re: Is Smart Louisiana's Greatest High School Basketball Player in the Past 20 Years?

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Greg monroe and stromile swift were both rated very high in all the recruiting sites.

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That's the thing that has to be distinguished when we talk about "greatest in the state or city history". When I say this I'm not necessarily talking about who was the highest ranked but rather who was the most dominant and was the most revered in the state. Jarell Martin was higher ranked than Smart but Smart clearly had the more illustrious HS career. Rankings tend to be based off of "potential" and "upside" and much as actual production. Mitchell Robinson was a higher ranked prospect than Smart because he is considered to have high upside but Smart has had the better HS career production wise. Smart has unquestionably been the best player in Louisiana since he was a sophomore. I can't think of too many other players in the state's history to have been so dominant for so long.

Chris Duhon

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Seimone Augustus should be number one on the list.

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We’re talking about the best, not the best woman.

Others are posting about "All time best La. HS players", so your post is appropriate and accurate.
I would add Greg Procell as deserving consideration on that list. There were a number of great African American players at all-black schools who never got press, but are still talked about by old timers. One, whose last name was "Speed" played at Valencia High near Shreveport in the early 60's, I think. I am sure there are a number of others who should be added.

Fess Irvin

Who’d I snub?
Chris duhon
Randy Livingston (getting close to that 20 year)

True so randy was like 22-23 I guess. Anyways.... Greg Monroe was the best player in high school in last 20 yrs in my opinion. May not have had the awards, but the eye test was unreal.

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Just stop jerking off this kid before he steps on campus. Waters is a better player and was one when he came in. Y’all see La basketball and not across the country. Come to Houston and go to Fonde and I’ll show you a dozen kids that dropped out of school that would take him to he cleaners. One of my friends kid was all Houston as a sophomore. Won 2 NAIA championships as a 2 guard and held the record for 3s at one point in the NAIA championship game at 7. He couldn’t make the Rockets and was a flat out beast. I watched him drop 30 on Kenny Smith and Sam Cassels one night at Texas Southern in a pro-an league. He was a fantastic shooter. At that time though, you had to beat Sumatra and MJ and other big physical 2’s and he was 6’ 150lbs. It is ALWAYS ABOUT the measuring stick.

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I'm not "jerking off" anybody. I don't even think Smart is the best 2018 PG in the country (that would be Darius Garland or Jahvon Quinerly imo). And I never said he would come in and have a bigger impact than Waters at least initially. But I do believe that based off of what he has accomplished in four years that he is the most accomplished and dominant HS player at least in recent BR history. The kid is still in HS and has over 20K Instagram followers and is verified on IG and Twitter. He's a statewide celebrity as a high schooler. There's only a select few guys in any sport who can say they have garnered as much reverence as he has before entering college. Also, I love to have discussions comparing guys to great players of the past so I welcome any older guys who may have seen players I haven't and would like to debate on who was better. And maybe you could say before the internet existed that we "only see La basketball and not across the country" but that is completely off-base with so many top-level summer circuit and HS games being broadcast on TV and online. The best HS players are known all around the country now (Zion Williamson and Shareef Oneal both have over 1 million IG followers and LaMelo Ball had over 2 million before he dropped out). Smart has played the best competition from all across the country since he finished his freshman year (he played De'Aaron Fox in the EYBL in 2015 and scored 20 although Fox had 40) and proved he can compete with the best. Once again, I don't say all of this to create unrealistic expectations but rather to generate discussion about who the best players are in our city and state history.

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Correct me if I'm wrong but Bass didn't win anything. I realize Tasmin never won a state championship either but every year Denham Springs was in the hunt.

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I graduated with Tasmin, I think we lost like 10 games total in his 4 seasons, including a few wins over Woodlawn with Lazare and Gransberry. And another loss against Ryan Francis. Francis was incredible,made the game winning floater over Tasmin actually.

Top 28 every year, it was fun to watch. If you went to a Denham basketball game in those years it was wild.

No. Dedication. Work. Mental. He could be.