I felt anxious parking my rental car next to the players’ row of luxury sports cars inside Key West Arena — a Porsche, a Maserati GT, a Hummer, a Cadillac Escalade. As I got out of my Rav4, a Hispanic kid with tattoos on his forearms ran up to me.

“Hello.”

“Hello,” I said back.

“You need anything?”

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“Me?”

“Yes sir, you. Do you play for the Suns?”

“Yeah, I hope so.” I stopped. “What’s your name?”

“Ricky. I do stuff for the guys. Wash their car. Clean it. Do stuff, you know, whatever they need.”

“Nice. How long you been working with the Suns?”

“Been here forever man.”

I reached out my hand.

“Cool, man. Nice to meet you, Ricky. I’m Trevor. And my Rav4 and I are good. We don’t need anything.”

I smiled and we shook hands awkwardly. It was almost like he wanted something from me. A tip perhaps.

“Do you want me take your keys? Clean anything?”

“No, I’m good, man. This Rav4 is clean as a whistle right now — so, quick question, how do I get to the locker room?”

He pointed to the double doors straight ahead of me.

“Go straight, turn right, follow it to the end. You’ll hear them.”

“Cool. Thanks, man.”

“Yup, no prob. Good luck.”

I said thanks and started anxiously walking towards the opportunity of a lifetime.

Basketball was my life, even if I didn’t look like a basketball player.

Obviously, I wasn’t a superstar. I looked down at my Rastafarian flip-flops, tan, baggy, cargo shorts and Star Wars shirt that read “May the Force Be With You.” I wondered if I was wearing the right clothes for my first NBA vets’ camp, but knowing your role when you have $200 in your bank account isn’t hard when you’re surrounded by mega-rich NBA superstars.

“Just do your job,” I kept telling myself.

I was hungry to prove something, but I knew in NBA life, you get overlooked until you continue to demand not to be.

And that means you have to get to their level mentally first. See, NBA players all have or act like they have one thing, even if they don’t: confidence.

In Latin, the word confidence comes from the root word confidere, to have faith in yourself, to presume you are good enough. But no one talked about their lack of confidence or depression of losing star status on campus or the anxiety a pro athlete deals with on a day-to-day basis.

I had been fighting anxiety since I walked onto Kent State and tried out before I got a scholarship. I felt anxiety since the days I was a kid and my dad yelled at me to play harder.

Anxiety was just part of my life.

So I knew what it felt like to be a long shot. In fact, most of my Kent State teammates were misfits, the unwanted kids that fell through the cracks of college recruiting.

I had a month to make the Suns roster, to survive until the last cut, and to do this, I’d had to find my confidence and show Jerry Colangelo, Frank Johnson, and Mike D’Antoni I was good enough.

And my Rav4 sitting there didn’t really inspire “Baller of the Year” vibes. And if you’ve never been in an NBA team’s parking garage, let me tell you something: These dudes drive the nicest shit, ever.

On one side of my red Rav4 was a navy 2004 GT Maserati convertible coupe. Next to that, some sort of grey Mercedes AMG coupe, probably the one with the doors that opened sideways like The Batmobile. I left my rental inside the row of badass cars, these shiny sparkling beacons of luxury, and smiled as I made my way to the Sun’s locker room.

“That will at least make them laugh,” I thought.