox pouts like Bryant, when burying a 3-pointer in the face of a lunging opponent, he pumps his fist and spins up-court in what might as well be a re-enactment of a million SportsCenter highlights starring the Lakers' No. 8.

What John Cox doesn't have, however, is his cousin's preternatural talent, the aura of greatness that earned Bryant the tag of "protégé" at age 17 and the burden of being The Next Michael Jordan when he skipped college to enter the NBA draft. Cox doesn't have Bryant's arrogance, the swagger that comes with winning back-to-back NBA championships and the prospect, as long as he stays healthy, of winning who knows how many more.

Instead, John Cox, who will turn 21 in July, has a lot of unfair expectations to meet, a family history of basketball greatness to live up to, and the knowledge that as good as he becomes in his chosen field, he'll probably never approach the talent and fame of the cousin who first exposed him to the sport.

And he's fine with that.

In November 1998 John Cox held a news conference at his high school, Philadelphia's Carver School of Engineering and Science, to announce which college he'd decided to play for. Several big-time programs had been courting the versatile Cox, a swingman who can play either guard or forward, including the University of Southern California, Pepperdine University, St. Joseph's, Cincinnati, Villanova University, Virginia, Penn State, and USF. Surrounded by his family, high school teammates and coaches, and a swarm of reporters who lavish nearly the same scrutiny on Philadelphia prep basketball as they do on the college or professional game, Cox leaned into the microphone and said, "After a lot of thought, discussions with my parents and grandparents, I've decided to bypass college for ..."

The room exploded in laughter. Two and a half years earlier, in the packed gymnasium of Lower Merion High School (just a 30-minute drive into the suburbs from where Cox held court at Engineering and Science), a 17-year-old Kobe Bryant had announced he would become the seventh U.S. player in history to skip college and leap into the NBA draft (where he was selected 13th by the Charlotte Hornets and then traded to Los Angeles for veteran center Vlade Divac). Cox's press conference joke -- a "spur-of-the-moment thing," he says now -- was both a tribute to Bryant and an acknowledgment of the vastly different expectations that greeted the cousins upon graduating from high school. While Cox had been a star for the Carver Engineers -- averaging 29 points, eight rebounds, and four assists during his senior year, and amassing the then-ninth best career point total in Philadelphia history -- Bryant scored 1,000 more points in his four-year tenure at Lower Merion, led his school to the state championship, and possessed an all-around game that made pro scouts drool.

When the laughter died down, Cox made the expected announcement. "No, I'm joking," he said. "Next year I'll be attending the University of San Francisco."

At first glance, USF was a strange choice for Cox. The Dons -- named after the swashbuckling Spaniards of the pre-Gold Rush era -- haven't won a national championship since back-to-back titles in 1955 and 1956, when future Boston Celtics greats Bill Russell and K.C. Jones led USF to a then-record 60 wins in a row. After several appearances in (and early exits from) the NCAA tournament in the '60s and '70s, USF earned a bid in 1998 for the first time in 16 years, during current head coach Phil Mathews' third season. But after being blown out by Utah in the first round, USF hasn't been back to the tournament, finishing a disappointing 12-18 last season.

About 80 percent of the reason he picked USF, Cox says, was the urging of his father, John "Chubby" Cox (he got the nickname from his family as a child), a star point guard for highly ranked Dons teams in the late '70s. Fourth on the list of USF's career assist leaders, Chubby Cox (who fed many of those assists to future NBA player and coach Bill Cartwright, the Dons' all-time scoring leader) was taken 159th overall in the 1978 NBA draft by the Chicago Bulls. He played only seven games in the league, for the then-Washington Bullets during the 1982-83 season. Most of Cox Sr.'s basketball career was spent overseas, where professional leagues eagerly snap up players not quite good enough to cut it in the NBA. He was playing for the Caracas, Venezuela, squad in 1981 when his wife, Victoria, whom he had met when she was a cheerleader at USF, gave birth to John Arthur Cox IV.

The Coxes soon moved back to the United States, where Chubby Cox's sister, Pam, had boosted the family's basketball gene pool by marrying Joe Bryant, a journeyman forward for the Philadelphia 76ers who would play eight years in the NBA. Kobe, named after a Pennsylvania steakhouse, was born in 1978, a year after Joe Bryant's 76ers fell to Bill Walton's Portland Trail Blazers in the NBA finals. When Joe Bryant's NBA career ended in 1984, the Bryants moved to Italy so Joe could continue playing professional basketball there. As a boy, John Cox IV often visited his cousin's family in Europe, where young Kobe hung out with his father's basketball friends and studied tapes of NBA games.

