From the Scene archives, 2002: LeBron Inc. -- The making of a 17-year-old celebrity 'Doesn't the next Michael Jordan ever wish he could be a normal kid? 'LeBron shakes his head. 'I didn't work this hard to be just a normal kid.''
Last summer, LeBron James played basketball with Michael Jordan, a man whose prime LeBron is too young to remember. Jordan was coming out of retirement, and the scrimmages he convened at a Chicago gym were his way of measuring his skills -- at age 38 -- against the best players on earth.
"Everyone has been looking for 'the next Michael Jordan,'" says Bob Gibbons, who publishes a newsletter that rates the nation's elite high school players."That might be LeBron James." At a St. Vincent-St. Mary practice, there's no hint that somewhere on the floor lurks the nation's best high school basketball player.
It's not till the closing shoot-around that LeBron's talents become evident. He is the only one practicingIt's a shot so ridiculously hard that any player bold enough to risk it would earn an immediate benching. But LeBron wants to add to his arsenal. He hits five in a row. His expression doesn't change, and no one on the court bothers to notice.
"I'll bet he sees the game in slow motion," marvels Mark Mayemura, an evaluator for a West Coast Internet site that rates prep players. Near the end of the third quarter, the Irish are just finishing off a highlight reel. On one fast break, LeBron tries to bounce the ball off the backboard for a dunk, but is fouled. On another break, he tries a double-pump reverse dunk. It bounces off the back iron, shocking the crowd.
The two know each other from summer basketball camps, and LeBron seems determined to show Walsh up. He begins with drives to the paint. When Walsh backs off, LeBron sticks three-pointers in his face. SVSM is plagued by turnovers and missed free throws during the second half, and Germantown claws closer, but a late flourish by LeBron seals the 76-64 win. He finishes with 38 points -- half his team's total.
All have come to see the phenom that is Ohio's incarnation of Kobe or Michael or Magic. When he has the ball, they hold their breath. But the pressure seems not to matter. With LeBron's superior height, scoring was easy, but the other parts of his game were blossoming, too."He was big, but he could handle the ball," says Joyce."And he had this uncanny ability to pass the ball."
Suddenly, the country's best basketball programs wanted a piece of SVSM. Virginia's Oak Hill Academy, then the top-ranked team, inserted the Irish into its schedule. A flock of scouts and college coaches were perched in the stands, expecting Oak Hill to devour the precocious sophomore. The menacing figure of DeSagana Diop -- who would become a first-round pick of the Cavaliers -- loomed in the lane.The Irish gave Oak Hill its toughest test of the year.
Some players have potential. Others do not. And the guru's challenge is selecting a chosen few who will steer clear of distractions, avoid injuries, and hone their skills enough to be valuable to a college team. Tragically, to them, the gurus are betrayed by their own exuberance. While they are drawn to the trade by a love for amateur basketball and relish nothing more than a prospect's emergence at a university, it is their ratings, in part, that feed grandiose illusions that make prep players skip college for an early jump to the NBA.
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