Basketball's No. 1 Anti-Fan

Chapter 401 Thomas's Funeral
After returning from the press conference, Hansen saw Cunningham still in the locker room.

"Boss, I just went to the locker room to chat with them." Cunningham stood up and greeted Hansen when he saw him come in.

"Is Nikola okay?" Hansen still favors Jokic.

"Him? He's fine, but Luka looked hostile when he saw me. It's just a loss. We have deeper feelings for Cleveland than him." Cunningham couldn't help but complain.

Han Sen smiled. It looked like Doncic was really going to become the Wiggins in "history". Things would become very interesting if they really met the Cavaliers in the finals.

"Boss, guess who else I saw over there?" Cunningham suddenly looked mysterious.

"Jason!" Hansen didn't need to guess this question, Cunningham gave the answer immediately.

"Tatum?" The person who called Jason might not be Tatum, but Cunningham's expression is most likely him.

Cunningham nodded: "He was chatting with the Cavaliers staff, and he seemed very familiar with them. I was really surprised."

This surprised Han Sen.

Tatum is from Duke. You might think it would be normal if he was in Charlotte, but this is Cleveland.

Tatum is not some son of Akron like James.

But he didn't care too much, after all, his understanding of Tatum was limited.

The next day the Kings returned to Sacramento. They started their season on the road, but the next two back-to-back games were played at home, which would save them the trouble of traveling.

On this day, Han Sen was training at his own manor.

Since buying this place, he has also made some renovations and built an indoor and outdoor court near the castle.

He was training when Rondo suddenly came, looking in a hurry.

Han Sen stopped training and walked towards him puzzledly.

Normally, even if Rondo has something to do, he will wait in the living room until he finishes training. It seems that something big has happened.

"Henry is dead."

Han Sen's expression also became solemn.

After helping Hansen deal with transfer-related matters this summer, Thomas had some health problems.

Thomas, who was born in 1953, is 64 years old this year. This is not considered a very old age in this era. After all, before Han Sen traveled through time, the retirement age of the University of the East was 65.

It’s just that the work pressure of an agent is high, and the physical and mental strain is greater than that of an ordinary person.

Hansen also asked Thomas to put down his work and return to Chicago to recuperate, but he didn't expect that the news he received would be like this.

Hansen asked about Thomas' burial date, which was two days later, which happened to conflict with the next game against the Jazz.

He called Lu directly and asked for leave.

Since entering the NBA in 2009, Hansen has been working with Thomas. Thomas not only handled his business perfectly, but also used his strong network of contacts to create many opportunities for Hansen.

Han Sen was very grateful to his agent, with whom he had worked for nine years, and he had to attend his funeral.

Two days later, Hansen showed up in Chicago.

Thomas was a native of Chicago, and his funeral was also held in a church here.

At the scene, Han Sen saw many familiar faces.

These include Wade, Bosh, Livingston, and even some retired players, such as Michael Finley and Larry Hughes.

Thomas has a good reputation in the agent circle. Those players who work with him or have worked with him in the past have chosen to come to the scene.

When they saw Han Sen coming, they all came over to greet him, and everyone's attention was focused on him.

With Han Sen’s current status, he will be the focus wherever he goes.

Hansen and Wade chatted a lot, talking about their experiences in the past few days.

People are like this. They will arouse certain emotions in certain circumstances and become sentimental at funerals.

Especially for someone like Hansen who has died once, the feeling will be even more profound when he truly experiences death around him again.

There will be speeches by relatives at the funeral. What is somewhat unexpected is that Wade is also on the list of speakers, and he burst into tears while giving the speech.

Wade is also from Chicago, and the relationship between him and Thomas is not a simple player and agent relationship, but more like a father and son relationship.

After the speech, the priest finished the ceremony and the coffin containing Thomas was closed.

Then a group of people got in different cars and followed the bus to the cemetery.

There are many types of funerals in the United States, and burial is of course one of them, usually held in a suburban cemetery.

