Davante Adams finds his bliss en route to the Las Vegas Raiders

Don't stop paddling

It was easy before everything changed about a quarter mile into the run. The sound of Banzai Hole came first, the sound of angry water coming towards them, louder and louder. Soares says that their eyes got big.

The water equivalent to one basketball rolling down a hill is what one CFS is referred to as. Banzai Hole is a Class III rapid that can ascend to a Class IV when it's flowing like it does in the late spring. The 75-foot rock face on the other end of Banzai Hole is one of the problems with the hole. "If you fall out and end up having to swim, you won't die," Soares says. You could.

"Don't stop paddling!" Soares yelled before they entered the rapid on the Upper Kings. You will flip the boat if you stop.

East Palo Alto, California, a city of 30,000 with a 2020 per capita income of $32,000, is a stark contrast to its Silicon Valley peers. The per capita income of Menlo Park was more than $80,000. He was 14 years old when he looked out the window of his grandparents' house and saw a car driving down the street. As the windows were rolled down and someone began firing a gun at the house, Davante sprinted out the door and pulled his sisters back into the house. Adams said they don't whitewater raft in East Palo Alto.

He caught the attention of Soares's voice when he was on that river with Carr. Do you hold on for something? What will happen in the near future? I don't know what to do. Adams makes a statement. I stopped paddling when we got through there because we were going down.

Carr stopped paddling, too, which left it to Soares and Heather. When Soares needed their power the most, they weren't there.

Adams was the first person to fall out of the raft. Adams claims that Soares was in the boat with the only seatbelt. He says that the boat was cleared that day. One was the number of times I cleared a boat on the Kings.

There they were, in nature's washing machine, bobbing in the churned froth, all those liquid basketballs hitting them without mercy, their heads just long enough to steal a breath before being dragged under all over again.

Adams thought that this was where he died.

A 10-second window for rafters to reach the shore is estimated by Soares. They struggled, but they struggled in the direction of safety, and as they stood on the shore taking inventory, Soares told them that they had to finish the run.

After laughing, Soares admits that he had a text exchange with Carr last month to make sure it was okay to discuss any of this. Soares tells me that after clearing the boat, they had a talk on the shore about how important it is to never stop paddling. They were the best paddlers I've had.

Adams and Carr have developed a special bond over the years. He said we almost died together. People don't understand that. After a vigorous recruiting campaign by Carr that led to the trade of Adams from the Packers, they will try to navigate the roiling waters of the Las Vegas Raiders.

Along with a new head coach and all the attendant business that comes with it, Adams gives them hope for something more, something better and more meaningful than earning a mere playoff spot, a feat the Raiders achieved last year for just the second time in two decades. He gives Carr, a quarterback who has amassed massive but often hollow statistics, a star receiver.

Carr says it was "surreal" to see his old friend in a Raiders uniform for the first time. I can't believe we are doing this again. I'm going to throw him the first touchdown. There is more to come.

It was unlikely that the Raiders would make it to the playoffs last year. They lost their head coach after the release of a series of sordid emails, as well as a former first-round wide receiver and a defensive back.

We had a loss of life last year. A player lost his career with a life-changing decision. We had an issue with our coach. There was a first round pick. In my nine years with the Raiders, I have had to answer a lot of questions that I don't think anyone should have to answer. I'm not answering questions about this controversy anymore because the coaches have made it all about ball. I'm just talking about football.

The message stays the same.

Don't stop paddling

The metaphors can write their own stories.

The house looks like a warehouse from the future, with more than 10,000 square feet of glass and steel, a six-screen game room, and a kitchen so big that Adams rides his electric bike around it. The lights of Vegas are close by. The golf course is visible from the backyard and you can smell the sand trap.

You know you've made it when you live in a house that requires you to pass through two gates to get to it. Adams is sitting in the game room of his house on a huge sofa. He had just excused himself to put Daija to bed, and he was trying to convey how grateful and amazed he was that he was able to do it.

He said he came from the opposite direction. It was time to make this a reality for me and my family.

Adams and his family got here after a series of events that felt chaotic and rushed but in reality were put into motion a long time ago. The March trade that sent Adams to the Raiders for two draft picks can be traced back to the on-field chemistry and off-field friendship between Adams and Carr that began as soon as Adams arrived at the school.

When he showed up, Carr thought he was different. Adams and his teammates combined for 38 touchdown and more than 3000 yards over the course of their two seasons at the school. Adams and Carr lived near each other in the San Francisco Bay Area during the off-season and worked out with each other.

Carr says that he had a Raiders shirt that he wore when they went hooping. I didn't make a big deal of it because I wanted him to say it into existence. And here we are, right?

There is no such thing as player-to- player tampering. Carr said he was egregious. Carr called his friend after the Raiders' loss. Adams knew what he was talking about when his name popped up. Carr told him that he was ready whenever he was ready. Let's figure it out Carr wished him luck, but probably failed to give him enough time to focus on the moment, as the Packers were about to play the 49ers. Carr wondered if a friend should give another friend before hitting him with the full-court press after the Packers lost at home.

