Hoop Teens: From High School to NBA riches?

I thought I’d take some space to explain the name and the appearance of the site. The name ‘Hoop Teens’ is a small play on ‘Hoop Dreams,’ a really good 1994 documentary that followed two high school players from Chicago who dreamed of playing professionally. The term ‘hoop dreams’ serves as an accurate description for the hopes and aspirations of young basketball players. Thus, I changed ‘dreams’ to ‘teens’ (though, all of the underclassmen I’ll talk about won’t necessarily be ‘teens’) and came up with what is hopefully a somewhat catchy and poignant name. If anyone has a better idea, let me know!

Now that I’ve cleared that up for you, can you identify the seven players pictured in the header? My guess is even the casual NBA fan will know five of them. From left to right they are Spencer Haywood, Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Kwame Brown, Dwight Howard, LeBron James, and Brandon Jennings.

Haywood is up there because he successfully sued the NBA in 1971 to pave the way for college underclassmen to enter the draft. Haywood was recently in the news because he feels like he’s being forgotten for the role he played. I’ve obtained Haywood’s contact information and hope to interview him and write a piece on his experience.

Garnett, Bryant, James and Howard are up there because I feel like they embody the best-case scenarios of making the jump from high school to the NBA. They are perennial All-Stars and only Howard lacks a league MVP award, but he still has a long career ahead of him. Garnett and Bryant have championship rings, while LeBron has reached the Finals before and Howard’s Magic are currently fighting Kobe’s Lakers for the crown. These guys will admittedly be hard to track down and talk to, but I’ll try and see what I can do. Regardless, there will be parts of the project that will touch on the success stories.

Brown was included because he’s the posterboy for a straight-from-high-school-to-NBA player that didn’t pan out. In 2001, Brown became the first high school player drafted No. 1 overall when the Washington Wizards selected him.  Brown is now with the Detroit Pistons, his fourth team in his disappointing eight-year career where he has averaged 7 points a game.  The Washington Post‘s Sally Jenkins wrote a terrific piece in April 2002 chronicling Brown’s rookie year and foreshadowing his struggles. Parts of my project will also focus on high schoolers who failed to make the leap.

The last player in the header is Brandon Jennings. If you haven’t heard of him, you soon will. Jennings set a precedent last year when he chose to go play in Europe (and make money) rather than attend college for one year. After a season in Italy, Jennings is entered in this year’s draft and expected to be a lottery pick. I’m hoping to track him down for an interview, as well as Jeremy Tyler (AP photo below), a player from San Diego who will be skipping his senior year of high school to play in Europe for two years before entering the NBA draft.