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Jerry Stackhouse had emerged from the shadow of the McDonald's All-American Game.
Looking at the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, featuring him alongside McKinney and Wallace, he felt his future was bright.
The temporary setback in high school meant nothing because once he was in college, the whole world would forget about Roger!
No matter which college Roger joined, its roster couldn't possibly be more explosive than North Carolina's, and North Carolina was destined to dominate college basketball for the next few years.
Roger's college career was doomed to be fruitless!
After two or three years of college, who would remember a high schooler who won a game at the McDonald's All-American Game?
As the morning sun shone into the room, Stackhouse got out of bed in a great mood.
Stepping out of the room, a hot and steaming anchovy pizza was already on the dining table.
The Stackhouse family were all pescatarians, not eating any meat except fish and shellfish.
Westerners always like to show excessive enthusiasm for these kinds of things, with subdivisions of vegetarianism like ovo-lacto vegetarianism, lacto vegetarianism, flexitarianism, and pescatarianism.
Stackhouse would rather give up meat than abalone, staying true to his roots.
As he picked up a slice of pizza, Stackhouse also began to read the newspaper, thinking today's headline would be: Stackhouse, the most outstanding college player from North Carolina since Michael Jordan.
But to his surprise, the headline of The North Carolina Times was a photo of Roger at a press conference!
The anchovy in Stackhouse's mouth suddenly lost its flavor. Logically, North Carolina had no real connection with Roger, so why was he overshadowing him on this state's newspaper?
Stackhouse then looked up at the newspaper's headline, and the pizza in his mouth instantly fell to the floor.
Skipping college to bring his talent straight to the NBA?
No... I've just got a big three lineup waiting for you, and now you're heading to the NBA?
After Roger plays in the NBA for two or three years, who will remember a college player from North Carolina?
The joy in Stackhouse's heart vanished, he simply couldn't believe Roger had made such a decision.
Does this guy even know what he's doing!?
He couldn't really think he was ready, could he?
Stackhouse's reaction wasn't strange at all. Skipping college to enter the NBA directly was something young players today wouldn't dare to do.
Not to mention skipping college, even those who only played one year in college before entering the draft were very rare.
However, the high school basketball player known for losing 5 on 4 games soon smirked with self-satisfaction.
The draft? You might not even get picked, and then you'll have nowhere to cry!
But when he turned to the second page of the newspaper, it read: "Several experts believe that Roger is very likely to be selected by a lottery team."
Stackhouse: ???
Bro, did you get that lottery pick for real!?
Roger's stock was indeed not bad. Everyone thought his 58 points in the state finals was impressive enough, but then he went on to perform the 4 on 5 miracle in the prestigious McDonald's All-American Game.
This had tempted quite a few NBA teams.
Indeed, a player like Roger, who hadn't gone through the NCAA experience, might have a very low floor.
But the ceiling of such a talented high school player might also be extremely high.
It's all a gamble, picking someone else ensures a minimum win of five dollars, with a maximum of fifty.
Picking Roger means no guaranteed prize, but the potential to win up to half a million.
Someone will always take the gamble.
And with this year's outlook, not even college players are guaranteed to fetch fifty.
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However, at this point, what Roger was most concerned about wasn't actually his draft position.
It was the choice of agent.
In the NBA of the '90s, agents played a more significant role than in the 21st century.
After entering the 21st century, with the rules being refined, the amount and duration of each tier of contracts, and even the annual salary increases, are all set in stone, leaving little room for negotiation.
But in the '90s, concepts like max contracts and mid-level exceptions didn't exist. How many years you signed for and how much money you made all depended on negotiations, even rookie contracts had no fixed salary.
If you didn't have an agent who could suck the NBA teams dry like David Falk, you might end up like Hakeem Olajuwon—one of the greatest centers of the '90s, the Dream only made it into the top five salaries for two seasons in his entire career.
By contrast, Ewing, who never won a championship in his lifetime, dominated the salary list as the top earner for seven seasons.
You might say that New Yorkers are foolish with money, but without a skillful agent, capital would not foolishly offer money to players on their own initiative.
In 1992, Olajuwon was almost at a breaking point with the Rockets over salary issues. And the result? His agent only managed to secure him a contract that was neither big nor small.
If Olajuwon's agent had been Falk, Space City would definitely have given their superstar center a more respectable contract.
The fact that capitalists resented David Falk so much precisely proves that he did something right.
But Falk, after all, was the hottest agent in America and he wasn't exactly short on clients.
Most importantly, Falk didn't favor the idea of high school players going straight to the pros, which was against tradition.
So, he didn't take the initiative to contact Roger.
Among the many agents who did reach out to Roger, there was only one who truly satisfied him—Eric Fleisher.
Fleisher came from a basketball family; his father, Larry Fleisher, was the first president of the Basketball Association of the United States, and directly promoted the merger of the ABA and NBA. After stepping down, Larry started an agency, and ancient legends like John Havlicek, Willis Reed, and Jerry West were his clients. In 1991, two years after his death, Larry was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Fleisher and his brother Mark continued the family business, joining their father's company in 1983, and relying on his father's connections to make waves in the agent circle.
Though not a pyramid-level agent like Falk, those below the pyramid couldn't all be dismissed as garbage.
An agent like Eric, with connections, resources, and experience, was undoubtedly what Roger needed.
However, what Eric most valued in Roger was that in history, it was he who maneuvered Garnett, a high school player, into the NBA.
He convinced the NBA teams holding lottery picks to believe that investing in high school talent was worth the risk.
You could say, it was he and Garnett who paved the way for Kobe, T-Mac, Kwame Brown, and the GOAT, among others.
After several phone conversations with Eric, on a Saturday afternoon, he made a special visit to Roger's home.
He sincerely assured Roger that, even though he already had 18 players under him, he would always respond at the first instance when Roger needed him.
And in the contract, he specified that all matters concerning Roger would be personally handled by him, rather than being tossed off to his assistants.
"Whenever you need me, even if my wife is looking for me, I will tell her that Eric is temporarily dead and to reach out later," he said.
Roger and Lu An both smiled. Whether a conversation is relaxed or not is a very important aspect of communication.
On this count, Eric passed as well.
That night, in Jonesville, Eric and Roger signed the agent authorization contract.
Following this, Eric had the right to represent Roger in business endorsements and NBA contract negotiations.
Of course, Eric would take 4% of Roger's contract income as a commission. Considering the going rate, it was reasonable.
The next day, news of Roger signing with an agent made the papers. This meant that Roger was fully prepared for his assault on the professional basketball court!
So, that evening, the SportsCenter anchor John Anderson announced a message:
"Roger has completely cleared out all of the top high school players in the country. Now, he's going to take on those top college players during workouts. If you hear that some NCAA star has lost to a high school kid, don't be surprised. I believe that in the coming period, such incidents will occur frequently."
The journey to the NBA, officially begins!