Chapter 436 End of Time at the University 8
"I'm not saying that we have to abandon a good salary or get good statistics if you could have a good salary, but not the highest possible salary, play in a good team, but without you being the main star of that team."
"Would you be on the starting team and also have the recognition of the fans, almost like it happened with the Tar Heels team, but with a good salary too, would you accept playing on such a team to win one or more NBA titles?"
Jake thought that maybe in the future if he became an NBA star and one of the best NBA players he could have enough influence to organize a team just as LeBron James can do to win his first NBA title.
But for him to think about doing something like that he had to know if Antawn and Vince would accept playing on the same team as him in this situation, if they said that earning higher salaries or being the best players on the team was more important Jake would have to give up making one team like that.
"For sure, if I were to win my first NBA title I would accept to receive a lower salary and not be the main player on the team since I had many minutes of play in the games of the season."
"I would also accept it, my dream in the NBA first is to win a championship and then to become an MVP, but being an MVP is easier playing on one of the best teams in the NBA, my dream at the end of my career is to enter the hall fame, and winning an NBA title is important to achieve that."
Jake was overjoyed to hear Vince and Antawn accepting his idea, the two were just talking without thinking because something like that would be hard to imagine in the future of the NBA, but Jake would remember said and could use this conversation to call them to play on his team in the NBA if it were possible in the future.
If Jake really managed to win 3 NBA titles with the Lakers' team as he thought, he certainly wouldn't be as criticized as LeBron James was for making a team that could win the NBA title.
The biggest challenge Jake would have that LeBron James didn't have would be that for the next 12 years it would be difficult to find a team that could pay the salaries of players like him, Jamison, Carter and other players that would be needed to win the NBA title, even if Jake accepted to receive a salary much lower than he deserved.
"So who knows in the future in the three of us we could play together in an NBA team and win at least one NBA title with our team, surely with all three of us we could have a strong team to win the NBA title."
Carter and Jamison just laughed as if they didn't believe it would be possible, the NBA currently had 29 teams and they knew it was the teams that chose the players and also had the restriction on the players' salaries.
So they just thought about playing on the best teams and if they could become NBA stars they would try to play on a better team that could win the NBA title, but they didn't think they could play together again unless it was all-star game.
They kept talking for a while and Jake said he would go to Australia after school ended and so they would only see each other again on the night of the NBA draft, Jake also said he thought the three could be among the first 5 draft choices and they laughed again.
After Jake was able to chat with all of his friends and his mother as well, Jake finally set up an interview with ESPN who asked to speak to him about the NCAA tournament win and the individual prizes he had won.
Jake accepted the ESPN interview because he liked the channel more and he also liked sports Illustrated, but as he received no contact from the magazine he decided to accept the ESPN invitation.
A reporter would speak to Jake at a hotel he chose because Jake thought it would not be appropriate to do this interview at the university and it was not so important for Jake to go to ESPN headquarters to be interviewed.
Jake naturally warned that he would not answer any questions that could adversely affect his career and ESPN did not want to do something like that and damage their relationship with Jake who could be an NBA star in the future.
"Good afternoon, Jake Smith, thanks for the interview, I'm going to ask you some questions and if you don't want to answer any questions, that question will be cut in the edit, you can rest easy and think about it."
"OK Alright."
"Jake, this season the Tar Heels team that you were playing had one of the best seasons in history after the Tar Heels team won the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament last season."
"The Tar Heels team managed to win the ACC tournament and the NCAA tournament again this season and without losing any games and thus achieving a record for a sequence of 64 victories, what do you think about that?"
"I am certainly very happy and satisfied with this, our team has always trained a lot and we have also worked hard to get the win, fortunately, we managed to win 64 straight games and as a result, we won the NCAA tournament twice in a row."
"It's hard to explain, we know that our team achieved something historic that few teams in the history of the NCAA tournament have achieved, and we won the Kentucky Wildcats team twice that reached the final in three straight years and won in 1996."
"It shows that our team played well and we faced some of the best college basketball teams in the past few years to be able to win this NCAA tournament twice."
"I see, and you have managed to win almost all of the individual awards in those two seasons that you have played on the Tar Heels team, including the Naismith College Player of the Year award, you are the third player in history to achieve this, what do you think about it?"
"I can only say that this is a great honor, in those years there were many players who could have won this award besides me, last season Tim Duncan deserved to win that award and this season my teammate Antawn Jamison deserved to win that award."
"Thinking about it makes me feel even more honored to win this prize knowing that so many players could win this prize too, I can say that it was thanks to my teammates and my coaches that I achieved this."
"In two years as a player at College, you have managed to break many records, some per season and other records that other players have made playing for 3 or 4 years."
"You broke the record for most points made in a season this season by making 1345 points, you are the forty-seventh with the most points in your playing career with 2515 points."
"You are fourth in the average of points per game in a season with 35.4 points and the second in the average of points per game in the career with 33.9 points, the first with more assists in a season with 407 assists, and the fourteenth most assisting career with 780 assists."
"You are the fourth average of assists per game in a season with 10.7 assists, you are the second average of assists per game in your career with 10.5 assists, you are the first in steals per season with 346 steals that is more than double the runner-up has."
"You are the first with the most steals in the career with 563 steals, you are the player with the highest average steals per game in a season with 9.1 steals, and you are also the first with the highest average steals per game in the career with 7.6 steals."
"These are just some of your statistics people who broke records in your two seasons at College, what do you think about those records and what do you think knowing that if you play for another season at College you could be the first in all of those statistics?"
"I honestly didn't know about all those records, thanks for telling me a few things that I was able to achieve in my two seasons on the Tar Heels team."
"I can only say that I am very proud to see these records that I achieved in two seasons, to be first in some of them and to be at least in the top 100 in several of them is something that any college player would want."
"Seeing that I see that I can leave the Tar Heels team that gave me the opportunity to achieve these things with my teammates with pride in what I did in my time at the university."
"Just like you said if I stayed a season or two on the Tar Heels team I could break all those records, but in fact, my goal was never to break those records, I always played the best I could to help the Tar Heels team to win and that's how we managed to win 2 NCAA tournament."
"So I would never stay at the university just thinking about breaking more individual records, if I stayed it would be to try to help the Tar Heels team win another NCAA tournament and if I managed to break the records it would be a bonus."
Jake had thought of all the answers he could give in this interview in questions that could harm him if he answered wrong, none of that was really a lie and he just couldn't tell the real reason he was going to leave university that would be to win 3 NBA title in the coming seasons.
"Can you tell the Tar Heels team fans why you decided to leave university this year to enter the NBA draft?"
"I think I had two great seasons playing on the Tar Heels team with my teammates, I had two great coaches in that time and I was able to win two ACC tournaments and two NCAA tournaments in addition to getting my team a 64 win streak."
"I also achieved a lot of individual records and awards and I was fortunate to achieve more than many players who played 4 years at College basketball."