Carr is going to tell the truth. I sent him a text the day after. I was unable to help myself.

Adams looked around and felt the emotion of the first eight years of his career as he walked off the field. It was -13 degrees when he and his wife returned to California. He says that was the last time he had ever tasted Green Bay. I think about it now. I definitely left on my way with a memory.

It's easy to imagine Carr sitting at home, drumming his fingers and wondering how egregious he was. They had talked about this before, but this time it felt different. The bond they forged in college through shared goals and personality traits was lasting through eight NFL seasons.

Carr's efforts continued over the next two months over golf and throwing sessions. The Packers would have paid Adams $20 million with no security beyond this season if they'd placed the franchise tag on him. Adams says it's a horrible thing for the players. Even though it was difficult for the two to talk during the off-season, Rodgers suggested to Adams that he should retire from Green Bay. Even though the Packers offered him a bigger contract than the one he signed with the Raiders, Adams asked to be traded. It was obvious from the beginning that Las Vegas was his preferred destination and the Packers made it happen because of his contributions to the team. The fourth-leading receiver in Green Bay history, a first-team All- Pro in each of the past two seasons, a 29-year-old, still-in-his-prime superstar with 47 touchdown catches in his last 57 games, became the biggest star to change teams this past

Adams had to think about his life and happiness. I don't know where I want my children to grow up. I'm a West Coast guy and a lot of my family haven't been able to see me play in a long time. It's not much, it's all the same people. It's not easy to get into Green Bay, and it's expensive as well.

I had to leave every weekend to return to California. I flew back and forth on commercial flights on weekends. Each week, I fly to see my family. I wanted to be with my team, but not have to leave my family. That is big for me. I'm a family man and that was pointless.

The old-fashioned way to find out about a trade is through a social networking site. Adams received a message from Getsy, a former assistant with the Packers, just as Carr received a message from Adams. Davante says there were probably 100,000 people who knew he was a Raiders player. The comprehensive strategy that started years before had finally worked.

Carr says that the cool part was that he got his friend back. That is the cool part.

It's hard to say if Davante Adams has an incredible memory or a penchant for revenge, but he can remember the names of every wide receiver that was drafted before him. He says that they cannot judge what a true dog is like on the field. He can give you their statistics and how they compare to his, which in most cases is terrible.

Sammy Watkins is the fourth pick, Mike Evans is the seventh, Brandin Cooks is the 20th, Marqise Lee is the 42nd and Paul Richardson is the 45th. He told everyone at his draft party to wear black on the second night because he wasn't chosen on the first night. Adams says that was the funeral. Everyone was going to be punished for not picking Davante Adams earlier.

A combination of obsessiveness and constant competitiveness has made him one of the two or three best receivers in the NFL. Sometimes the game gets so far inside him that he can detach himself from reality. Nick Robinson, Adams' best friend from high school and now a business associate, was having a conversation with Adams in Green Bay a few days before a 2020 Week 14 game against the Lions.

His face went into rictus and he sweated on his forehead. Adams retreated into the depths of his mind.

Robinson asked "you all right?".

Adams came back as if he'd responded to a hypnotist.

He apologized. I was thinking about what I would do to the Lions.

He told Robinson that he was going to score on a long pass play. He said after a short pass.

On the Packers' first possession, with a little more than eight minutes left in the first quarter, Adams released from the line with a stutter step fake to the outside, then hit Amani Oruwariye with three quick strides to the sideline to gain a remarkable amount of separation Adams ran into the end zone after catching a Rodgers pass. There was no one near him when he reached the end zone. After dropping the ball in the end zone, he ran back to the sideline and a detective was on the scene.

Only a few people have seen it. He doesn't know he's doing it. It's so strange when it does. Adams doesn't like to be excited when he makes a big catch or score. You can't act surprised when you know what's coming.

The most INTERESTING stuff happens on the margins, away from the eyes of the world. There are many parables to be found in the pickup games on the basketball courts.

Adams was the best player on the court at North Gym when he was a sophomore in college, but he was matched up against a guy who was not his real name. The particulars are lost to the mists of time, even though The Mouth may or may not have been a member of the track team. This guy was the stereotypical villain, strutting around, proclaiming his greatness in a way that was peculiar to good basketball players.

The majority of the talk was about Adams. A teammate of Adams says that the guy could hang with the girl. It was very difficult to find a person who could do that. Adams pretended he didn't hear it or that it wasn't important. Something changed after that. The mouth said something that only Adams could hear. The molecule in the atmosphere had changed.

Mitchell said that you could see the look in Tae's eyes. I thought, here we go.

Adams was a star point guard on Palo Alto High's basketball team, and his mother says they all thought he was going to the NBA. He missed his first two seasons of high school football after breaking his arm three times, and he had decided to concentrate solely on basketball when his cousin Eric Washington told him he should really get out there and play wideout.

Adams had been a quarterback in football. It's about me being a hooper.

"You're 6-1, it's 6-7 point guards these days," said Eric. You could become a big wide receiver.