"I was going to stay there and do a school year when I was 7, but my parents were missing me too much, and I had to come back," says Cox, in a soft, plain-spoken voice that shares his cousin's inflections and intelligence without quite the level of self-assurance and media savvy. "My family is just like a knot, really close. There's nothing more important than my family. I could be with my aunt, and she's just like my mother. That's how our family is. Kobe's like a brother to me."

In 1991 the Bryant family moved back to the Philadelphia area so Kobe, now 13, and his two sisters could enroll in American high school before attending college (or skipping it for the NBA). It was upon his cousin's return -- and under his tutelage -- that the 9-year-old Cox first started playing basketball with a passion.

"Kobe had a lot to do with that," Cox says. "Kobe constantly played, and we were together, so I started playing, too. When I was 9, I started playing every day. In the summer, I was always around him. Wherever -- the schoolyard, in leagues, we'd go to the playground, in front of my grandma's house, passing, bouncing the ball off the garage.

"Everybody just played basketball -- that's what everybody did. Even when we weren't playing, everybody had a basketball, just dribbling around the streets. My Auntie Pam, Kobe's mother, used to call our basketballs our girlfriends. When we didn't have one in our hands, she used to say, "Where your girlfriends at? Where'd you leave your girlfriends?' We always had 'em on us."

By the time Cox entered Robert Lamberton High School, where he started alongside four seniors on a mediocre team, cousin Kobe, now a senior, was the best high school basketball player in the country. "He was The Man," Cox says. "He used to pick me up from school a lot, he'd pull up in the Land Cruiser. That's when it really started, when everyone knew he was my cousin."

Cox transferred to Engineering and Science for his sophomore year, where he was the sixth man (but second-leading scorer) on a team that advanced to the Philadelphia Public League championship. Because of his coach's loyalty to seniors, Cox didn't start, although he modestly claims that "once I came in, I was in the whole game." The next year he started, averaging 26.5 points per game, and by his senior season he was a bona fide star, performing in many of the high school all-star camps (most of them sponsored by shoe companies looking to find the next superstar endorser) that his cousin had dominated just a few years earlier. Known as a slasher who scored most of his points on quick, powerful drives to the basket, Cox also worked hard to develop the areas of his game that didn't come as naturally.

"He had an innate ability to score," says Allen Rubin, the scout who ranked Cox No. 6 in his Philadelphia-area senior class for Hoop Scoop magazine, a publication tailored to obsessive fans and college coaches. "A lot of it he picked up playing with Kobe. From in close, midrange, he just knew how to score. He had good moves to the basket, and in his senior year he developed a good outside shot. He was never a defensive gem, but each year he progressed."

After watching Cox play in a national-level tournament of high school stars in Las Vegas, USF head coach Phil Mathews immediately offered him a scholarship.

"He was an intelligent player, not a great athlete, but he knew how to play the game," Mathews says. "And that's important, to know how to play the game."

Cox accepted Mathews' offer after a tour of the campus and city, telling his father that even if he got hurt, he could be happy at USF. As it happened, Cox sat out last year, what would have been his sophomore season, after surgery to remove bone spurs from his left toe, an injury that he says afflicts "basketball stars -- basketball people -- the most." He began playing again when the Dons toured Spain last summer and has started every game this season, averaging 12 points and five rebounds. Two weeks ago, with his father visiting from Philadelphia and watching his son play for the first time in two years, Cox scored a career-high 22 points against the University of San Diego and 20 points against Santa Clara University, a pair of performances that earned him WCC Player of the Week honors.

"I started letting the game come to me," Cox says of his recent high-scoring performances. "Before, I was forcing it instead of letting the flow of the game dictate. And when you force it, you're inconsistent. You'll have a good game, bad game, good game, bad game. Now I'm trying to get in sync."

Inconsistency, however, remains the biggest -- and most obvious -- shortcoming in Cox's game. In his shining performance against Loyola Marymount, Cox's play is so confident, his passes so crisp and shots so fluid, that he hardly seems the same tentative player who wore No. 33 for the Dons in the previous night's game against Pepperdine.

