High School Basketball - Tomorrow’s NBA stars
It is commonplace now for great players to be drafted right out of high school basketball into the NBA. Only time can tell how great they will become and whether the decision to skip college was a wise one. Players who were drafted out of high school basketball include Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, Jermaine O’Neal and of course Lebron James. Believe it or not I got to see Lebron James in person, although he was not playing hoops—he was at a Nascar race doing promotion for his new cartoon, King James. It was exciting to see such a young superstar who is quite possibly the best player to play in the NBA since Michael Jordan.
Lebron was a high school basketball player at St. Vincent – St. Mary in the state of Ohio and a graduating senior when he was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003. In fact, Lebron was a first round pick, first pick overall.
Lebron James has been called “the chosen one,” “the next Kobe Bryant,” among others. It is hard to believe that this phenomenon has only been in the pros for three years. He entered the marketing world even before stepping onto the professional court, becoming a spokesperson for Sprite and earning over ninety million dollars.
Lebron was named 2003-04 NBA Rookie of the Year becoming the first Cavalier and youngest player to ever receive the award. He was one of only three rookies in NBA history to average at least twenty points, five rebounds, and five assists in one season (the other two were Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan). Lebron was named to this years all-start team and recently had his highest scoring game when he scored a career-high forty-one points.
Despite all these amazing stats, Lebron and the other players I mentioned seem to be the exception to the rule. Just because a player is drafted out of high school basketball doesn’t mean they are going to perform at an exceptional level in the NBA.
Now that another season of high school basketball is over, the final rankings have come out for the top high school basketball teams and players. There are breakout stars on these teams, and we’ll have to wait until the NBA draft in June to see what happens.
For more information about high school basketball, rankings, statistics, and the NBA draft, go online and check out websites such as insidehoops.com, NBA.com, and ESPN.com