He was seen as the surer thing between he and fellow top prospect Kevin Durant, whom many felt wouldn't last in the NBA due to his lanky frame. Whether or not he actually finished high school is up for debate as he didnt qualify academically at the University of Florida. Wrenn was the 1998 Washington (state) high school player of the year playing for O'Dea High, a Catholic all-boys school in Seattle's famed "First Hill" district. The top-two ranked, Al Harrington and Rashard Lewis, combined to play 32 NBA seasons and appear in over 2000 games. Smith is the only prep-to-pro to ever be drafted by the Spurs as he was taken in the first round of the 1999 draft. That also is where the aforementioned indelible moment happened. But with Korleone, it was a total surprise. Young would be a second round pick of the Pistons in 1998 but played a total of 15 minutes in the lockout-shortened season before being cut. Although he played college ball at Cal State LA, Lewis is most notable forbeing arguably the greatest California streetball legends of all time. 1 forward in the Class of 2012 while attending Findlay Prep in Nevada. He was later recruited by Chicago's DePaul University, but was ruled academically ineligible. Perhaps the singular flaw on KG's resume is the fact he "only" won one title; but still, KG is an all-time great. I beat my defender baseline and went up for a layup, but turned my back to him to avoid the contact before flipping the ball over my shoulder. Since then hes spent his time in the coaching ranks in both Indiana high schools and for the Butler womens basketball team. O.J. 2023 Michigan Mr. Basketball: Meet the five finalists Now, I've got a moment to compare with that. 1 player in the nation according to Rivals for the Class of 2010. Fat chance. There is no comparison to me, Gary Payton, Antonio Davis, Greg Foster or Brian Shaw.. Of the 44 players who have been drafted straight out of high school, Robert Swift remains the only white player to go from prep-to-pro. It's baffling to think that at one point, Sebastian Telfair shared a Sports Illustrated cover spot with LeBron James and the two were hyped as the two players set to take over the NBA. These are the best high school basketball players in the country, state by state, and they represent the future of the game. Avon defeats Danville 61-49 on Friday, February 24, 2023. Who is IHSAA boys basketball player of the week? For this piece, let's take a look at the 10 best basketball players to never play in the NBA. I mashed up some of what I captured for an Instagram video. The 10th is Chris Walker who struggled as soon as he finished high school. We all know what happened when Oden went pro as he was drafted by the Blazers first overall in 2007. Vinnie Iyer, "Before she starred at North Carolinaand was later drafted No. Malone didn't need college; his last two years in high school, his team didn't lose a single game, taking back-to-back state titles in Virginia. Favorite athlete: Stephen Curry. In 2017 and 2019, she won two gold medals in the FIBA Americas Tournament and the FIBA World Cup Tournament with Team USA. Swift then transferred to the dully named Highland High School where he had to win a court battle to be eligible to play. The nation's top high school basketball players used to be able to go straight to the draft. Know Her Career And Life! The splash of a Spaulding sphere is sweet to anyone who knows the game. 10 Best Basketball Players to Never Play in the NBA He was rated the No. 3. Arlington Martin High basketball team players punished after fight True, Washburn is now a cautionary tale, and always will be. 1. Although he never strutted his stuff in the NBA, Haynes played in two separate stints for the Harlem Globetrotters, mesmerizing the crowd with his style, pizzazz, and insane handle. Caitlin won the IPSWA Miss Iowa Basketball award in 2020. Cooke declared for the 2002 NBA Draft after three different teams promised him they would draft him. Ward didnt even become a starter until his senior season and by then the luster off his Naismith award had worn away. There's been an ongoing debate for years, even decades, on whether the "one and done" rule in the NBA should be liftedor if in fact, basketball players should spend even more time in college. Brent and Anne Nizzi-daughter Clark's Caitlin is a Clark. 