Chapter 219 Bright Future 5
After all, now Jake's company would be directly involved with a few billion dollars in the next few years If Jake's investment in Amazon were to be counted, that number would only increase.
Of course, not everything was guaranteed, because when Matthew greatly increased his investment he might not want to continue to risk and ask Jake to sell the shares, after all now Matthew would invest 300 million dollars, but when that amount exceeded 1 billion he might not want to but keep on risking.
Jake could be sure that anyway, he would make hundreds of millions of dollars in a few years with his company, even though Emily would be a millionaire with her stake in the company, Jake just had to wait and see how things would change.
After that Jake no longer had to worry about business until the end of the year, only Emily would be busy at the time, yet he would be much busier with basketball and marathon than ever.
Also, this year Jake would still have to worry about college in the middle of the year, with so many things to do he was glad his mom had more time to stay home so he could talk to her more to relax.
This year because of the Olympics the national championship would start a few weeks ahead of time, and in February Jake had to participate in the qualifying test for this year's Olympics.
That would not normally be a problem for Jake, but this year at the Olympics from what Jake remembered the three marathon medalists were from the United States, so he would be practically playing an early final, if he could win he could win at the Olympics as well.
Luckily Jake had decided to control himself at marathon running speed, so it should not be a problem to run the Olympic qualifying race in 2 hours and 6 minutes, plus he remembered that the final race time of first place It was more than five minutes longer than that, so it was good news for Jake.
In the training of the basketball team Jake saw that Nathan and Lucas had improved a lot again, they had grown in height too, even though David and Harrison had also improved could not compare.
After all, Nathan and Lucas were still in their first year of high school, it was normal for them to quickly improve their skills after doing better training and facing stronger opponents.
While David and Harrison were already in their senior year of high school and used almost all the growth potential they could have in high school with their skills, even Coach Mike thought they were both far more talented than other players of the same age.
Even though Coach Bill, who worked with the top players at the university, was interested in their talent, they had no greater prominence at Elite school because everyone on the basketball team was used to Jake who was a much more amazing talent than the two.
Of course, Jake should not be used as a comparison, after all his skills were at the university level, so Jake who knew this considered the two even more talented.
So after a few more days the day of the first game of the national championship arrived, Jake woke up very early and went down to eat breakfast prepared by his mother who today had exchanged times with Anna to prepare breakfast for Jake.
Jake could see that her mother was much healthier and happier now than before, Eva had fully recovered from the shock of having her home broken into and working less than before had more time to rest.
How are you feeling for today's game, Jake?"
"I'm feeling it will be good, this year's teams seem to be stronger than last year, but we have Nathan and Lucas on our team, so our team is also stronger this year."
"I also think you'll win again, this time I will try to go to the final game cheering for you again."
"So I have to work harder to reach the end of this year."
Jake was happy to hear that his mother could go to this year's national championship final again, Eva was busy with the restaurant and so couldn't go to the regional and state championship finals, but most importantly he was happy to have his mother over there.
Jake also knew that Eva was struggling to go because it could be Jake's last high school game and also in the next few years she wouldn't have been able to go to other cities to watch Jake's games as she had before in Miami.
After chatting with his mother for a while Jake went to the game site, he got there after everyone on his team and after getting ready to talk to Mark while doing warm-up exercises and waiting for the game to start.
Unlike Jake who was given a break from training because Coach Mike was worried about him, the other players trained normally, without a quality PG like Jake training was difficult to simulate a real game.
And no one wanted to try to play in the impromptu PG position because they would miss the opportunity to fight for the vacancy in the team, Coach Mike was the one who was most satisfied with that, because David and Harrison were already good players, with Nathan and Lucas running for the job all improved and the team just had to gain from it.
In the absence of Jake who led the team in training was surprisingly Mark, after all, he was now the best player in the team and what improved best after Jake, Jake himself told his teammates several times that without Mark to catch the rebounds they could miss several important games.
The adversary in this first game was the Cats team that made it to the national championship every year, but this year they didn't think they could go any further after facing Jake's team.
The best players of the Cats team were PG King and SF Amir after a few minutes began the first game of the Elite team in the national championship.
Mark climbed higher and got the first possession for the Elite team, Jake received the ball and began to organize the first attack, after advancing a little he passed the ball to David, David advanced even before the three-point line and passed the ball to Lucas on the left.
Lucas made a feint and managed to trick Amir into the left, Lucas continued to advance into the area and the opposing Center came on the cover, so Lucas passed the ball to Mark who was free.
Mark received the ball and made the dunk to score the first 2 points for the Elite team in the match. In this match as Amir was good in the attacking team coach, Mike decided to put Lucas who is better in defense in the starting lineup.
But he still put David on the starting lineup and left Nathan as a substitute, it was the first time Coach Mike had put just one of the two on the starting lineup, usually, he always put Nathan and Lucas together.
PG King received the ball and advanced to the attack line, before the middle of the court he passed the ball to his team's SG, SG advanced to before the three-point line and David arrived to press in defense.
SG did not hold the ball and passed to their team PF, PF received the ball and Carter was firm in defense, PF still tried to get rid of Carter, but Carter was firm in defense, so PF turned the ball to King again who was behind him.
King tried to make the move, but Jake was firm in defense, King tried several times to get the trick and passed the ball to his team SG when he saw that he could not get past Jake.
The Cats SG received the ball and attempted a mid-range shot as the possession time was running out and managed to score 2 points and tie the game.
Jake received the ball and started another attack for the Elite team, he advanced until after the middle of the court and passed the ball to Lucas on the left, Lucas advanced until after the three-point line and passed the ball to Carter who was on the right.
Carter received the ball and soon the opposing PF arrived in defense, so Carter held the ball a little and passed to Jake, Jake received the ball and passed to Lucas who was free to the left, Lucas received the ball and tried a mid-range shot to make 2 more points for the Elite team.
And so the game continued until the end of the first period, the Elite team was winning by 4 points, Jake had only 4 points, but got 5 assists and 2 rebounds in that first period.
After so many things that had happened in those months without playing, Jake had even forgotten about his psychological problem, but his subconscious seemed to be making Jake hold on and not push himself so hard.
Lucas was also fine and had 8 points and 2 assists in this first period of play, early in the second period the Cats team advanced to make the first play of the second period with King.
King advanced until after the middle of the court and passed the ball to Amir, Amir advanced on the right and went past the three-point line and passed the ball to his team's Center, Mark was inattentive and the opposing Center managed to spin and make 2 more points for the Cats team.
Jake received the ball and advanced to before the three-point line with the ball and passed Lucas to the left, Lucas held the ball a while and passed to Carter who was open on the right, Carter got a shot at the opposing PF and ran to the left bottom of the court to pass the ball to Mark.
Mark tried to spin on the opposing Center, which was in defense and didn't allow it. Mark passed the ball back to Jake, Jake got the ball and stepped back and tried the shot from outside to make 3 points for Elite.
In the second period, Jake was more active in the game as he always was and the players got good plays, so the second period ended with the Elite team leading the way with 10 points more than the Cats team.