• LeBron James is often called the greatest prospect in NBA history
• The hype around James had people in the NBA thinking he could be an NBA All-Star while still being a high school student
• Paul Pierce confirmed that notion and said people would discuss it in locker rooms in the league
LeBron James is arguably one of the greatest high school basketball players in history, leading his team to glory for the four seasons he spent on St. Vincent St. Mary’s Fighting Irish. By his junior year, people thought James was ready for the NBA. This includes players in NBA locker rooms at the point.
Paul Pierce revealed that players in the league legitimately discussed whether James could’ve been an All-Star as a senior in high school.
“Before he made it to the league, all the NBA cats were going to his games. Jay Z, all the hip hop artists were going to his [high school] games. We were like, ‘Who is this?’ When I was in the locker room, they said this kid could start in the All-Star game, when we were in Philly. I was like, ‘What?’ There’s a kid right now that’s in high school that could start in the All-Star Game?’ That was getting floated around the locker room.”
The rivalry between Paul Pierce’s Celtics teams and LeBron was real.
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James probably wouldn’t have been an All-Star if he was playing in the NBA without completing his senior year of high school. He didn’t even make it to the All-Star game as a rookie, so it’s fair to say a 17-year-old LeBron would have struggled to make the team on merit.
If he did declare a year early, at least we would have gotten a chance to see LeBron and Michael Jordan face off on the court, as Jordan retired at the end of the 2002-03 season before LeBron got drafted.
LeBron James Was Asked To Declare For The Draft Before Completing High School
LeBron was being encouraged by many people to leave high school early and declare for the 2002 NBA Draft. That is a testament to how good he was at the time, but he chose to exercise patience and finish his high school education with his senior classmates.
“There was a lot of hype this summer [2002] about me trying to get into the draft after my junior year of high school,” James wrote. “Here’s the real: It’s not going to happen. It really can’t happen and I’m not even going to be pressured about it. People overreacted, but that’s what reporters do sometimes. Regardless, I’m gonna stay. I have my three best friends here at St. V, and I want to graduate with them. End of story.”
James was the first rookie out of high school to have a quick adjustment to the NBA. High school rookies like Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett before him had to develop over a season or two before becoming MVP-caliber. James entered the league as a 20-point scorer, something he may not have been able to do as a 17-year-old.
LeBron James Rookie Teammate Didn’t Believe In His Talent
What Paul Pierce said about locker rooms in the NBA discussing the legitimacy of a 17-year-old LeBron being an All-Star shows how high his stock was. Unfortunately, his Cavaliers teammate Darius Miles didn’t agree and thought LeBron wasn’t the prospect everyone touted him as.
“I don’t think you can really just bring a high school player in and really just think your team gonna really turn around like that. If he comes, he can just hop on our bandwagon and hopefully, we can do something big.”
Well, the high school player did exactly that. He averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.9 assists as a rookie and won Rookie of the Year. He couldn’t lead them to the playoffs but took them there in his sophomore season, single-handedly leading the Cavaliers to the 2007 Finals, in just his fourth NBA season.
Miles, on the other hand, had a nine-year career in the NBA as a role player and retired with no major NBA accomplishments to his name.
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