3 min read Chet Holmgren, the top high school player in the country, has been named the 2021 Morgan Wootten Boys High School Basketball Player. Players who made the most successful jumps from high school to the NBA However, there is another group of players who were better served in going to college than skipping it. A legend of Rucker Park, Hammond destroyed opponents with his thunderous jams and smooth shot. There was asixth-grader in Columbus who could dunk, and his name put it over the top. She has amassed more than 10 thousand followers on her Instagram site. He was on top of every national all-America team and recruiting ranking, along with Manning and John Williams (later known, after a blown-out knee and massive weight gain, as Hot Plate). The 30 Greatest Basketball Players to Never Play in the NBA There weren't. (Michael A. Schwarz-USA TODAY Sports) Dwight Howard created a legendary resume in high school, especially his senior year in 2004. Caitlin was born on January 22, 2002, in Des Moines, Iowa, and is currently 19 years old. Top opponent: Jason Drake Jr., Ferndale. Brad Pinkerton. USA Today has named its top high school player since the 1982-83 season. Initially, he committed to Louisville after a stellar run at Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, but extenuating circumstances prompted him to change his mind and declare for the 2004 draft. 9 Best Basketball Players Who Never Made It to the NBA - Sportscasting Nonetheless, she has a chance to be selected by a WNBA team in the upcoming days, and if that occurs, she will make almost as much as the stated sums. Heck, there was no YouTube. Lance . The Top 60 Basketball Players to Come From New York City Sean Marbaugh, Cathedral: The student manager got a chance to suit up on senior night and made the most of it by scoring a basket in the fourth quarter of a 67-55 win over Zionsville. Aside from throwing down monster dunks, he was also known for blocking the shots of opponents much bigger than him. Dating back to the 1960s, and with a decade-long heyday beginning in 1995, some of the NBA's greatest talents made the leap right to the pros. She has gained recognition for her exceptional gaming senses. That was kind of the case with Suntino Korleone Young, whose name seems to derive from the Godfather character Santino 'Sonny' Corleone. ARLINGTON, Texas - For Arlington Martin High School, Tuesday was the biggest game of the post-season.. He also attracted the biggest of stars as LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony attended some of his high school games. During a summer camp Cooke, the then No. MISHAWAKA MARIAN (41): Dareon Thornton 3 2-2 10, Deaglan Sullivan 7 5-6 21, Jackson Price 1 0-0 3, Deuce Owens 1 0-0 2, Zion Rhoades 1 3-4 5 TOTAL: 13 10-12 41 Unfortunately, instead of showcasing his abilities in the NBA, Mitchell was seduced by a life of crime and ended up in prison. At Benjamin Franklin High in New York City, shooting guard Manigault set a record by scoring 57 points in one game in the late 1950s. Buta lack of inner motivation proved to be a distraction, and the closest Ryan ever came to the NBA was a tryout he had with the then-New Jersey Nets in 1990. Cooke did have good times, first at Lane High in Brooklyn and then he moved on to La Salle Academy in Manhattan. Top High School Basketball Scorers of All Time | Stadium Talk He would eventually move on to play in the CBA before retiring in 2003. Wagner, Cason Wallace, Amari Bailey and Nick Smith headline standouts across the country. He was the No. In fact, in a summer league game, Lewis dropped 52 points against a bunch of Los Angeles Lakers he was still in high school at the time. Iowa Womens Basketball Point Guard Caitlin is confirmed to be 19 years of age. best high school basketball player that never made it - Lindon CPA's Kody Clancy, Scottsburg: The junior guard had 28 points and four steals on 13-for-16 shooting in an 83-47 win over Mitchell and had 15 points in a 50-45 loss to Jennings County. The 'Punks'section of Slam Magazine and maybe ESPN's 'SSA'were the primary ways we caught wind of big-time hoopers elsewhere. Bennett ended the 2016-17 season in Turkey but was cut after his team won the championship. Nicknamed 'Benji'. Williams was a star with two different high schools in Mississippi and Texas and was ranked in the top 20 prospects of 2009. MORE: Jalen Brunson is SN Player of Year. The NBA has been home to plenty of elite ball handlers, but in all fairness, point guard Marques Hayenes was on another level. Her date of birth is not known. West began his pro career with the Los Angeles Lakers in 1960. He would play only 103 games in the NBA and his career was over by the age of 23. Best High School Basketball Player That Never Made ItBest High School Top 50 ever! Colorado High School Hoops | BAC Magazine A knee injury wiped out his entire third season and by the time he was healthy, the SuperSonics were becoming the OKC Thunder and Kevin Durant was the young superstar. