Timo Cruz was 15 years ahead of the curve shooting those wide open fast break threes.

Timo Cruz would have quit on Bron as soon as he got called out for half-assing it in practice.

I legit thought JR Smith was an industry plant inspired by Timo Cruz

Lebron what are you most afraid of

THIS A’INT OVER!

Nah man, if he teams up with Brian Scalabrine, he would have won 20 rings.

Is he legitimately decent at basketball or no?

His google description calls him legendary lol his nickname supposedly “Livewire”

You could have just said he hangs out at santa monica pier, the bum and scamming people parts would have been implied

From “next LeBron” to “yo bro, bet you can’t hit 3 in a row for $20” is insane arc.

Lol, I got stuck in the Hollywood theater tourist trap my first time visiting California. This dude came up to me begging to take his mixtape and wanting $5.

I put in the mixtape on my laptop, it wasn’t songs. It was acting clips from Coach Carter. Wtf.

Two years ago my wife and I went to a Lakers game. As we were leaving he was outside yelling some crazy shit. Feel bad for the guy. Seems mentally unwell

Can confirm. I was out there a few years ago and he gave me a signed picture of him and Samuel Jackson. Then asked me for a donation. I probably still have the picture somewhere.

It was made in 2005, but the real events it’s loosely based on took place in 1999.

99 feet?

Should’ve used the next KG then, that was the most popular comp for Chandler before the draft.

This is correct

I was under that impression as well, but I asked the actual Coach Ken Carter if that was true to his face at a talk he gave and he told me no.

Basically, he was hyped as the next Lebron and ends up becoming a Gerald Wallace or Andrew Wiggins type who wins DPOY instead.

He could’ve stayed fat between 1987 and six years before when the movie takes place.

He was fat in 1987 and presumably up to 6 years before the movie takes place. I think he was just pointing out that he was 600 pounds heavier.

I too have seen dodgeball roughly 100 times

I think if I’m right the charecter is actually meant to be Tyson Chandler

I like the movie in general but didn’t know it was loosely based on a true story. Gonna have to watch it for the 54th time.

Tyson had a great career though

The literal first song of the movie is untouchable by dmx

That’s why like Mike is the superior movie, it’s true 

Continuity error

It’s crazy that LeBron played just one season of professional basketball by the time this movie was shot and there were already “the next LeBron James” references being made

But why not use a star from ‘99s name though? It’s not like anyone in ‘05 would have forgotten about Jordan or Duncan

The first thing I read from him was a book of essays and that guy fucking loved some tennis. 

THIS

I don’t think that’s what lying means

Lebron was in 8th grade in 1999

Be fr Lebron was 14 that year, Lebron wasn’t even the next LeBron at that point, he wasn’t known nationally.

And the kids in the movie were older than Lebron was in 1999 so it doesn’t make sense, imagine saying a senior is the next whoever the top freshman is in their draft class. “Yo dalton knect is the next reed shepherd”

Bro what’s the point in comparing someone to a 13 year old 💀.

I mean, teams are already looking for the next Wemby so is it that far fetched to think teams back then were looking for the next LeBron?

I was in Detroit and there were rumors brewing of a ‘kid from Cleveland’ that is better than one you ever seen as early as 1997. Now I played HS Basketball with 2 NBA players. So these guys were on the major travel circuits.

I remember first hearing about JJ Reddick and Amare when were in 8th grade.

Information still disseminated nation-wide back then, the early internet was wild. Videos and pictures would get posted to message boards. Rivals Messageboards along with Streets and Smith literally never missed on the top players.

The best days were when footage leaks from All-American and ABCD would leak. For whatever reason footage from 5-Star never really did.

For people unfamiliar the way it worked back then mainly was the entry point to elite hoops was an invite to 5-Star…the OG of elite camps. They would bring in 30-40 players every weekend from mid-March to mid-May then again for 5-6 weekends in during Football Season. 5-Star was more varied you needed a referral from two HS Varsity Coaches that was not your own. After evaluation invites were extended to ABCD and All-American. Typically players in the top 50 were known commodities and would attend both camps regardless of AAU shoe company affiliation. But in general every State had 1-2 teams that was affiliated with the shoe companies. So Michigan had an Nike Team, Adidas Team, and Independent Team. Outside the top-50 your shoe team affiliation matter. Thats why lots of guys would play on Independent Teams because if you were a 50-150+ ranked chances were higher you get invited to both camps.

The college coaches, NBA GMs, and camp organizers would then put players on teams. They would pair guys up in all sorts of crazy ways. And stuff would get interesting really quick.

Example Jay(son) Williams shot up the charts after his camp performance. He was put on a team with several high scoring guards and wings with no center. Well Jayson figured out he wasn’t going to be able to get enough shots so he went into distribution mode and his team stormed through the week.

Or T-Mac was playing in a mid-tier school in FL but was also an excellent baseball player. So he wasn’t on the summer circuit like that. He went from being ranked in mid-100s to top-5 in a week. Guys like Battier, Brandon, Korleone Young, and Baron Davis, Rush (I cant remember which brother) were staples of Scholastic Sports Weekly it aired on ESPN right after school. They would have a weekly recap of the top performances of the top-25 players. They also would do a regional recap and you would find out about lesser known players in different regions.

SSW also had their favorites. Guys like Ronald Curry, Joe Mauer, Julius Peppers, Drew Henson, multi-sport superstars were always being covered.

Best way to describe it imagine ESPN doing a weekly checkin on top performance from the guys in the Top-25 https://www.espn.com/college-sports/basketball/recruiting/rankings/scnext300boys/_/class/2016

But then they say…lets cut to the MW to see a big matchup between HS Team A vs HS Team B in their states Top-10 square-off led by player with Commit to Indiana vs Player with verified offers from Kentucky, Pitt, MSU. These guys weren’t going to be Parade or McDonald’s AA but they would end up on your local University Teams and probably see serious time as a freshman.

They would proceed to show about 90 seconds of highlights.

Point im saying…yes the timeline was way off in Coach Carter but in these sports its pretty shocking how word spreads on players around the country. I first of Allen Iverson after his Junior of HS because of the buzz around a HS out of Virginia that went undefeated in Football and Basketball then followed up with two really good track and baseball teams and this small hyper athlete was the guy making it go. Oh and the team is returning all the players next year too and could finish as the #1 Team in country in Two Sports.

LeBron James might have gotten notice in the 8th grade (1998-99) but not enough to be well known in Richmond, CA.

The head coach of a top-10 college basketball team was personally scouting LeBron in person in 1999. He was already getting attention at camps and AAU tournaments well before then. His AAU team made the national championships in 1996 and 1998. They were national runner-up in 1998.

Don’t you all have phones?

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