Chapter 389 The Last Major Marathon 3 (1/2)

Coach Guthridge was thinking the same thing as Jake because only he on the team knew that Jake would not play the next game, so they had to ensure that they would win that game and thus ensure the leadership of the conference even if they lost the next game.

So the days went by quickly and just a day before the next game David called saying he had great news, Jerry West accepted his proposal and would already talk to the Los Angeles Clippers team and exchange two players for their first choice in the draft of this year.

The players would be Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell who would be irrefutable for the Los Angeles Clippers team, which had a very bad team and almost always finished last during the season.

That way Jerry West would be able to guarantee Jake and still be able to release a bit of the high salaries he would have to pay if he decided to hire Glen Rice or keep Eddie Jones who would no longer have many chances to play with Kobe Bryant as the team owner.

The team's only flaw was that they would not have a quality SF, but with Jake, Bryant, and O'Neal the Lakers' team would have no shortage of players to score points, in addition, the three were also excellent players in defense.

So Jerry West could already imagine the Lakers winning several NBA titles if Jake played only half of what he did at university, the truth that just the fact that a genius player like Jake who was wanted by all the teams say he would accept a lower salary just for playing on the Lakers team has already made Jerry West want him for the team.

Now he would have to speak to the other executives on the Lakers' team to get authorization to do this, as he had a lot of respect and authority it was almost a certainty that he would be able to do this.

That alone made Jake very happy because it was almost guaranteed that he could win 3 NBA title with the Lakers team in his early years, after that he could go to a team with fewer stars to get a higher salary and try to win another one NBA title using his skill.

But Jake wanted to ensure that he wouldn't spend his entire career without winning an NBA title as it has done several times in history with great players if David knew about the future as well as Jake he would also think that Jake was right to think about ensuring the victory of three NBA title.

Another good thing that happened was that Nike had also accepted the offer of $ 52 million for 5 years of the contract, it would be a verbal agreement and therefore David could not guarantee that the two teams would still fulfill the contract in the end.

Jake already expected this to happen, yet he was confident that something like this would happen, but he understood that David was certain that such a big contract was no guarantee of being fulfilled.

So Jake told David to wait for the game that Jake would lose that might cause some change in the minds of the companies, while it was better if David tried to talk to Adidas to offer more value.

Jake also said that they could try to secure a 4 percent share of the profits that companies would make from selling the shoes that would be because of him, all to pressure them and see if anyone would give up.

What Jake didn't want was a guaranteed verbal contract and thus losing another company that could offer a contract and in the end, receive less than had been agreed, it was better to establish that value that they had already accepted as a basis and ask for more until the draft of the NBA happened.

David didn't agree with Jake's thoughts, but he admitted that Jake was a little right about that and they could try to negotiate a better contract and thus indirectly have a contract like that secured.

It was risky, but David believed that one of the companies would accept it in the end and David was confident that after these 5 years of the contract the companies would be satisfied and offer even more money for renewal.

Jake was sure that some companies would change his mind after he lost a game to run the Tokyo marathon because in the future something like this could happen again in the NBA and it really would happen.

Of course, it was not because Jake would have a contract agreement allowing him to miss games to run the marathons that he would definitely do that, the truth was that Jake intended to run only 1 or more marathons in the year and out of the basketball season.

As David prepared for a negotiation that was almost certain he would not make it, one day passed and it was the Tar Heels game day and it was Jake's last game before running the marathon.

The Tar Heels team players were excited and even with the pressure of having to win they really wanted to beat an important rival like the Duke Blue Devils team, so the enthusiasm of the Tar Heels team was even greater.

The players of the Duke Blue Devils team were also looking forward to this game, they had a great season having also lost just one game and this one was almost tied with the Tar Heels team in the first place of the ACC conference.