re: The Lenny Cooke Story *kind of like JaMarcus* features Melo, Noah, LeBron, Kobe

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I was just about to post that bottom picture, and have the picture above it be his ABCD Camp picture, and tell you that know way could you have told me in 10-12 years he would look like the bottom picture.

Ritt, on the film's website there are a couple really cool posters. One of all his recruiting letters, and another of a handwritten note from his mom, telling him he's doing the right thing in going for the NBA.

On phone, or else I would have posted them.

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Everyone check this out. Here is actual video of LeBron, Lenny Cooke and Telfair going at it in 2001 ABCD camp.

LeBron and Lenny

My brother played against him. He was sick

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They make Telfair look like he was the next great one

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Chris Paul is basically what everyone thought Telfair would be.

Better yet, the hype was more like he was the next Isaiah Thomas.

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was coming to post this after watching the vid

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Pitino made good points as well. Its one thing if you're going to be top 5. Its another thing we you MIGHT go 2nd round. He should have went to JC for a year or two (they were actually drafting guys from JC back in those days)

What I don't understand is if he was so great, why didn't he get drafted?

I would have loved to have seen Telfair go on to play for 2 years under Louisville, his other option, before deciding to turn pro, to see how his game would have developed. But, being from Coney Island, there is no way they were going to deflate his head enough for him to go to College for a year or two.

Side note, pretty cool documentary on Telfair's Senior Year of HS, called Through The Fire. It used to be up on Youtube. It may still be. Did a quick search and couldn't find it though.

Here's a clip from the Telfair doc, when he played Darius Washington Jr. (the guy who scored 100 points) and Orlando Edgewater HS in a huge match-up. LINK

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However, I think you're getting Washington Jr. mixed up with Dajuan Wagner.

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You're right. I didn't think it was Wagner, but I remembered Washington being really hyped in HS as well.

I think guys like Josh Smith and JR Smith need to be really thankful..

Cause I could have seen them go the same route if they didnt have the right people in their life...

Then again, I could see Lenny Cooke being a super 6th man in the NBA as well if he had the right people around..

(I dont think he would have reached his full potential cause he was too caught up in the hype)

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My brother played against him. He was sick

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So the Lenny Cooke (alert: TLDR) story I have is that we played his team in a hs summer camp (in 2001 I think) which I think was named "the New York All-Stars", included Ron Artest's younger brother, all athletic dudes, one white guy who apparently was the coach's family and flew these guys around to play.

Sometime in the second quarter I'm playing the 4 (I was about 6'4" 185 or so, could get up pretty high) and they throw a lob and I get up and tip it away from the goal, and I get landed on and hit the floor with what I felt like was a punch to the chest. I jump right back up and shove the guy as hard as I could. Well that guy was Lenny at 7' 230+ maybe, don't remember. He didn't budge.

Needless to say I had the whole team in my face. Luckily I had one teammate get in between us because I could have easily been beaten to death. Lol

Side story, lil Artest was bringing the ball up and my buddy picked his pocket and as he went on the breakaway lil Artest drops down and knocks out about 10 pushups rather than attempting a block or any defense.

I remember reading about Lenny in Slam magazine (teammate have me copy of magazine and said "here's the guy who almost killed you) a couple of months after that game as the next baller. He was good. Really good. Sad to see that pic.

ETA: maybe he wasn't 7' haha, but whatever. You get the story

I don't remember, but he was way bigger than me. Seemed 7'6" haha. Tebow can vouch, he's my brother who watched the game. It was 12 years ago...king of like dad's I used to walk 10 miles in the snow..." lol

ETA: Pretty sure he was at least 6'8" way taller than me.