Hansen emerged from the system, the press conference had already ended.
He also left the venue with Tois.
"That's a nice strategy," Tois said after they exited the venue.
Hansen looked puzzled.
"This will indeed attract some outside attention."
Hearing this, Hansen realized Tois had misunderstood him.
But that was not Tois's fault, the times are different now than last century, the First-tier Alliance had expanded to over 300 institutions, almost monopolizing America's top basketball talent.
As a result, scouts no longer paid attention to the second and third-tier leagues like they did in the past century.
Therefore, some players would do as Hansen had done earlier, using their loudmouths to draw their attention.
"But you'll also have to endure greater pressure because you've insulted Davidson College's big man," Tois continued to remind him.
"Thank you, Coach, but I worked hard all last summer for this moment."
Hansen did not explain much, just trying to make a good impression on the new head coach of his team.
Tois smiled and patted Hansen on the shoulder, obviously pleased with his response.
...
Basketball at Barry University belonged to the second-tier league, but the scale of the school was not second-tier; they were the second-largest college in the Miami area with excellent conditions.
Hansen's dorm room was a double.
His roommate, who was also his teammate on the college team, was Chris Rondo, a 1.75meter tall black guard.
This height was very common in the second-tier league, and Hansen was even the tallest one at Barry University.
Frankly, in this era's second-tier league, there were no Pippen or Rodman, mostly just players not selected by the first-tier league.
In fact, when Hansen had just crossed over, he had complained about the choice made by "Hansen."
If it was up to him, forget transferring to a second-tier league, he would have stayed at Gonzaga University.
Gonzaga came with its own exposure, and as long as he could play, the chances of getting into the NBA were very high.
As for the media and the fans, you all can shout, but if I take it seriously, then I'm the one who loses.
But this was about the difference in personalities.
"Hansen" was introverted, couldn't handle outside pressure, and worried that failing on a weak team in the first-tier league would make him collapse to the point of giving up basketball entirely.
Moreover, Barry University offered him one of the rare scholarships available in the second-tier league at that time.
Back in the dormitory, Rondo wasn't back yet. Hansen locked the door after entering and then took out the newest iPhone 3 he had bought with his scholarship to log into his first Facebook account.
He didn't think of Tois's idea, because he knew it wouldn't work.
NBA scouts now didn't care for the second and third-tier leagues; even if you claimed to be the GOAT of basketball, ranking first on everyone's list, they wouldn't spare you a glance.
And not just NBA scouts, even the journalists present today probably wouldn't report what he had said.
There was only so much space on the news page, and they knew very well who tomorrow's protagonist would be; there was no reason to dedicate a spot for a "clinger" from a second-tier league.
So, attracting haters at this stage still relied on oneself.
After logging into his account, he entered Curry's personal page.
Curry was now very popular in the NCAA League.
Not because he had a star father like Bronny, but because of what he had achieved last season.
Davidson College was a bonafide underdog in the First-tier League before Curry arrived, just a bunch of unknowns.
Then, Curry spent two years leading them into the Sweet Sixteen, then successively scored 40, 30, and 33 points in the games to lead the team on an underdog run to the Elite Eight!
Moreover, they only lost by a narrow 2-point margin to the eventual champions, University of Kansas, in the game that would have sent them to the Final Four.
Such a performance, in the fans' words, was perfect Hollywood material.
If it weren't for Curry's insufficient height and need to transition to playing point guard, he would have entered the draft right after last season, with a steady shot at being a first-round pick.
But even though Curry wasn't an NBA player yet, he had a lot of followers on Facebook.
His most recent status update was about the new season:
"Just one more day to the new season, let's roll up our sleeves and charge ahead!"
That status had only been posted a few hours ago, but the number of comments and shares was quite impressive.
After clicking into it, Hansen directly entered comment mode.
"Did you guys hear? Hanson from CSUN claimed he's going to beat Curry and insisted that he's the top shooter in the NCAA!"
After posting the comment, he logged out of the account and scrolled down to log into his remaining accounts one by one.
The sole purpose of these accounts was to like the comment he had just made.
This method of manually creating hot comments was basic social media operation, something he often did in his past life.
Unfortunately, there were no tools for this in this era, and it all had to be done manually.
By the time he had logged into all his accounts, the likes had reached 58.
After that, the number of likes started to increase on their own.
A typical characteristic of social media, people's thoughts follow the hot comments, their brains basically stop functioning.
As the number of likes continually rose, follow-up comments also began to appear one after another.
"Hansen? Who's that? I've never heard of him!"
"And what is CSUN? Why don't I recall ever hearing about this university?"
Seeing this, Hansen randomly logged into one of his secondary accounts and added a comment.
"CSUN is Davidson's opponent for the opening game, they come from the second-tier league, and Hansen is a four-star high school player on that team."
After following up, he randomly logged into another account.
"WTF? Second-tier league? Who gave him the courage to say such a thing, Fish Leong?"
What kind of ambidextrous fighting against myself, I troll myself.
Too bad Durant isn't nearby, or else he would definitely have to shout out 'senior'!
It wasn't long before Hansen started to see other people replying to his comment, and there wasn't just one.
"So he's from a second-tier league's nobody; what else can he do besides boast?"
"I just looked him up, this guy couldn't even get a game at Gonzaga and got kicked down to the second-tier league, how come he's getting worse the more he mixes?"
"Don't burst his bubble, he just wants to cling to fame."
"Oh, he's an East University player, can East University players even play basketball?"
Watching these follow-up comments, Hansen subconsciously furrowed his brow.
Apart from music, haters know no borders.
He then switched to another account: "But he's a four-star high school student! Even higher than Curry's three stars!"
"Four stars? Are four stars that great? Don't you see how many five-star high school players don't get to play in NCAA, four stars is nothing special!"
"People should not live in the past forever, four stars only prove your high school performance, but the NBA drafts college players!"
"Sure, sure, you're a four-star player, I really want to see how you beat Stephen, clown!"
Hansen could feel something rising to his forehead.
He quickly turned off the screen and took a deep breath.
All these accounts had been registered by him before, but this was his first time in practical manipulation.
Though creating secondary accounts to control comments was a practice in his past life, this act of trolling himself was still a bit blood-pressure-raising.
He decisively logged into the system and then checked his "Hater Value."
Only when he saw the number steadily increasing did his mood begin to calm down a bit.
Then he continued to control the commentary in a way that alternated between switching accounts and watching his "Hater Value," perfectly exemplifying the notion of "pain and pleasure."
As his fingers were rapidly tapping on the keyboard, the door opened.
Rondo had returned.
Upon seeing this, Hansen stopped what he was doing and quickly said:
"Chris, close the door."