CelticsStrong
Beyond the Association => Other Basketball => Topic started by: Moranis on March 14, 2018, 01:06:10 PM
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according to a new SI documentary is Westtown High during the 16/17 season. The team had Mo Bamba and Cam Reddish (both projected high lottery picks in their drafts) as well as Brandon Randolph (Arizona), Anthony Ochefu (Stony Brook), and Jake Forrester (committed to Indiana).
https://www.si.com/high-school/2018/03/07/we-town-documentary-sitv-westtown-mo-bamba-seth-berger
Clearly some recency bias here, but it got me to thinking, what other teams had two high lottery picks and a bunch of other potential pros.
Obviously Chino Hills with Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo (who like Lonzo might have been a lottery pick had his dad not pulled him to Europe), along with Eli Scott (Loyola Marymount) and Onyeka Okongwu (undeclared #16 recruit in 2019).
Then you had Lawrence North out of Indianapolis. Which had #1 pick Greg Oden and #4 pick Michael Conley (not sure who else was on that team).
Any other great high school teams come to mind?
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Dunbar '81-82 & '82-83.
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according to a new SI documentary is Westtown High during the 16/17 season. The team had Mo Bamba and Cam Reddish (both projected high lottery picks in their drafts) as well as Brandon Randolph (Arizona), Anthony Ochefu (Stony Brook), and Jake Forrester (committed to Indiana).
https://www.si.com/high-school/2018/03/07/we-town-documentary-sitv-westtown-mo-bamba-seth-berger
Clearly some recency bias here, but it got me to thinking, what other teams had two high lottery picks and a bunch of other potential pros.
Obviously Chino Hills with Lonzo, LiAngelo, and LaMelo (who like Lonzo might have been a lottery pick had his dad not pulled him to Europe), along with Eli Scott (Loyola Marymount) and Onyeka Okongwu (undeclared #16 recruit in 2019).
Then you had Lawrence North out of Indianapolis. Which had #1 pick Greg Oden and #4 pick Michael Conley (not sure who else was on that team).
Any other great high school teams come to mind?
Are these SI documentaries good stuff? I don't think I have heard of them before.
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Dunbar '81-82 & '82-83.
This is what came to my mind to. The 82 team had Reggie Lewis, Mugsy Bogues, Reggie Williams and David Wingate. That's a lot of great pros for one high school team. And I think a couple of other guys were great because if I remember right, Reggie Lewis always came off the bench.
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Dunbar '81-82 & '82-83.
This is what came to my mind to. The 82 team had Reggie Lewis, Mugsy Bogues, Reggie Williams and David Wingate. That's a lot of great pros for one high school team. And I think a couple of other guys were great because if I remember right, Reggie Lewis always came off the bench.
60-0 between those two seasons. Yup. Reggie didn't even start.
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They weren’t the absolute best, but Oak Hill with Rondo and Josh Smith was pretty great.
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Lebron's team won 3 state titles (they lost in the semis his junior year) and he played with a couple of guys that are still playing professionally in Europe (Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce - they both also played for Cleveland in the Vegas Summer League), as well as the rapper Sian Cotton (who played football at Ohio State), and a couple of other guys that had decent college careers (one of which is now a high school coach and one of which is a scout for the Cavs). I didn't originally include his teams because they really were successful only because of Lebron, but it is hard to find a player in high school that was more successful, both individually and as a team than Lebron James and St. Vincent St. Mary during his 4 years there.
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Lebron's team won 3 state titles (they lost in the semis his junior year) and he played with a couple of guys that are still playing professionally in Europe (Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce - they both also played for Cleveland in the Vegas Summer League), as well as the rapper Sian Cotton (who played football at Ohio State), and a couple of other guys that had decent college careers (one of which is now a high school coach and one of which is a scout for the Cavs). I didn't originally include his teams because they really were successful only because of Lebron, but it is hard to find a player in high school that was more successful, both individually and as a team than Lebron James and St. Vincent St. Mary during his 4 years there.
Bobby Hurley - I'm pretty sure St Anthony's was the most successful HS program ever
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My problem with this question is it is usually only judged in hindsight, where high school greatness is measured by pro career accolades (and to a lesser extent college accolades). How good you were in high school doesn't totally correlate with how good you will be as a pro and vice versa.
2004 High School class for example (https://www.basketball-reference.com/awards/recruit_rankings_2004.html) had our old buddies Sebastian Telfair, Robert Swift, and Glenn Davis at #6, #8, and #11 in that class. Ahead of Rondo (#21), Lowry (#29), Horford (#47), Noah (#72). So if you put Telfair/Swift/Davis and a couple other scrubs from the top 20 on one team against Rondo and Co., and asked that question when they were all still in high school, everybody would probably vote 100% Telfair's team was the better team hands down, ask that question now, everybody would think Rondo's team was the better one.
Even if the question is re-worded, who has the best collection of future NBA talent or something, still probably comes down to Oak Hill or Dunbar (of course we'll only be able to judge this sometime in the future).
The question is still interesting though, so trying to find a somewhat unbiased evaluater, I went with McDonald's All-Americans (because it's well known and data was easy to find).
Weston did have 2 McDonald's All-Americans with Bamba ('17) and Reddish ('18), but that's not even that unique, Oak Hill had 2 in '18 and 1 in '17, and an Indiana school had 2 in '17 (one of them being Jaren Jackson Jr).
Altogether, since 1977 these are the standouts:
Oak Hill Academy (Mouth of Wilson, VA) -27
DeMatha Catholic (Hyattsville, MD) -12
Paul Laurence Dunbar (Baltimore, MD) - 7
Saint Anthony's (Jersey City, NJ) - 7
Findlay College Prep (Henderson, NV) - 7
Roman Catholic (Philadelphia, PA) - 6
Mater Dei (Santa Ana, CA) - 6
With 125 other schools having between 2 and 5.
Oak Hill had a 7 year stretch ('90-'96) where they had 1, 2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1 in consecutive years (including Stackhouse, Stephen Jackson, Ron Mercer). Now Oak Hill is unique in that most kids don't attend that school for 4 straight years and might only transfer for their Senior year, so who knows how many of the kids from different years actually played together, but without actually looking up those rosters and their records, I'm guessing the list of best high school teams of all time, you'll see Oak Hill like you see Wilt's name in the NBA record books.
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Springs Valley High School 1974
:D
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Dunbar '81-82 & '82-83.
Winner
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Lebron's team won 3 state titles (they lost in the semis his junior year) and he played with a couple of guys that are still playing professionally in Europe (Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce - they both also played for Cleveland in the Vegas Summer League), as well as the rapper Sian Cotton (who played football at Ohio State), and a couple of other guys that had decent college careers (one of which is now a high school coach and one of which is a scout for the Cavs). I didn't originally include his teams because they really were successful only because of Lebron, but it is hard to find a player in high school that was more successful, both individually and as a team than Lebron James and St. Vincent St. Mary during his 4 years there.
So basically it was Lebron and some bums given more hype than they deserve.
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Never heard of Dunbar before this thread. Very weird.
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Lawrence North Indianapolis (2006)
The team had Greg Oden and Mike Conley Jr.
Record: 29-0
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Dunbar '81-82 & '82-83.
What makes this the best high school team to me is these were players who actually all grew up in the same neighborhood! They weren't 5 star recruits playing one or two seasons in another state for exposure/coaching/money/etc.