Shawn finally got in contact with Brione, and he agreed, so we got together to start practicing for the tournament that was coming. I pushed them hard even though Rasta was exhausted by the end of the day; they had to do suicides, crunches, push-ups, Pull-Ups, free throws, and the whole nine. I was training them like they were going to play for the Olympics, they were pretty mad about this, but after thinking about the money, they didn't mind it and kept on training.
I was impressed with Briones's athletic body; it was built for speed, and his legs reminded me of LeBron's full of power and explosives once he got that first step on you. It was tough to stop him; even my time freeze ability could just slow him down a little bit compared to other people. We went to other neighborhoods to have practice matches just to get a vibe with each other since this was the first time playing with Brione.I wanted them to get used to him in the team compared to the past where we had Momba with us, and we had already practiced together, so we know each other's moves, so we were able to play any kind of game. On one of the days of the week, we had even linked up with LeBron and a couple of his friends to have a match if it wasn't for me we probably would have lost it due to LeBron going off once again.Surprisingly Brione was able to keep up with LeBron, and thanks to the duel Brione and Shawn playing defense on him, they were able to limit him just a little bit, but being LeBron, he was still unstoppable. Still, I was proud that our defense was able to stop him on a few plays, they could sleep happily knowing that they were able to stop one of the best players in my previous life and future hall-of-Famer.The day before the tournament had finally arrived and we had already booked hotel rooms for that weekend. This time I had Sandra come with me, and we had our room that way, Rasta and the others could enjoy themselves with whatever entertainment that they had planned. We went to register our team, and it seemed like it was worse than the previous year with the attendance.A lot more people were signing up, and it seemed like people across the country had come to play in this tournament just to win that prize money because it was more than what a lot of people made in a year, and with that money, you can easily purchase a house. After registering just when I was about to leave, somebody had stopped me and started insulting me.I was confused by this, and when I turned around I saw that it was Dwyane Wade, he started dissing me about how I had cheated during their match, but that confused me because I remembered him using the refs to try to cheat in that game, so I simply ignored him and kept walking because once you start entertaining a dog, they'll pay you more attention. He got mad when he saw that I was ignoring him and walked away, but he didn't pursue it because he had an image to withhold in public.He didn't want to mess up his chances to get into the NBA. That night we went to go check out the scene around Philly, we wanted to get some Philly Cheesesteak which I heard was extremely good, so I wanted to try some for myself. Everywhere we went, people were asking for autographs because they thought we were NBA stars due to my height.I told them that we weren't from the NBA, but some of them insisted on getting an autograph. I knew that once they got these autographs in the future, they could sell them for a lot of money since I knew I was going to be a superstar. We finally found the best Philly Cheesesteak spot and sat down to grab something to eat.The food was so good that I felt like I was in bliss, floating in the clouds and trying to determine whether I was still alive, after eating we went back to our hotel rooms to rest and get ready for the matches the next day. We started doing meditations before going to bed. It was something that I wanted to start just to get our minds cleared up of anything that was going on. That way, the next day will be able to be focused.The next day we got to the place where the tournament was being held, and it was a different venue from where the registration was. This place was big enough to accommodate over 100,000 people. It was a stadium. It was huge, and the place was packed; they had basketball courts all over the scene due to the number of people that had registered.They had games constantly; the registration fee was quite a bit this time around with it being $2k per team. I knew these guys were going to make a killing this year because there were so many people that had registered this year from all around the country. I saw a lot of future NBA stars such as Lavar Ball and his family, Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, Harden, and Durant had also come in as a team.It was quite packed with future NBA stars. I even saw Klay Thompson and Steph Curry there. I was excited to be playing all these guys and couldn't wait to start. It was still early in the morning, and we had five matches that day, and there was about an hour break between all of them. We were only playing to 12 points, so the matches ended pretty quickly.We got through all five of my matches pretty easily; there was nobody famous that