A Belgian has scored thirty points in the NBA. Ajay Mitchell, with Oklahoma City, against Phoenix, one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fourteen. A career high. I saw it in the morning, before opening the club bar, and I did what I do with anything that matters: I wrote it on the cork board in marker, next to the U10 fixture list and the raffle poster.
The board, at our place, is the only presentation video we’ve got. A biro, a drawing pin. The Cats are on it, the Lions too, with the same pin, I don’t play favourites. Now there’s an NBA guard up there, and I’d run out of pins. I took one off the minibus poster. The minibus starts, it can do without a pin.
Thirty points in twenty-five minutes and change. Ten of sixteen from the field, nine of ten from the free-throw line. Top scorer for his team, ahead of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and his twenty-six. I’m not jealous, I’m a club president: I read that and I think of the person who switched the lights off in the hall afterwards. Over there, there must be one. Nobody applauds them, mind you.
Chantal, you wrote it big. Here, we write small first, just in case.
He’s right, I checked twice before getting the marker out. Then I told the woman on the coffee rota “not bad”, and she nodded. It’s the highest compliment we pay in the Condroz, near Namur.
Oklahoma City have won their first four games. Me, I’ve still got the badminton chairs to stack, and the key to hand back before midnight.
It’s true, we checked: L'Avenir.