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Markelle Fultz, is currently enduring what has become a Philadelphia 76ers' rite of passage: spending his rookie year watching from the sidelines as he rehabs an injury. Yet, for all the incredible individuals who left their mark on the NBA, there are those who, while talented enough to play in the league, never got the chance. Maggette was smooth and fun to watch doing everything on the floor." -. Daniel Tippit, New Palestine: The senior hit a 30-footer in New Palestines 61-31 win over Greenwood on senior night as the Dragons finished off a 21-2 regular season. And it's really not close. In 2014 he grew tired of the NBAs minor league system and headed back overseas. When it came to dribbling the basketball, Haynes was a revolutionary; considered by many to be the greatest dribbler in the history of the game. There's a reason the NBA stopped letting kids straight outta high school join the league--because most have been disappointing, as this list will demonstrate time and time again. Shes a stunning basketball player with a well-built body. Others achieve college stardom. She was also named Big Ten Freshman of the Year and unanimously selected for both the All-Big Ten Freshman Team and First Team All-Big Ten after the regular season. A summer league stint with the Boston Celtics is the closest Cooke would ever get to the NBA and a pair of torn Achilles tendons ended his career by the age of 25. This is what I wrote in Sporting News after seeing LeBron James play as a rising junior at the 2001 ABCD Camp in New Jersey: 'Some baby boomers who've got me by a few years make a big deal of the first time they saw The Beatles on 'The Ed Sullivan Show.' McCain grew up in Sacramento and spent a majority of his life in the . A Lamborghini is a Lamborghini, and Williamson is a Murcilago with a 6.2 L V12 engine. Bill Bender is a national college football writer for The Sporting News. Tyreke Evans 3. Jalen was good, but it was not quite as good as his dad playing with a bum wrist against Feehan, and posting 42 points." Telfair played for nine NBA teams in 10 years and spent some time overseas as well, never living up to the incredible hype. Born in the Dominican Republic, Lopezs family moved to New York when he was 14 and he enrolled at Rice High School in Manhattan. But Maggette was the best all-around player on the floor against a favorite team that had Kentucky recruit Ryan Hogan. He was a 14-time All-Star and a member of the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team. In contrast, the most well-known NBA contracts, according to Go Banking Rates, are worth more than $40 million for an 82-game regular season, or $487,800 per game. After bouncing around myriad high schools in two states, he enrolled at a private school in Orlando for his senior season. The Capital Centre didn't react with an "ooohhhhh,"but with an explosion of "WHOAAAAAAA! (This time, it included me, as I was again seated behind the same basket he slammed on). He died of natural causes back in 2015 at the age of 89. played in two separate stints for the Harlem Globetrotters, arguably the greatest California streetball legends of all time, drug kingpin and superstar basketball player, fair share of ESPNs 30 for 30 documentaries. Those in the Columbus area who remember watching Weaver play in the '90s will tell you 100 variations of thissame legend. Which is a shame because the guy was insanely talented. The streets run ripe with ball players who had the talent but never played in the NBA for various reasons. The closest the shooting guard ever came to the NBA was playing in the Summer League for the Boston Celtics. Telfair also had various run-ins with the law including multiple arrests for possession of weapons. In three seasons at Loyola Marymount, 6-foot-7 forward Hank Gathers averaged 28 points and 11.1 rebounds per game and was one of the most dominant forces in college basketball. He ran the floor like a defensive back doing the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. But I had seen what I needed to see: the most impressive display of human athleticism Ive ever witnessed in any athletic competition or showing. Emoni Bates, Jr., Ypsi Prep Academy (Ypsilanti) Preseason favorite to win MaxPreps National Player of the Year honors averaged 32.4 points, 9.