The Dons came into Malibu with a 6-2 record in West Coast Conference play, trailing first-place Pepperdine by just two games and second-place Gonzaga University (then ranked 10th in the nation) by only one. A USF victory would have snapped Pepperdine's 10-game winning streak and made the Dons legitimate West Coast Conference title contenders heading into the league's tournament, which begins Saturday in San Diego. The winner of the league playoffs earns an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

For three-fourths of a physical, well-played game, the Dons and Waves trade baskets and body blows at almost a dead heat. But USF's season unravels in the space of two minutes, when Cox makes three costly turnovers -- one offensive foul and two intercepted passes -- that enable the fast-breaking Waves to take a lead they never relinquish.

After the 79-72 Pepperdine win, USF players gradually trickle out of the locker room and melt into the beach-blond crowd, still celebrating its Homecoming triumph. Cox emerges last, a towel draped over his head and shoulders, and darts out of the raucous hallway to join Darrell Tucker, the Dons' best player and Cox's closest friend on the team, on a low brick wall near the waiting team bus, where Tucker tries to convince Cox the loss wasn't his fault.

Three days later, after squeezing in his reps in USF's gleaming weight room before an afternoon practice, Cox perches on the edge of a padded bench, elbows resting on his knees and eyes locked on his dangling hands, and broods on the season-crushing Pepperdine defeat, which dropped the Dons into third place. Over the sounds of clanging weights and rhythm-and-blues radio, Cox -- a low-key, self-deprecating, genuinely nice guy who greets most questions with a slow, contemplative "Yeah ..." before answering -- says he feels personally responsible for the pivotal loss and that his standout performance the next night at Loyola Marymount was an attempt to make amends.

"We let go a big game, and a lot of it was my fault," says Cox. "We were right there. I had six turnovers, most turnovers I ever had .... And we only lost by seven, so it was close. I was just too careless."

Coach Phil Mathews has his own explanation.

"Against Pepperdine, you gotta adjust your game," says Mathews, whose fiery intensity during games has been compared to Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight's but whose friendly demeanor off the court couldn't be further from the former Indiana legend's bombastic behavior. "Those turnovers -- those guys were quick, he didn't think they would get there, and they got there. You have to know that.

"In high school John was bigger than everybody. He was 6-4, so he could slash. You get up here, you find 6-4 guys guarding you who are probably better athletes than you are. So you've got to adjust your game, learn to come off screens, pick your spots, when to slash. You can't just go out and do what you did in high school, because up here they're bigger, stronger, and just as quick as you are."

Cox admits it took him awhile to learn how to play the college game. ("About a year," he says drolly, "my first year, in fact.") But he believes the key to establishing some consistency in his offensive production -- which the Dons will sorely need over the next two years if they plan to compete for the WCC title -- is developing a reliable long-range jump shot to complement his proven ability to drive toward the basket.

It's no coincidence that this is the same strategy Kobe Bryant employed after his first two seasons in the NBA and that the mastery of a jump shot in his third season transformed Bryant into the most versatile scorer in basketball -- someone who can create his own shot from anywhere on the court, no matter what the defense.

"I saw how early in Kobe's career, he liked to get to the basket a lot," Cox says.

"But he shoots a lot of jumpers now, and that's really opened up his game. I know college is different than pro, but in that way it's similar. You gotta shoot jump shots to open the gaps up."

But the jump shots have to fall. In the Dons' next game after their Loyola Marymount victory (in which they lost starting point guard LyRyan Russell to a torn anterior cruciate ligament, a season-ending injury), they are absolutely embarrassed 77-67 on the road by a lesser Santa Clara team. The Broncos jump out to a 20-point halftime lead, and although USF holds them to just seven field goals in the second half, the cold-shooting, too-tentative Dons can't make a momentum-shifting, rally-sparking play. Watching Cox struggle to make shots within USF's offensive sets, you can't help but think of his cousin's now-routine late-game heroics, when Bryant instinctively takes control and almost single-handedly shoots the Lakers to victory.

"Yeah, I won some games like that in high school," Cox says, "but I lost some that way, too. My shot was just off [against Santa Clara]. I've got to keep shooting, I'm a scorer, I need to make plays."

Cox finishes with just 10 points on 3-of-17 shooting, including 1-of-8 from behind the 3-point arc. The humbling loss to the Broncos -- and another to San Diego two nights later -- sends the Dons tumbling to a third-place tie in the WCC standings, their hopes for a title (or at least a top seed in the league tournament) all but vanquished.

"Three-for-17? Holy, what was wrong?"

