It is now 2001, and the NBA salary cap has just surpassed $40 million. The team’s top big man and league blocks leader, Ratliff, plus the team’s star Rahim, the veteran Kukoc, and the nice guy Mohammed—the combined salaries of these four already reach $39 million. All the other players are making just a few hundred thousand to a little over a million, with not a single one earning more than two million. Even Terry, who now averages 20+3+6 and is seen as a future superstar, is only on a $1.5 million per year contract.

Ethan Brooks’s rookie season salary is $460,000. Georgia state tax isn’t high, only five percent, but for those earning over $200,000 and under $500,000 a year, the federal tax rate is twenty-eight percent.

Since he had absolutely no draft market before, no agent approached him before the draft, and even now he still doesn’t have an agent, so he doesn’t have to pay any agent commission.

That’s actually a good thing, because agents are usually the ones closest to the players. If an agent noticed something unusual, it would be a hassle to explain.

But after deducting thirty-three percent in taxes and three percent for the players’ union dues, the first year’s $460,000 salary is less than $300,000 left. As for the non-guaranteed contract in the second year, whether he’ll even get it is still up in the air.

$300,000 does have considerable purchasing power in the U.S., but does that mean you can just sit back and do nothing with it?

Play hard and secure a contract?

Ethan Brooks is utterly hopeless about this. Although his height has become 1.93 meters, the size of a big NBA point guard, which is taller than most point guards in this era, the draft evaluation in his memory only mentioned two strengths: excellent ball-handling and excellent shooting.

He doesn’t have either of those.

And the original evaluation for this identity was excellent ball-handling and shooting, meaning his physical abilities were just average. A total nerd, now transmigrated here—how is he supposed to play in the NBA!

No one knows himself better than Ethan Brooks. Sure, he can play basketball and loves watching the NBA, but his actual skills are just average. Playing some half-court three-on-three games with classmates back home is fine, but the NBA? That’s just nonsense!

This body isn’t particularly athletic either, not even close to excellent—just plain mediocre. When playing in the NCAA, coaches generally valued skills and tactical execution more, so the “himself” in Ethan Brooks’s memory could perform decently in the NCAA. Georgia Tech made a surprise run to the Elite Eight in March Madness this year, which is why he’s a bit locally famous in Atlanta.

As for making it to the NBA, it’s purely because the last two draft classes have been so bad, with only a handful of prospects worth watching. Especially after the brutal 2000 draft, a second-round pick in 2001 basically meant picking someone to warm the bench. Unless you’re Popovich, there’s no way to guarantee a real talent outside the lottery this year—it’s all a gamble, because the talent pool these two years is just terrible. Kobe, McGrady, and others went straight to the NBA from high school, which in some ways set a bad trend. This year, even the Wizards’ number one pick couldn’t beat undrafted college players in the summer league.

This allowed Ethan Brooks to get drafted just as Stern was vigorously developing the overseas market, especially China. And it just so happened that a Chinese college student entered the draft locally, with a decent spot-up three-pointer. For certain reasons, the Hawks used their second-round pick in this super weak draft year to select him.

Now, Ethan Brooks doesn’t even know if he’s a cuckoo in another’s nest or if something went wrong during transmigration that made him so much taller, because his appearance and even some “birthmarks” on his body are exactly the same as before. But one thing is certain: he didn’t “inherit” the original ball-handling and shooting abilities of this body. In fact, because he’s now taller and holding a “smaller” basketball, he feels awkward and completely unaccustomed.

With this feeling, Ethan Brooks knows very well that his shooting is definitely unreliable. Maybe, because he’s now nearly two meters tall, the increased strength and totally different visual angle will just make him throw the ball wildly...

Halftime isn’t particularly long. Ethan Brooks spent quite a while daydreaming in the restroom, and the break was already over. He could already hear the team staff calling his name, telling him the game was about to resume.

Ethan Brooks responded, tidied up his jersey, and got ready to... continue warming the bench...

The Hawks’ roster isn’t bad, so there’s no way a second-round rookie—especially one from a weak draft year—would get playing time in regulation. Unless something unexpected happens, he’s destined to keep warming the bench in the second half.

During halftime, he already found out that the only reason he got to play in the first half was because the Rockets have an incredibly strong point guard—arguably the first of his kind at this position in history, a point guard as explosive as this has never appeared in the NBA before—Steve Francis.

Francis can truly be called a revolutionary point guard. Sure, he might not be on par with those MVPs or All-NBA level point guards, but his emergence was groundbreaking, showing people that point guards could play this way too.