human
Well, began the tenderfoot slowly,
gpt
I have an idea Sheffield is trying to face Elkana with the strongest team he can put together; he'll have to if he expects to win, because Elkana has easily the best team, with the possible exception of our own, in the high-school league. I don't think he has dropped you Scouts because of spite.
human
You mean that those other four are better players than we are?
gpt
No. Bonfire considered the case judicially.
human
No, you fellows are better than they are--individually.
gpt
But--
human
Wait a minute, Bi. I think I can make you understand what I mean. Basketball, you see, isn't like football, where the quarter calls a signal that tells some player what to do; nor like baseball, where you field a certain position, or bat yourself on base, or try to bring another fellow home. No, basketball is different, a lot different. When the ball comes to you, maybe you dribble it along and pass it to somebody else, and maybe you try for a basket yourself.
gpt
I don't see--
human
You won the first Elkana game, Bonfire interrupted placidly,
gpt
But you just said we were better players than Barrett and Kiproy and Collins and Turner.
human
Better individually, I said. The trouble with you fellows is that you are too good. You can shoot baskets so accurately that you forget there is more to the game than merely looping the ball for a goal every time you get hold of it. Look here, Bunny, who shot the most baskets in the game we won from Elkana?
gpt
Sheffield,
human
And in the Grant game? And the Deerfield game?
gpt
Sheffield. We aren't claiming, though, that he isn't the best basketball player in Lakeville. He is, I guess. But in those last games, at least, he had more chances to score than any other player.
human
Exactly! said Bonfire.
gpt
And that is how Lakeville will beat Elkana Saturday--if it does. By teamwork, by each player's forgetting himself for the good of the machine, by feeding the ball at every opportunity to the best basket-shooter of them all--Royal Sheffield. Kiproy won't try to score, but to pass the ball to Sheffield whenever he can, and then hover under the basket for a possible miss; and so will Collins and Barrett and Turner. You four fellows might loop it in from the center of the floor, or from off to one side--sometimes! Sheffield won't miss one try out of five. Do you see what I mean?