Here the priest will bless the deceased again, and then everyone will throw flowers on the coffin before filling the soil to complete the funeral.

Just as he was filling the soil, someone Han Sen had never expected stood next to him.

Because Hughes had few opportunities to play when Hansen entered the NBA, the two never played against each other on the court.

As for Han Sen's impression of him, it may still remain in the impression in "history" that he was the steals leader and the top defensive player last season, but when he joined the Cavaliers, he instantly became a CBA teammate.

Hughes started by talking about Thomas's life, and expressed his sadness that such a good person like Thomas died so early.

"No one knows what will come first, tomorrow or the accident." Han Sen also sighed.

Life is unfair from birth, but death is fair. No matter how rich and powerful you are during your lifetime, you can't take anything with you when you die.

"Is Jason okay?" But at this moment, Hughes changed the subject very dramatically.

Just as Hansen was confused, Hughes immediately explained his relationship with Tatum.

Many NBA players in the United States have a "godfather" by their side before entering the league.

These godfathers will be their guides in professional basketball and will also provide them with a lot of help throughout the process.

They are either relatives who love basketball, or some youth basketball coaches, or directly some professional basketball practitioners.

Tatum's godfather is Hughes.

Tatum's father Austin and Hughes were high school friends. They played basketball together and formed a band when they were in high school.

After that, Austin became a nobody, but Hughes made it to the NBA and naturally became Tatum's godfather, guiding Tatum on the path of professional basketball.

It was at this moment that what Cunningham had said before made sense.

Hughes played for the Cavaliers for several seasons, and Tatum should have been able to enter and leave the stadium freely at that time. In a place like Cleveland, it is common for people to work for many years, just like Tony, the security guard in Sacramento, so it is normal for them to be familiar with each other.

"He's a hard-working player." Han Sen replied after thinking for a while.

Because of Tatum's "eccentricity" in the Kings, Hansen knows the least about him among the rookies, and his biggest impression is just his hard work.

Tatum will basically arrive at the gym an hour before the team's official training starts to start training, which is very similar to Hansen's rookie season.

"He has the purest love for basketball and is the kind of person who will do anything to win." Hughes also praised Tatum. Hansen nodded, not in agreement, but just as if he was listening to someone bragging about how great his junior was.

After returning from Chicago, Hansen needed to deal with the issue of his new agent first.

In fact, right after the news of Thomas' death came out, all the well-known agents had contacted Hansen in various ways.

Hansen is the best player in history, and being able to become Thomas' successor will be the most brilliant achievement in their agent careers.

There is nothing wrong with what these people are doing, because this position has to be filled by someone, and the earlier one gets in touch, the greater the chance of being selected.

However, Han Sen had no intention of choosing among them. It was not because he disliked the agents' behavior, but because he had already prepared for this.

After playing in the NBA for so many years, he must have some "his own people".

The person who is most closely connected to him and whom he trusts the most is Rondo.

In addition, Will Atkinson and Aaron O'Neal, members of the original Barry University team, also joined later.

Atkinson was more flexible in his thinking, so Hansen arranged for him to work at UA, where he learned about business operations. He was involved in many of Hansen's commercial contracts over the years.
O'Neal is relatively dull, but he is very conscientious in his work. Hansen arranged for him to learn from Thomas and prepare for creating his own agency in the future.

In fact, before Thomas fell ill, O'Neal had already been helping to deal with some things.

Now that Thomas has passed away suddenly, letting O'Neal take over is the best choice.

When this news broke out, it immediately caused an uproar.

"Han is a successful player, but he won't be a successful businessman."

"Thomas provided too much protection for Han, and Han's influence will weaken with his passing."

"Han and Michael are no different, they are both nepotists."

Those well-known agents who didn't get the chance complained about Hansen in private.

These words more or less reached Han Sen's ears, but Han Sen didn't care much.

It's the same old saying. Just like the most important requirement for the palace guards in ancient times was not how strong their fighting skills were but loyalty, Han Sen now follows this criterion when choosing an agent.

