NBA stars are on a different level from ordinary people, they lead lives filled with extreme wealth and a lot of fame. Those that make the league may separate themselves from the everyday person, but most come from normal backgrounds.
An NBA fan on Reddit recently asked for stories people may have of NBA stars from high school. And the ensuing thread was filled with some brilliant stories.
Comments have been edited for the purpose of clarification:
“I played on a basketball team with Aaron Gordon. He was 7, and everyone else was 9. He dominated everyone,” wrote one fan.
Another fan told a story about Aaron Gordon as well, from the opponent’s perspective: “Aaron played my HS and threw down a half-court reverse alley-oop dunk. Even though they were Away he shut the whole building down. We were going nuts. I’ll never forget that lol.”
LeBron James is in the GOAT conversation, but the high school stories about him seem super sweet. One fan wrote, “My best friend went to school with LeBron. He always says he wore suits to most classes and was super friendly with most kids.”
That’s not to say that LeBron didn’t know how good he was though, as another comment made clear: “LeBron came to my school and torched us. We had our center guarding him and that didn’t quite work out too well. LeBron knew he was going to the NBA as this was around the time of the SI cover. After the game, he stopped and signed autographs. A pretty cool guy at a young age.”
There was a surprising story about his Heatles teammate Dwyane Wade, with a fan writing, “I played against Dwayne Wade in high school. In high school he was quick but not even one of the two best players on his high school team. He didn’t blossom skill-wise until he was at Marquette and polished his overall game.”
Another LeBron James teammate got a shoutout in Kevin Love: “Kevin Love was in my high school class. Didn’t have a ton of actual classes with him outside of social studies one year, but he was generally fine in the interactions I had with him. Did a good job slimming down because he was always relatively a bit of a pudding body back then and into his UCLA days.”
Joakim Noah was also mentioned, but his story was from college: “Not high school, but I was at UF from 04-08 and I had plenty of classes with Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer. Good guys. Jo was always a laid-back dude.”
The thread is filled with many amazing stories, but the most in-depth one was arguably about the man considered to be one of the biggest busts in NBA history, Kwame Brown.
NBA Fan Shared What It Was Like To Attend High School With Kwame Brown
Kwame Brown came into the NBA straight out of high school, and it didn’t quite work out for him. But he was a phenom in high school, and one of the comments on the thread spoke about what he was like back then.
The fan wrote, “Oh I’ve got a good one. I went to high school with Kwame Brown! He was a Senior when I was a Freshman so I caught most of the mania around his ascension into a #1 draft pick. I was in the same grade as his younger brother, he was also a super lovely guy….until he went to prison for Murder (seriously).
“Kwame was nice and quiet. He was from a big family, and they were notably poor, even by the standards of a poor southern town, Brunswick, GA. It was one of the major factors in going straight pro instead of college for a year.
“The team was absurdly good while Kwame was there. He wasn’t only bigger than everyone and dominated them like he was Shaq playing high schoolers, but he also was faster, handled the ball like a point guard, and shot well from 3, all skills he notably lacked in the pros.”
NBA players come from within the same communities as the fans. There are some things which set them apart, including how brilliant they are as athletes, but the stories show that they are mostly just normal. In the age of social media and constant scrutiny, it’s nice to remember that NBA stars are just like everyone else.
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