Chapter 445 - 1998 NBA Draft 3

[Another thing that you have to understand is that even if your skills are in the SS rank they can still improve a lot, your skill in the three-point shot and the mid-range shot has already passed a lot of other players who also had SS rank in these skills.]

Jake understood that too, even if he had SS rank in Layups one day, he wouldn't be as good as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was, even if he had SS dunk rank he wouldn't be as good as Michael Jordan, even if he had rank Blocked SS he wouldn't be as good as Hakeem Olajuwon and even if he had SS rank in rebounds he wouldn't be as good as Wilt Chamberlain.

Of course, Jake had no intention of being better than these basketball legends in all his skills, but he wanted to be the best of the three-point shot that was what he was always best at, Jake also saw the possibility of being the best in steals in his career.

Jake also didn't think he could be considered the best player in NBA history, he knew that even if he scored more points and won more NBA titles than Michael Jordan he still wouldn't be a better player than him.

Maybe after leaving the NBA, someone could say that Jake Smith was just like Michael Jordan and that would be the greatest honor that Jake thought he could have in his career, especially since Jake would know he got what he had thanks to the help of the system while these other players did not.

After talking to the system Jake understood his skills more, even so, he couldn't help but be excited about having such good stats, he was more confident about his debut season in the NBA.

Jake spent the next day with his mother until Eva had to go to Miami in the afternoon, Jake told her that he would go home if all went well after finishing the film shoot in Australia, while Jake was happy negotiations were going on NBA.

As agreed on the next day of the draft, the Los Angeles Lakers team general manager Jerry West concluded Jake's exchange agreement with Elden Campbell, Eddie Jones, and Derek Harper, thereby the Los Angeles Clippers team general manager Elgin Baylor was happy because he thought he had made a great deal for his team.

Jerry West had already spoken to Elden Campbell, Eddie Jones, and Derek Harper before the negotiation and the three accepted the change, Elden Campbell was a young and skilled player and knew he was the type of player that the Los Angeles Clippers team wanted.

So he would have more playing time and also have more prominence on the team and with the other players who would go with him the Los Angeles Clippers team would improve a lot, Eddie Jones could play only one year on the Los Angeles Clippers team and then leave for another team.

And Derek Harper was thinking about retiring this season, but he could play another season for the Los Angeles Clippers before retiring, they didn't care that they would be traded in exchange for a new player because they knew the NBA was like that.

So Jake traveled to Los Angeles the same day with David Falk, David had already told the sponsorship companies that they would be in Los Angeles next week and that there would be signing of endors.e.m.e.nt contracts, the companies were more excited and confident knowing that Jake would be playing for the Los Angeles Lakers team.

Naturally, everyone in the sports media heard about the news of the exchange of three great players who were featured on the Los Angeles Lakers team to have newcomer Jake Smith, most of the media criticized Jerry West's decision and said he went crazy after the success of the hiring Kobe Bryant.

Of course, many who were smarter realized Jerry West's intentions and secretly praised him, the Lakers' team had Shaquille O'Neal and wouldn't have much room for Elden Campbell to play.

Derek Harper was close to retiring and having a young player like Jake was much better and they wanted to sell Eddie Jones to have more time for Kobe Bryant to play games, moreover, they would free up a lot more space to pay a higher salary for Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant.

Even so because Jake had been the first pick, his salary would be very high and would only increase in other years, but Jerry West was right and Jake Smith was one of the best players on the team in the coming years, it would be worth paying a high salary.

Even with a high salary, the Lakers' team would save 6 million dollars with this exchange and that amount would only be higher if Elden Campbell and Eddie Jones received the salary increase this season.

Jake arrived in Los Angeles and soon went to Jerry West's office to sign the contract, even though David Falk said that Jake could be paid less because of exceptions to his contract, Jerry West decided to pay the salary that Jake would receive as the first pick of that draft.

It was interesting that for at least 1 season Jake would receive a higher salary than Kobe Bryant who would renew the contract only next year, Jake was happy with the respect that the Lakers' team had with him.

"Jake, I am very happy to have a great player like you on our team for the next few seasons, we have hired you because we have a lot of expectations that you will be an excellent player as soon as you make your NBA debut."

"In this team of the Los Angeles Lakers we have Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant who are excellent players, I hope you can help them make more points, as PG we hope you organize the team's attacks and make the points when you think it is necessary."

"Welcome to the Los Angeles Lakers and I hope you can bring some more NBA titles to our team with the team we have."

"Thank you, Mr. West, if I'm a bit as good as you were as a player, I know I will succeed."

Jake's first year of contract with the Lakers team would be $ 2.7 million, and in the possible 5 years of the contract he negotiated with Jerry West he would receive $ 23.5 million, Jake thought it was good because he remembered which was similar to the contract that Mike Bibby would receive in 5 years.

So Jake was officially hired by the Los Angeles Lakers team and knew where he would play for the next 5 seasons at least, with the situation of the possible NBA lockout coming up in the next few days. Jake still wouldn't report to the team for training.

But he would still remain in Los Angeles to sign his sponsorship contracts until the NBA lockout was confirmed and the players were released by the teams and so Jake would go to Australia.

The media continued to talk about the bad business of the Los Angeles Lakers team, but the truth was that fans of the Los Angeles Lakers team and the Los Angeles Clippers team were satisfied with this exchange.

Fans of the Los Angeles Clippers team were happy to have Jake on their team, but they were more than happy to welcome Elden Campbell, Eddie Jones and Derek Harper on their team because even though Jake was a genius he couldn't change the team. Los Angeles Clippers alone.

But with three good players, the Los Angeles Clippers team could improve already this season, and the team had a star who was Eddie Jones who was missing before, and fans of the Los Angeles Lakers team were upset that Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell would leave.

But they understood that with that Kobe Bryant would have more time to play in the games and with the success of Kobe Bryant, they had more confidence that Jake Smith would be an equal success and so they would have three excellent players to try to win an NBA title.

On Jake's second day in Los Angeles, an Adidas representative had come before the other sponsors to sign the official contract with Jake Smith, perhaps the one who was happiest with Jake going to the Los Angeles Lakers team was Adidas.

Of the best players on the Los Angeles Lakers team, one was Kobe Bryant who had a contract with them and the other was Shaquille O'Neal who had a contract with the Reebok company, so if Jake played as well as they thought he would become the third main player of that team and he had a contract with the company Adidas.

If the Los Angeles Lakers team won the NBA title in any of the coming seasons with two players on contract with them, it would be the glory of Adidas and they would gain an advantage over Nike.

The only thing Adidas regretted was not trying to negotiate a bigger contract with Jake even if they had to pay more money, even so, some directors were against it, they thought to pay a 52 million dollar contract for 5 years to a novice player was taking too many chances.

Even more because Jake would receive 4 percent of the revenue from selling shoes that were related to Jake, that was a large part of the money the company could receive back from the $ 52 million that they would pay in 5 years.

But the company's salespeople didn't care about that because their goal was to sell the shoes but even more was to get a more prominent place in the world of basketball worldwide, and Jake was already very popular in Europe and Asia too.

The Adidas representative was called Mike Morris and he was 1.70 m tall and looked elegant wearing a suit with black hair and eyes, Mike had not negotiated Jake's contract with David, but he was chosen as the company's representative Adidas because he knew how to be polite and David would negotiate deals directly with the company anyway.