"See, for each one of these delicious chocolate chip cookies, there is an equally delicious NBA Championship ring that you don't have — one for each chocolaty cookie. You've got to be hungry, LeBron. I'm talking 'bout stomach growlin!"

Kobe Puppet's words have been playing through my head over and over again for the past week.

"You've got to be hungry, Rod."

The words played over and over again as I woke up at 6 a.m. to board an 8 a.m. flight from Sacramento to New York. They played again when I finally arrived at my hotel room in Terrytown, NY, at 9 p.m. after being stuck in Puerto Rican Day traffic for two hours. They woke me up the next morning at 7 a.m. (EDT).

"You've got to be hungry, Rod."

I played like a man whose stomach was growlin'. Lil' Kobe would have been proud.

I spent the entire next day flying back to Sacramento. My legs felt like Jell-O after flying for 14 hours and playing for four in a 56-hour span. It was all good, though, because I could finally relax a couple days and get my legs back. Then my phone rang again.

"Rodrigue," my agent said, "you’re going to LA for this D-League elite camp. I’ll email your itinerary."

I always ignore the fact that he calls me Rodrigue instead of my real name: Rodrique. Well, I ignore it when there’s news. The news was that I had two days before I had to fly to Los Angeles for this camp. No rest for the weary, I guess.

"You've got to be hungry, Rod."

It was this past weekend in Los Angeles, though, that I realized what it means to be truly hungry. The D-League was holding it’s own pre-draft camp at the same facility all weekend as well. Everyday before the Elite campers took the court, 200 guys were battling it out for the right to be drafted to the D-League. That is the ULTIMATE hunger. Why? Let me explain.

Think about if you were truly, truly starving. Think Will Smith in "The Pursuit of Happyness." Imagine that there are 39 other people just like you in a room, and somehow, a delicious chocolaty cookie is placed among you. Only one of you can have it. Besides speed and strength, there will be only one factor determining who will get that cookie: whoever is the hungriest.

The D-League pre-draft camp is similar except that many of these guys don’t really know that those are their odds. Two hundred guys were working out that weekend, the same amount as last year, and of last year's crop, only five made rosters for D-League teams.

As the elite players entered the gym that day, it was clear that we were bigger, stronger, faster, and more athletic than most of the guys in the pre-draft. We had a certain swagger about us that was clearly on another level than these other guys trying to get to where we are. But in seeing the faces of all these 200 dudes busting their Spaldings for a chance to just have a chance, reminded me that I should never forget how hungry you have to be.

"You've got to be hungry, Rod."

With the D-League elite camp now complete and the NBA summer season underway, the fans are about to see just who is the hungriest in the next few months. I’m no expert, but there have been rumblings that this year's draft class is weaker than other years, and that guys like me have a better shot now as a result. All that means to me is that there might be one more cookie up for grabs and that whoever wants it is going to have to take it.

You can catch me, other D-Leaguers, potential free agents, and all the rookie draft picks battling for that last of Kobe’s delicious cookies in the summer league and camps all summer. Let’s see whose stomach is growling.

"You've got to be hungry, Rod."

*****

Rod Benson is a Cal grad who plays for the D-League's Reno Bighorns. When he's not busy eating cookies, he blogs one or two times a week on Ball Don't Lie. Read his archive, pay a visit to TooMuchRodBenson.com and always support the Boom Tho movement.

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