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.2 steals for the 19-3 Railsplitters. McBride now has 1,822 career points going into the sectional. We wound up matching up against his team late in the tournament. The ball had hit the rim and was rising toward the top of the backboard; Williamson snatched the ball, his head easily above said rim, before gravity had a chance to take effect. It featured Rashad Anderson, UConn's all-time leading 3-pointer shooter and former USC standout and first-round NFL Draft pick wide receiver Mike Williams, but he was easily their best player. His NBA career was even more of a letdown as he played for just four seasons and averaged 5.8 points per game. Such was the case when my Tampa Raptors, a rag-tag, best of the rest team, consisting of a band of players not good enough to be scooped up by Nike or adidas' summer outfits. Caitlin has played basketball since she was very little. Ebi was well regarded after leading Westbury Christian Academy to three Texas state titles, but then the forward made the crucial mistake of thinking he was better than he actually was, and skipped college. Brandon Jennings 5. Some players found themselves a little too drawn to the hustler lifestyle. Copyright 2023 Endgame360 Inc. All Rights Reserved. The World's Most Entertaining Car Website. Her father participated in baseball and basketball at Simpson College. He was named NBA Rookie of the Year and went on to be named an All-Star six times, earning $161 million over a 14-year career. But Baldwin is also . Of the 10 players who started in the 2013 Jordan Brand Classic, nine of them were either drafted or are currently in the NBA including Joel Embiid, Andrew Wiggins and Jabari Parker. High school boys basketball: Orem beats Lehi in 5A quarterfinals Unique lists featuring pop culture, entertainment and crazy facts. SHARE High school boys basketball: Orem continues unlikely 5A tourney run, bounces Lehi to advance to semifinals. Type above and press Enter to search. In alphabetical order, here are 10 Super 5 candidates to watch. On Caitlins current financial situation, nothing is known. USA Today has named its top high school player since the 1982-83 season. As a sophomore in 201718, Caitlin averaged 27.1 points, 6.5 rebounds, 4.0 assists, and 2.3 steals, leading her squad to a 204 record and the state quarterfinals. He was by far the best player to come out of Oakland. 5. Go figure: The best high school player performance I saw was on campus when I was a college student attending a game at Evanston's Welsh-Ryan Arena, in Chicago's second-ever City/Suburban Showdown. Cooke's story is proof positive there is a very thin line between achieving athletic greatness and being mired in obscurity. He played for eight different teams and was traded six different times including in the deal that sent Kevin Garnett to Boston. He was a two-time All-Star in the Israeli League and at the age of 26 he could still get one more opportunity in the NBA. Though Bryant was drafted #13 overall by the Charlotte Hornets, of course, such an obscure franchise was beneath Kobe's destined greatness, so he promptly engineered a curious trade to the Los Angeles Lakers (for Vlade Divac?) Cell phones throughout that crowd were set in video mode and trained on Williamson before he even finished his stretches. Players who made the most successful jumps from high school to the NBA, The paths of KD and Kyrie: How one month changed three franchises and two superstar legacies, Morant to miss two games after video with gun, Grizzlies' Clarke tore Achilles, out for season, 'Not going out this way': Nets, down 28, stun C's, Kerr touts 5-0 homestand: Dubs 'turned a corner', KD: Mavs tilt, Kyrie meeting 'just another game', Sources: Dragic joining Bucks for rest of season, Nets filling out big-man depth with Noel signing, Isaac has surgery on adductor, done for season. He turned 17 at the end of his freshman year and had to sit out his entire senior year because he was too old to qualify for high school play. We understand this problem because we have gone through the entire Best High School Basketball Player That Never Made It research process already, which is why we have put together a comprehensive list of the Best High School Basketball Player That Never Made It available in the market today. Howard opted to forego college and head straight for the draft where he was the number one overall selection by the Orlando Magic. It didn't take long to see that it was. Coincidentally, Dawkins also skipped college, but never became the pro on Malone's level. However, since breaking Duke's all-time scoring. Alston. Brent and Anne