Adams and Bono helped propel Palo Alto to a state championship in 2010 and the exposure they received attracted college recruiters. He accepted the scholarship offer from Fresno State to make sure his mom wouldn't have to pay for college. The time commitment to academics and football stopped him from playing both. He told his mom that he didn't want to get hurt and lose his scholarship. The football team paid their bills.

Anyhow, back to the gym.

The ball was about five feet from the hoop on the left side. It was an athletic feat only a few people in the world could pull off, according to Mitchell, who is now a college advisor at Montana State. Adams leaped into the air. Adams slammed the ball through the hoop with both hands after the mouth went up with him. He wrapped his legs around the defender's chest and held him in the air by his arms. From this position, Adams did a chin-up on the rim, lifting his own weight as well. Mitchell swears this happened but he knows. He let go of the rim and fell down on the floor.

Adams said just four words.

You cannot protect me.

Everyone in the gym erupted at once after a brief pause to reflect on what they had just seen. The mouth went to his feet, threw his arms in the air and left the gym without saying a word.

Adams jokingly refers to himself as the Release King because he is talking about how he became one. He jumped off the couch and stood in front of the bank of screens to watch the Golf Channel. He's going to show me what he does when the ball is snapped, how he makes decisions, and how he frees himself in a matter of seconds. This private showing feels like an invitation to watch van Gogh demonstrate brush strokes because he does this better than anyone else.

He starts with The Hop, where he rises up like a kid about to get measured against a wall and then immediately drives past the corner, which doesn't matter, faster than thought. He doesn't know what he'll do until the defensive back tells him. His mother says she doesn't miss watching him play basketball because he plays basketball every Sunday. Davante says that the Hop is the same as a basketball game. In front of the screens, with the couch as thedesignated sideline, he does it once to the right, showing how he reads the defender's shoulders and subtly directs them away from where he's headed. He says that he's obsessed over this. The purpose of every move is to create indecision in the mind of the defender and eliminate the need to use physical contact. He is known as a physical receiver, but also as a person who needs to waste a lot of time in jujitsu.

He sits down and says that he needs to see how a database moves before he can design you. It's similar to a meal plan. You're not going to have peanut chicken if you have an allergy. I take peanut chicken off the line.

He watches film not just for tendencies but also for feelings. He looked across the line and into the defensive back's eyes to see if he was afraid. He knows it's in there, some bury it deeper below the surface than others, and he doesn't have to say anything to let it know it's there. He's unnerving, this man with the cold temperament in a world of loudmouths who power their engines on slights both real and perceived. They aren't comfortable with quiet confidence.

The fear factor is very important in the NFL. People are scared before you even start the snap. It has a lot to do with the way I win. It's hard for people to overcome the idea that they cannot stick with me. They're trying to repair the damage. They don't want to dominate.

Adams is able to win before the ball is snapped. His reputation for releasing off the line precedes him and allows him to look across the line and decide if he needs to break out one of his better moves. The threat of a good move negates its need.

He says that people like him give a better look at what the league looks like from the inside. It's not a team of people. Fear is one of the real emotions of this group of people. You don't know a lot about me. I don't do much. They have to stop watching the film with me. I'm not a joke out here doing a bunch of s--- just for attention. It is like a mystery man who dominates everyone. The mindset is that.

Being so good you don't have to prove it is a definition of athletic excellence.

The kids are asleep, the sun is shining behind the mountains, and Adams and Robinson are outside. They bombed out of the house on the electric bikes, and now they're going up and down the street. The intense glare of a Vegas summer afternoon has given way to a golden hour reprieve. Two grown men are laughing at the sound of the bikes going down the hill.

Brown says she has never seen her son happy. I will never do that. He's not tense. There is a light in his eyes that tells me that he is finally content.

"I wanted to make it before I put myself out there, but now I'm giving the world a few peeks behind the curtain," he said. A national taco bell campaign shows a magician, Elvis, showgirls and Raiders fan ringing his doorbell to welcome him to town.

On occasion, his mom will remind him of his promise to return to college and finish his degree, but Davante sweeps his hand in front of him, drawing her attention to his wife and two little girls.

Mom is not allowed to argue. When it was time to go to Green Bay, there was always a lot of anxiety. He is a lot more relaxed now. Nobody seems to be upset with him. The tracks were left on the high road. As he left the door, there was no bad-mouthing. His bosses appreciated his work and wished him good luck. Adams said that people have called Rodgers a bad teammate. I don't think I'd ever say that about him. He's a good teammate and a winner. I wouldn't say anything if he mistreated me or someone else.

Rodgers is cosplaying Nicolas Cage and complaining about his young players. It's nice in Wisconsin but it's followed by winter. Adams' golf/ throwing/rafting buddy is once again his quarterback. The golf game can now be considered a year-round obsession. The lights down below are just another part of the landscape that entices people.

There is a lot of work to be done. You should continue paddling. He will line up and look across the line for fear as the games begin. Perhaps the only person who truly understands that silence is a sound is him.

Look 1: jacket, shirt and pants by Zara; Look 2: suit by Djozen Chen; and Look 3: jacket by Alexander McQueen.