Less than five seconds after answering his phone in Philadelphia, Chubby Cox dives into an impassioned, deadly accurate interpretation of the USF-Santa Clara box score, which he has committed to memory although the game ended only 15 hours ago, 3,000 miles away. In fact, Chubby Cox -- who clearly lives each USF loss or win as if he, rather than his son, still were roaming the Dons' backcourt -- has already left a message on John's answering machine with detailed suggestions on how to improve his play.

"Eight 3-pointers, what's that all about?" groans Chubby Cox, in a gravelly, vigorous voice that lends certain basketball terms a life-and-death emphasis. "John's got to be more aggressive, got to get in the lane. John's like that, he'd rather not make turnovers, but he's got to start ballin'. He's got to take some chances."

What kind of chances?

"Three-for-17? Son, take that ----- to the hoop, take that shit to the cup." Chubby Cox sighs, catches his breath, and continues as if he's speaking directly to his son, which he clearly longs to do. "John, if you see the double [team], kick it away. Come on, now. You gotta penetrate. You gotta have the ball, you got the ball-handling skills. No turnovers -- why don't you have turnovers? Come on, now. You need to make yourself look good."

Chubby Cox is tremendously proud of his son, delighted John chose his alma mater (which he calls, "a great institution in the most wonderful city in the world"). He says John, a "very personal person," is growing as a basketball player and an individual. But Chubby Cox fears that the fundamentals he helped instill in John, back when he was "buying so many Nerf basketballs it was ridiculous," sometimes make him a too-careful player. The biggest mistake John can make, says his father, is being too afraid to make mistakes.

"He's a scorer -- the boy's got skills, man. I can't wait to get to that point where he enjoys playing," Chubby Cox says. "I mean, John loves basketball. He was just like I was. But he needs to relax more. Ain't nobody gonna make 'em win like John could."

Chubby Cox is well acquainted with the skills possessed by both his son and the family's other twentysomething basketballer. Chubby and his brother-in-law, Joe Bryant, used to play two-on-two against John and Kobe, leading playground teaching sessions that gradually became showdowns between fathers with NBA experience and sons with NBA potential.

"You can't get up on Kobe, he can get by you," says Chubby Cox, with the authority of a man who has personally been burned. "Oh, man, we used to play. But we let that go when they started throwin' down backdoor dunks on us. Neither one of us could guard Kobe anymore."

Chubby Cox wants to see a bit more of that playground flash rekindle in his son's college game. John's not naturally comfortable as a long-range, 3-point specialist, Chubby argues. He's a slasher who must create -- not await -- scoring opportunities.

Heaving another exasperated sigh, Chubby Cox again speaks as if he has his son's ear: "Come on, now, you've got to take control. Don't leave nothing out on the floor. Take some chances. Start entertaining the fans a little bit."

In other words, play more like Kobe Bryant.

After an afternoon practice on the Dons' gold-and-green home court, John Cox occupies a courtside seat in an otherwise empty War Memorial Gymnasium. Swigging from a bottle of Powerade, Cox is dressed in the typical collegiate athlete's garb of swishy workout pants, practice jersey (Don jerseys bear coach Mathews' motto: "We play hard"), and Adidas sandals. Against the backdrop of the vacated court -- silent except for the hum of overhead lights -- Cox draws with his index finger a detailed series of imaginary screens, pick-and-roll plays, and give-and-go passes. "Kobe told me a couple things after he watched us play [Cal. State] Fullerton [earlier this season], different places to get my shots out of our offense," Cox says. "Kobe tells me things like that, gives me advice."

Up close, Cox's mannerisms, speech patterns, and quick-forming grins bear an even more striking resemblance to those of his famous cousin, who is one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People and with whom he speaks frequently. But Cox says the off-court similarities and on-court parallels aren't intentional.

"People say that, but I don't really see it," he says. "That's not saying I don't pick up things from Kobe, but I guess it's just from growing up playing against each other."

Cox admits it was strange watching Bryant progress from just another playground player to high school phenom to worldwide celebrity. Although he says Bryant hasn't changed at all in his interactions with the close-knit family, Cox marvels at the attention heaped upon him by fans, media, and -- especially -- overseas audiences. During the summer before his senior year in high school, Cox accompanied his cousin on a three-week trip to the Philippines, Australia, Korea, and Japan, a vacation sponsored by the Adidas sports shoe and clothing company. Cox was stunned to find himself playing alongside his cousin in promotional three-on-three half-court games in sold-out 10,000-seat arenas.

