Chapter 384 Continuing the Winning Streak 8
"It"s true, Jake has been playing very well this season and surpa.s.sing what he achieved last season that gave him all the individual prizes, he averages more than 30 points per game and more than 10 a.s.sists per game."
"But what makes it special even though it has more than a 70 percent hit rate on three-point shots, is the incredible average of 9 steals per game."
"This is incredible thinking that the previous record was less than 5 steals per game, last season Jake already broke that record by averaging 6 steals per game and 217 in total."
"And this season there are still 18 games left until the end of the season, and Jake already has an average of 9 steals per game and has made 194 steals so far and is almost breaking his own record, a player who gets so many steals change the result of the games and will be welcome on any team in the NBA."
After this excellent victory, the Tar Heels team players started to relax again knowing that they were on the right path, the next game would be in a few days and everyone wanted to train to get another victory.
Jake and the Tar Heels team became news again for the sports media, it was rare to see a player score more than 50 points in a game and still make a quadruple-double, with the Tar Heels team having a sequence of games without losing so big it was normal for this to become news.
Who was most happy about this was perhaps David Falk, as Jake had asked he had spoken to the sponsors again and was trying to talk to Jerry West about the possibility of Jake playing in the Lakers.
The situation was not very good because two companies had already given up sponsoring Jake when they learned that the minimum was $ 1 million a year, and the others asked for time to consider, but it was likely that most would decline.
For companies that were considering the proposal, David said that Jake earned $ 3 million from two companies before he even joined the university of endors.e.m.e.nt, which was what made the companies think better.
So Jake making this great game with more than 50 points and 17 a.s.sists in one game would help him to convince companies that Jake was worth that amount, and David had managed to after a few days a meeting to talk to Jerry West.
David wanted to take advantage of this favorable moment and asked that when Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan could speak well of Jake to the sports media, few knew that he would be Jake"s sports agent and this would further increase Jake"s popularity.
So Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan spoke highly of Jake and how they hoped to play with him in an NBA game one day, and also talked about how talented Jake was and could improve even more in the future.
Luckily for David, even Magic Johnson spoke highly of Jake when the media asked about him, so other players also talked about Jake and the Tar Heels team and that made the media and fans even more excited.
Jake who had seen this on television imagined that David was behind it, Jake thought that if it was at the time of Twitter and Facebook he would get millions of followers after these interviews with NBA stars.
This made companies that were thinking about refusing David"s proposal decide to think about it longer and research more because it could be a great deal for them, when more large companies the player had endors.e.m.e.nts it increased the player"s popularity and the reach of the advertis.e.m.e.nts.
Some had researched that after the companies had signed an endors.e.m.e.nt contract with Jake, these companies increased sales significantly, the smaller companies multiplied sales and the larger companies increased sales revenue by more than 20 percent.
And these companies were also able to save on advertising expenses by betting only on Jake, which made the beverage companies more interested in Jake and other companies as well.
Of course, David did not expect to get any contract promises until the NBA draft was a few months away, perhaps these companies would even wait for the season to end before accepting a deal.
It was too risky to spend so much on endors.e.m.e.nt for Jake that he was a novice player, but these companies could bet because of Jake"s talent and because he was also a very famous marathon athlete and the best marathon runner in the world today.
This was a differential that could be worth their investment and also seeing how famous Jake was even though he did not enter the NBA made these companies consider a contract of $ 1 million a year that would not even affect their revenue so much.
Jake was very happy to be praised by so many famous NBA players, he was always a fan of these players and even when he was depressed about having suffered the accident in the past he still liked to see them playing.
The last game managed to make the players confident and excited again, everyone trained hard to be able to continue winning, a sequence of victories like this can lead all the players on the team to go down in history.
Jake was also training very hard and was committed to helping the team as much as he could to win the next 3 games because after 3 games he would have to lose one game to run the Tokyo marathon and win the last remaining Major marathon.
So it was likely that the Tar Heels team could lose this game that he was not in, Jake thought that with Ed Cota replacing him the Tar Heels team could still win this game without him, but he had to prepare for the worst.
So after a few days of training, the day of the next game came, it was another home game at the Dean Smith Center and the players were prepared and confident to win.
The opponent for this game was the Clemson Tigers team, the Tar Heels team had already beaten that opponent this season in a difficult game, so all the players were focused on that game.
The Tar Heels team started the game by attacking as usual, in the last game the Clemson Tigers team had already proved that their defense was very good and therefore Jake did not want to speed up the pace of the game and preferred to work better on the moves to hit more attacks.
For this game, the Clemson Tigers team also wanted to put pressure on the attack and not just on defense, but the Tar Heels team"s defense was one of the best of the season and it was difficult to score easily.
In another play Jamison managed to rebound after the mistake of the Tar Heels team attack, just as Jake had been doing, Jamison did not rush and slowly advanced until pa.s.sing the ball to Jake.
Jake and Jamison were excellent rebounds players, Okulaja and Carter were also good rebounds and with that, the Tar Heels team got the advantage in many games by not losing in the second ball.
The opponents could not get a second chance to attack and the Tar Heels team could try again if they failed in attack if they managed to rebound, this was something praised in the work that did coach Guthridge who had a good team in rebounds without playing with a Center.
After pa.s.sing through the middle of the court Jake pa.s.sed the ball to Carter who was on the left, Carter advanced with the ball and before the three-point line he pa.s.sed the ball to Williams on the right.
Williams tried to get rid of the player on defense and when he couldn"t pa.s.s the ball to Okulaja up front, Okulaja received the ball and soon pa.s.sed it to Jake who was further behind, Jake received the pa.s.s and went to the left.
Jamison made the screen and prevented the player who was defending against Jake to continue, so Jake was free and tried the shot from outside to make 3 more points for the Tar Heels team in a team play.
Jake, Carter, and Jamison were very close friends and trained more time together even when the other team players were resting, so plays like this, although rarer on the Tar Heels team, were often trained among them.
Carter was well on the attack in that game and Jake took the opportunity to make a lot of a.s.sists, Williams also always played a good game and had a good average of points per game, sometimes he managed to make more than 25 points in several games.
Jamison was performing slightly below normal in this game, but Jamison was still helping with rebounds and also drawing attention from the opposing defense, so Jake was counting more on Williams and Carter in the attack.
At the end of the 1st half, the Tar Heels team was getting a good advantage with the team doing well in attack and defense, Jake was not making as many points as in the last game, but he was helping in defense and still getting some a.s.sists.
In that 1st half Jake played for 20 minutes and had 16 points, 5 a.s.sists, 4 rebounds, and 5 steals, it was a good performance for him and due to the difficulty of the game Jake was more satisfied, Jake could make more points, but Williams was fine too and Jake could do more a.s.sists.
The Clemson Tigers team was now behind the scoreboard, but the advantage that the Tar Heels team had was not that great and the players of the Clemson Tigers team could feel that they were making a good save in that game.
So in this 2nd half, the Clemson Tigers team would try to win against the Tar Heels team by going more to the attack while prioritizing defense, in that game Coach Guthridge also decided to let Jamison and Carter play less time to be rested for the next game.