Given his current status in the league, there would be nothing wrong with letting O'Neal's grandmother be the agent.

You should know that Han Sen himself will personally check the big endorsement contracts.

In this context, it is more important to choose someone you trust rather than someone with greater ability.

You know, just this past summer, news broke that Duncan was defrauded of $2500 million by his agent.

As for the question of whether O'Neal is a newcomer, it is not a problem at all. When Rich Paul first came out, he was also a newcomer.

When the size of the player base reaches a certain level, newcomers can quickly become popular.

In fact, not long after O'Neal took over, he negotiated an endorsement contract, and Hansen will become the spokesperson for TikTok in North America.

TikTok is a subsidiary of ByteDance, a domestic short video platform company based in Dongda. It is a new product launched this year after ByteDance acquired the US-based short video platform Musical.ly.

Before launching, they sought cooperation with Hansen.

After all, no one is more suitable to be the spokesperson than Han Sen.

It was just that due to Thomas's physical condition and Hansen's continued pursuit of shares, the negotiations took a long time.

Finally, after O'Neal took over, the two parties officially completed the signing. In addition to signing a 5-year, 5000 million endorsement contract, Hansen will also get 2% of TikTok's shares.

Compared to the endorsement contract, this 2% stake is obviously a more critical part.

TikTok is a joint-stock company. ByteDance, as the parent company, holds about 40% of the shares, and the rest are investment companies, the smallest of which has just over people.

Therefore, this 2% is not a small amount, because it is real dry stock. As long as Hansen does not sell it, he can get dividends from it every year.

The nature of this endorsement contract is the same as Jordan's endorsement of Nike and the drawer agreement between Hansen and Vivek. It is essentially a cooperative relationship.

The bigger TikTok becomes, the more money Hanson will make.

Originally, if they had discussed it further, Hansen might have gotten more, but Hansen chose to agree when O'Neal first took over, which was also a stepping stone for O'Neal.

After completing the contract, Hansen also registered a personal TikTok account, and began to post mainly his daily life on it.

When he was in Cleveland, Hansen interacted with fans through the radio.

But with the development of the times, that method is obviously a bit outdated.

This approach instantly brought huge traffic to TikTok.

After all, this is the part that fans care about most, and they just need to download a new app.

In other words, many of them are already tired of Facebook and Twitter, whose functions are still stuck in the last century and cannot enable instant interaction.

The emergence of TikTok and that algorithm opened the door to a new world for them.

Han Sen's existence is the biggest publicity machine, allowing more people to know about this platform faster.

It seemed that overnight, TikTok became the most downloaded app in the United States, and Hanson's influence was also fully demonstrated.

Of course, these are just a small episode after Hansen returned to Sacramento.

Compared to what's happening off the court, Hansen is now more concerned about the situation of the Kings.

In the game he missed, the Kings lost to the Jazz 103-113.

米切尔这场比赛发挥一般，他贡献了17分4板4助攻，但是17次出手只命中了5球。

Stability was a problem he had last season, and it is also an area where he needs to continue to improve.

倒是塔图姆的发挥相比上一场有明显反弹，全场比赛15投8中，拿到了全队最高的20分5板3助攻。

Because it was a back-to-back game, Hansen played against the Trail Blazers the day after he returned.

The Trail Blazers are led by the backcourt duo of Lillard and McCollum, who are quite strong and the game was quite intense.

In the end, led by Hansen's 47 points, the Kings defeated the Trail Blazers 126-121 and won the victory.

米切尔发挥迎来反弹，14投9中得到24分5板4助攻。

However, Tatum, who played well in the last game, only scored 7 points and 3 rebounds with 9 of 6 shots.

After three games of the season, an unexpected situation occurred.

Tatum, who could play off the ball and was a better match for Hanson, struggled when he played with Hanson.

It was as if there was no chemistry between him and Han Sen.

Even Han Sen had never thought of such a situation.

(End of this chapter)