"Even in high school, back home, he was big," Cox says. "But when he went to the NBA, after he won the dunk contest, he was so big. Sometimes we'd be sitting around and I'd say, "Kobe, this is amazing.' Everybody'd be like, "Kobe, Kobe, Kobe.' And it's weird because we used to be playing, and nobody would know him. We'd be walking down the street, shooting, dribbling, and he was nobody. Now I'm used to it, but it was hard to deal with at first."

With the perks of being Kobe Bryant's cousin -- traveling to foreign countries, meeting Lakers center Shaquille O'Neal and playing him one-on-one -- come the downsides, including the occasionally hostile crowds when USF goes on the road. In fact, on a scale of one to 10, Cox gives the Loyola Marymount fans who screamed taunts when he was on the free-throw line only a two.

"I heard a lot of it there, but it was nothing like it was at Gonzaga," Cox says, shaking his head at the memory of a tough night in Spokane. "Gonzaga was like an 11. I shot free throws in the second half, and the whole gym was shouting, "You're not Kobe!' They went on a run, got up 13 or 14, and the crowd was yelling, "John, you can go to L.A. now! Game's over!' That's just part of going on the road. Some things are kinda funny. You try to tune it out, but if everyone's screaming, you gotta hear it."

Coach Mathews says he's impressed with the way Cox handles the unfriendly crowds and the inevitable comparisons.

"Sometimes, when you have those genes, it's a curse to you, because you have to measure up," Mathews says. "But John is his own player. He's improving, and people are realizing it. John is very low-key but very competitive. Kobe doesn't make a big deal out of it, and they're close. I'm more concerned about John just finding his niche here."

Cox's dream, of course, is to someday find a niche in the NBA. But in reality, Cox needs to explode during his junior and senior seasons if he's going to have a shot. As USF coach Mathews puts it, "He's only a sophomore, and you never can tell about kids. He's playing better and better. I know he wants to [play professionally], and when that time comes, we'll see. Being a pro is a hard thing to do. You really have to work, and if you're on the fringe, you gotta go to the right team and get a break. It's in his hands."

Marty Blake, the league's legendary director of scouting, phrases it less delicately: "He's got no chance, right now. The fact that he's Kobe's brother [sic] doesn't mean anything. If he starts averaging 24 [points] a game, then it would mean something."

That's why Cox has a fallback plan. A business major who earned an 87.1 average in high school, Cox is savvy enough to realize his famous genes might land him a job in the boardroom, if not on the hard-court.

"If I major in business, you know, my cousin's pretty popular, I might be able to get a good job," Cox says. "Right now I'm focusing on college basketball. If it takes me further, then I'll go further. But right now I want to concentrate on my education, get my degree."

When asked if he feels at all bitter toward the cousin who's achieved everything -- and achieved it so quickly -- in the sport that's dominated both of their young lives, John Cox dons an unusually serious frown. "Bitter?" he asks. "I don't know what you mean, "bitter.'"

Does Cox resent his cousin's success? Does he ever wonder why he's not the one who was blessed with the beyond-extraordinary talent in the family?

"Oh, I see what you're saying," says Cox, with a sigh and a nod that indicates he's thought about this question many, many times. "Do I feel I'm in his shadow? Not really. I'm glad he's doing so well. He helps me a lot. People are still going to say, "You're not Kobe,' no matter what. I just have to be the best player I can be.

"It's so everyday, you know? It used to bother me, but not anymore. That's what I am. I am his cousin. There's nothing else to it."

John Cox has never beaten Kobe Bryant one-on-one.

But he's come close.

The last time was in October, when the cousins were back in Philadelphia to attend their grandfather's funeral. They played in the gymnasium of Bryant's high school, Lower Merion. With the score tied 10-10, Bryant buried two jump shots to seal the victory.

"Usually there's a lot of trash talk, it can get real competitive," Cox says. "But once I lose, he knows I'm mad anyway. He knows it hit my heart already. He can kind of not say anything, just walk off the court like that's how it's supposed to be, and that makes me even more mad."

But while Cox would like to someday beat his cousin one-on-one, that's not the competition by which he measures his success. Instead, he says, he'll feel he's arrived if he can team up with his cousin -- ideally in the NBA but otherwise on charity or promotional squads -- to beat players who don't share their proud family's genes.

"If anything, if someday down the line I was playing at a professional level, I'd want to play with him," Cox says emphatically. "Rather than play against him, I'd rather play with him. I've always kind of wanted to play with him anyway. We can compete later in a gym one-on-one, you know what I mean?

"No, when it counts, I'd rather play with him."