Nizzi-daughter Clarks Caitlin is a Clark. They had to wheel out another one. Selby would start just 11 games at Kansas and the team seemed to perform better when he didnt play. The first high school player to be drafted straight out of high school was Tim Duncan of Rock Hill High School in South Carolina. Those players were: 1. Press Esc to cancel. It wasn't the best decision for each one, but for a select group of superstars, skipping college paid off. Therefore, in most of these cases, as you shall discover, college probably would have been a good idea for the player in question. The top three-ranked players in the Class of 1998 all jumped straight from high school to the NBA. Blake is a football player for Iowa State and is also an athlete. Oden was already being called the next Patrick Ewing or the next Tim Duncan when he was just 16 years old. Know About Her Amusing Dating History. Her favourite NBA player is Kevin Durant, and Maya Moore was her basketball role model when she was little. Best high school basketball player in all 50 states She was the most sought-after student at her high school and rose to fame as a result of her performances in high school athletics. Instead of going to University of Maryland in 1974, Malone joined the NBA's then rival pro basketball league, the ABA, famous for its multi-colored balls and players with outrageous '70's hair styles. Wagner was the No. In the documentary, Hooked: The Legend of Demetrius Hook Mitchell, former NBA superstar and current Milwaukee Bucks head coach Jason Kidd said the following: Hook could jump over a building. Cooke went up against his rival in a one-on-one game in 2001 and was soundly schooled, and for some inexplicable reason, allowed that one game to determine his fate forevermore. Montverde Academy . He played one year in Israel and one year in Japan before being drafted in the second round in 2011 by Charlotte. Such was Garnett's maturity that he was able to bypass college and still exceed expectations. 2023-2024 High School Basketball Players - MonsterPreps There are other players like J.R. Smith, Kendrick Perkins and Monta Ellis who also went the prep-to-pro route and churned out serviceable NBA careers. My friend gave me the kind of look one would expect from a person who had just seen a human defy physics. Her 799 points set a freshman record, while her 39 points in one game broke a previous school mark. With the playoffs underway, it's time to see who stands out as the best of the best so far. Follow Nonstop Sports Instagram - https://instagram.com/nons. 8. He probably scored 30-plus points, and I'm not sure I ever saw him put the ball on the floor. 18 pick in the 1973 draft, yet on account of a contract dispute, Lewis never played a single game in the NBA. 5. Needless to say they did it without Butler, who never did learn much about that work ethic. 7 recruit in his class would average all of 3.7 PPG in two seasons with the Gators and declared for the 2015 NBA Draft. Bassy remains the only pure point guard to be drafted straight out of high school and the movie He Got Game was loosely based on Telfair among other players. He scored 2,124 points in high school and led his team to 50 straight wins. Best High School Basketball Player in Every State - Stadium Talk All that you've heard about his ability is true, except that it may be incomplete. Howard practically fulfilled the selection by taking the 2008-09 Magic all the way to the NBA Finals. There are some basketball high school phenoms that simply never take that next step at the pro level, whereas others are even better as pros. Except now he's got Magic Johnson's head on Karl Malone's body, and it's even more frightening." Oh, what could have been. Get your votes in by noon Friday for our high school boys basketball player of the week for Feb. 20-25: Cast your vote in the poll at the bottom of the article or click here to vote. Cooke was once the top prospect in the nation but that may have been because he was so much older than everyone else. We were playing Salem at our small gym with a brick wall that was about 10 feet off the baseline. Here are SN's staff picks: "I will always be indebted to my sophomore year biology teacher for noting my passion for basketball and asking if I'd like to go along with him to see the 1976 Dapper Dan Roundball Classic. 