Ah, to be a 17-year-old and have scouts drooling over your every move.
It’s never a rarity with nationally-ranked, hyped up to heaven-sent high school basketball prospects in the Big Apple.
We saw it five years ago at Lincoln, a traditional basketball breeding ground in Coney Island. In the island where throwbacks are in and Abercrombie is out, where pickup ball is played at all hours, top-shelf players are never in short supply.
The Sebastian Telfair saga is indicative of the hype and hyperbole that comes with the territory. The pint-sized guard was a highly-sought after item on the recruiting market back in 2004, with the eyes of the city watching. Telfair currently balls for the Minnesota Timberwolves, albeit he’s yet to evolve into the electrifying, playmaking point guard that the New York basketball culture saw back in ’04. He’s posted some resume reels this year and his game has made some strides, but he hasn’t panned out. Let’s not forget, however, he’s only 23.
During Telfair’s senior year at Lincoln, when he averaged 28 points and led the Railsplitters to the state championship, he lived his life like the star of his own movie. Fitting, because there actually was an ESPN documentary, Through The Fire, about his last hurrah at Coney Island and the pressure that splashed the shoreline.
Telfair abruptly ascended to celebrity status. His games were aired on ESPN. His name was all over the New York tabloids, his mug pictured on the front of every big sports magazine. He kicked it with Jay-Z, then a frequent visitor of the Lincoln locker room.
Telfair penned with Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals during the early signing period. The marriage never was, however, when Telfair decided he was going to play in the NBA.
There’s a buffet-line of dribble-happy, go-go New York guards that have flamed out due to the inevitable pressure that being pegged as the city’s next great one brings. (Remember God Shammgod, who was supposed to be the second coming of Michael?)
This is what makes Lance Stephenson’s story all the more interesting.
The hype machine was kick-started early for Lance “Born Ready” Stephenson, who also attends Marbury and Telfair’s alma mater in Brooklyn. Born Ready is a promising 6-foot-5, 200-pound proverbial manchild.
Stephenson went eyeball-to-eyeball with then top-ranked junior O.J. Mayo as an eighth-grader at 2005 ABCD camp at Farleigh Dickinson. It was a matchup described as Stephenson’s “defining moment.” The epic mano y mano showdown abruptly turned into one for the ages.
Stephenson forged a name for himself in the first half, ignoring Mayo’s constant trash-talk. At moments, it looked as if he was feeding off it.
He slammed home alley-oops. He worked off the dribbled and glided to the hole. He eluded defenders off the baseline, penetrated the teeth of the defense, and buried three-pointers.
“I really didn’t intend on getting into a type of battle like that, sometimes it happens,” said Mayo (who now stars for the Memphis Grizzlies) during an interview with CSTV.
Mayo, then the no. 1 ranked player in the country, eventually got the better of Stephenson, outscoring him 21-16 and rolling to a victory over Lance’s star-studded squad.
“(Mayo) was saying, ‘you can’t score. You can’t do this, you can’t do that’,” Stephenson said before a horde of reporters that day.
“I was saying, ‘listen you’re saying this to an eighth grader. I don’t care, I’m trying to play good.'”
Now Lance is New York’s vaunted senior guard, and the hype surrounding him and the railsplitters has hit towering heights.
It happens every day, like clockwork. Just like in the Ray Allen flick (He Got Game, 1998), “Where are you going next year?” Lance is asked as he traipses the halls of Lincoln.
He’s constantly reminded of the magnitude of such a decision. He’s also the subject of constant rumors. One recent rumor is that he is foregoing college at an opportunity to play professionally in Europe. It was quickly squashed during Stephenson’s interview with ESPN.
Stephenson had an online TV show about him this summer, where his every move was analyzed, dissected, and thrown back at the nifty neophyte.
“He definitely has the chance to be the best out of Coney Island,” said head coach Dwayne “Tiny” Morton, who coached Telfair and was an assistant during Marbury’s stay at Lincoln.
Still, Stephenson’s road to greatness has hit plenty of potholes.
He was suspended for a game last year after a fight between a teammate (which reportedly resulted in the teammate being sent to the hospital) and was charged with groping a 17-year-old girl in October.
Some say he’s got an attitude and brings baggage, others say it’s his will to win and the “attitude” comes with the territory.
Lance is more likely to go to a school like St. John’s (or a school where he can pull a one-and-done, get buckets and bolt for the league) than a school that wants to invest 2-4 years in him.
“Off the court, he (Lance) is like the nicest kid you’re going to ever meet, because he’s still just a kid,” says Lance’s cousin, known as “Bigz.”
Lincoln lost three out of four for the first time in recent memory. The Railsplitters were bludgeoned by top-tier St. Benedict’s at the Newark National Invitational Tournament. Stephenson was held to just 15 points on 5-for-17 shooting in a loss to Syracuse power Jamesville-DeWitt earlier this month.
Shortly after this, Lincoln fell 67-54 to Alambama power LeFlore at the Spalding Roundball Challenge in Springfield, Mass. Stephenson scored 24 points – 20 in the second half – in an eyeball-to-eyeball battle with DeMarcus Cousins, a top-ranked 2009 recruit. Cousins, a 6-foot-11 behemoth and soft UAB commit, went after Lance in various mano y mano battle scenes between the two highly-touted players.
The ensuing couple of weeks will be a major test of Stephenson’s fortitude, as Born Ready seeks to bounce back and continue the quest for Lincoln’s fourth consecutive PSAL championship at The Mecca of Basketball, Madison Square Garden.
