On this day... Playing against NBA PG straight out of High School!
On this day... Playing against NBA pg straight out of High School @ Louisville Gardens On this day Jan. 10, 2004.... I played against Sebastian Telfair our senior year @ Pleasure Ridge Park infront of 20+ NBA scouts & Rick Pitino & D1 coaches in a sold out Louisville Gardens. This game & events surrounding became part of an amazing basketball documentary/movie called "Through the Fire." My true bball junkies have probably seen this movie many times but if you haven't I highly suggest you watch it, its a very powerful & amazing doc about Sebastian's journey as the last high school pg to ever be drafted in the lottery (top 13 picks) into the NBA. Here's a clip below from the doc. Here's the backstory: My senior season at PRP high school (Louisville KY) we were a top 5 ranked team in the state & our top player was my best friend & UofL signee, 6'10 nationally ranked center Terrance Farley. I remember our coaches Mabs, Kihnley, Bax coming to practice & announcing we'd added a huge game to our schedule that would sell out the famous Louisville Gardens arena against the top ranked PG in the country. It was the flashy & gifted NY pg Telfair who had just committed to UofL & Rick Pitino as well with Terrance. But here is the story that few know about leading up to the game. Our other starting guard was suspended at the time so I moved over to playing full time PG just before this big game was happening. On that night we played Western HS & Telfair's team had flew in early from NY to watch us from the stands. I had great game, lead us in scoring (not normal) & their scout was to put Telfair on me to guard in the following game. There was a lot of hype in the city surrounding this game, News outlets & the word that Rick Pitino & NBA scouts were all coming to watch Telfair. So here I was with an opportunity. I had no idea that a documentary movie was being filmed as well. I just remember me & Terrance got pulled out of school to go attend a press conference on the news! Suddenly we were on a stage together at this conference with Telfair & I started to realize this is a big deal because he had a camera crew following him around everywhere he went. This was 2004! Way before influencer culture & Gary Vee made this normal to film yourself. Even in the game when I spoke to Telfair I noticed he was mic'd up & I thought that was so wild at the time. Again no one did this, I don't even think the NBA was mic'ing players up at that time.