15 Basketball High School Phenoms Who Never Made It In The NBA. 1. As the top-ranked recruit in his class, Ward was expected to be the next Chris Webber but he wasnt even the next Juwan Howard or Jalen Rose. But, Wrenn was a troubled soul, who made emotional--rather than logical--decisions, and spent an uneventful college career bouncing from UConn to Washington, so his making it to the NBA was never really in the cards. Pee Wee Kirkland, another legend of Rucker Park, made a name for himself in two highly distinct ways: as a drug kingpin and superstar basketball player. And even then you heard about players a lot more than you saw them. Well never know. Unless youre a diehard basketball fan, you probably dont know about the majority of these players. Oden was already being called the next Patrick Ewing or the next Tim Duncan when he was just 16 years old. Hes been arrested multiple times and has been charged with reckless driving, unlawful possession of a shotgun, and an armed home invasion. News on all your favorite celebs, reality TV, and movies. 50 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time Hes looking at a future of second-rate foreign leagues and G-League appearances. He played in a total of 105 games in the NBA and another 25 games in the Chinese Basketball Association. How Tall Is Grizzlies Star Player Desmond Bane? Kevin Love 6. (July 2022 update: Since the publication of this list in July 2020, 13 of the players on the list have been selected in the NBA Draft, including a No. The 6'4" wing guard was equally good off the court where he maintained over a 3.0 GPA and is also an accomplished piano player. 30. Telfair was arguably the most famous basketball player in the New York City area in the early 2000s. And Washburn took off and threw down the exact same dunk. Louisville high school basketball players pick favorite warm-up song 1 overall pick and an NBA champion) Her zodiac sign is Aquarius, based on the day of her birth. 'Estaban.' This is who we would take. His last known basketball activity was a tryout with the Warriors D-League team in 2016. He was one of the most-touted players to come out of New York in years and won the Mr. Basketball USA award in 1994. Believe me, I tried. But before all that, center/power forward Butler was an excellent post player,twice being Mississippi's "Mr. Basketball" (2002 and '03). Washburn, from Hickory, N.C., was 6-11, 230-plus pounds, ran the floor like a forward, handled like someone eight inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter, shook backboards with his dunks and blocked everything in sight. Jordan really didn't top that one until the 1988 NBA dunk contest maybe. He added six rebounds, four assists and one steal in 32 minutes, attempting double-digit 3 . There's no big tragic story behind Williams' failures; he appears to have not been good enough, at least for any teams to believe in him to sign him and actually play him. We held the lead deep into the second half before he decided he'd had enough. And in the early 1990s, I began to cover recruiting camps like the ABCD and then the elite tournaments like the Big Time and Peach Jam. 15 Basketball High School Phenoms Who Never Made It In - TheSportster "He was a star guard for Salem High, someone we all saw regularly at the Salem YMCA. There was actually an HBO movie made about Manigault starring Don Cheadle entitledRebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault. A post shared by Tadd Haislop (@taddhaislop) on Feb 18, 2017 at 12:03pm PST. It is so appropriate that this entry of Fields as a "Never Was" directly follows our previous "Became Bigger"--Kevin Garnett--because the pair were actually high school teammates at Chicago's Farragut Academy. Get your votes in by noon Friday for our high school boys basketball player of the week for Feb. 20-25: Cast your vote in the poll at the bottom of the article or click here to vote.. Trey . 1 prospect, was outplayed by an unknown player named LeBron James who would then supplant Cooke as the top player in the country. Because ESPN ranked her as the second best guard, more people started paying attention to what she had to say about the game. That meant more time on the bench for the main attraction. I vividly remember his first post-stretch action being a rebound off a teammate's missed warm-up jumper. When Roselle Catholic boys basketball coach Dave Boff originally envisioned his team for the 2021-22 season, he thought he would have at least two of the top players in the state -- if not the nation. I don't remember how many points or how many dunks, but what stood out was his ball-handling skills and ability to spin through traffic with an effortless grace I've never seen at the high-school level since. Eventually, Wrenn ran into legal troubles, thus ending his bid at the pros.