we had played against, so it was quite uneventful, and the matches were quite easy; the opponents didn't even get to score a point against us in all five games. I wanted to finish them that way quickly; we could move on to the next round.Everybody recognized us as the previous champions, and everybody knew how good we were and were labeled as the favorites this year to win it all. Steph Curry and Klay Thompson were known as the dark horses because they were slowly climbing up the ranks, and everybody thought that they would be losing their matches due to them being so small and only shooting the balls, but they weren't missing so they continue to rank up the wins.Friday the next day, we continued in the same way, but on my last match I was up against Steph Curry and Klay Thompson this excited me because I wanted to play against the two splash Brothers in their earlier stages. I wasn't going to use a time freeze in this match. That way, they'll be able to play against us to the fullest and not discourage them.We won the jump ball thanks to Brione, his legs had an incredible bounce to them, and this always surprised me, after winning the jump ball I let the others handle the plays after giving the order they were surprised by this and decided to go along with it. I would only step up once I saw that we were on the losing end.Shawn took the ball inside the paint, and just as their Center stepped up, Shawn shot the floater and made it, giving us the first point. Steph brought the ball down once he got a little bit closer to the three-point line; he shot the ball in front of me, making it give them a one-point lead. The crowd was excited, and millions of people were watching this match, they even televised it due to the number of people that have shown up. Shawn brought the ball down, and he passed it to me, and then I passed it to Rasta.Rasta started bringing it down on the post he turned around and tried to hook shot it, but the center came out of nowhere and blocked it. I was impressed by this center of theirs; he was just doing it all for them because right after he had blocked it, he got the ball and ran straight down, John and Rasta way too small for him due to his weight he was able to dunk it over them giving them a two-point lead.Shawn brought the ball down this time, still not discouraged, and John had gotten open at the 3-point line where's Shawn passed it to him. He shot the ball to tie up the game, Steph brought the ball this time and this time due to John being excited that he had made the two-pointer he lost track of Klay Thompson who was that the 3-point line open and got the easy two points to give them a two-point lead.John was disappointed in himself, but I told him not to give up and to be more focused. Shawn bought it down once again, and he passed it to Brione. Brione did a pump fake to get their power forward up in the air, and Brione then sped in and laid up the ball for a quick one point.Just us the center was passing it to Steph Curry to start the attack Brione came out of nowhere and intercepted the pass and then laid it up to tie up the game. The crowd erupted with the fast play, and I was quite impressed with Briones's speed once again. Brione asked me when I was going to play, and I told him that I couldn't steal all the spotlight, causing him to laugh.The game continued on Steph jacked up four more points for them, while Brione and Shawn were like the double trouble twins making chaos in the paint for them, by the time I decided to start playing it was 9 to 8 they were up by one point. I had Shawn passed me the ball, and Klay decided to play against me.I asked for a pick which Rasta came and gave me one, and as soon as Klay tried to get around him it was too late, I had done a step back and shot the ball to give us two more points and give us the lead by one point, now it's time to get serious, and Steph decided to shoot for two points to end the game. Still, I decided to do a Time freeze just in case because in this game, if we lost it, we would be eliminated and be going home broke well not broke but still losing a lot of money.I stole the ball from Steph after doing the time freezing ran up the rim and dunked it to win the game. Steph was surprised by this because people aren't able to steal the ball from him like that normally. The crowd was excited due to the dunk that I had made to win the game.Iverson was also watching our game, and he was impressed that he wanted me to come and play for sixers, but he had a feeling that I wouldn't join, and it's not like I had the power to decide any of that once I got into the NBA. I believe it was their draft picks that had the power to do all of that. I will become a lottery for some other team to win.The games went on, and the day finally came to an end. Russell and his crew had made it to the final rounds for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure Steph Curry would have made it too if they had not met with us. That night we had celebrated by going out to eat at a fancy restaurant. I made sure nobody had any drinks that way they would be ready for the next day, after that we all went to go rest because we would be playing six games instead of 5 tomorrow