Ive had a chance to watch a lot of prep hoops over the past few days with the McD's game and ESPN rise tourny, and it's nice to put faces with those big names, the Sullingers and Barnes of the recruiting world. I watched Winter Park, FL play yesterday, the team Doc River's younger son plays for Austin Rivers, kid is amazing by the way, D-wade like scorer. This article is not a gushing review of his game although I could write one of those. This is about a beautiful time we are in today, a sort of Basketball Renaissance. A time were 6'9 18 year old kids can handle the ball like gaurds, shoot like 2's, post like solid 4's. High school ballers have now been watching Lebron, Melo, and D-wade since they were 11 plenty of time to hone your skills pattern your game after the great ones. Not only have they had the talent in the league again to make pro ball relevant, fun to watch, and motivate these young guys, but these kids never stop playing. You've got kids starting to play organized bball younger and year round. Then once you get to the prep level you travel play the best teams in the country and those big games are under the bright lights so they are already used to the pressure they've grown up with it. When their season is over you go straight to AAU practices then you continue to travel and play perhaps even better talent. These premiere AAU teams combine all the local talent, with some having several top recruits, they are essentially like college teams. We may never have another freak of nature like Lebron, but you can for sure expect some more spindly Durant types. Recruits are less and less referred to as raw talent, these kids have skills.
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