Wow, thanks for the recap Mason. I remember after that game took place, Cooke's buzz as the next big thing from NYC started to die down and King James was born.
I will say this - going into that camp I loved Lenny Cooke. But that game against LeBron sort of destroyed him. He basically played out the rest of the week running on fumes... I honestly think he would have been a hell of a college player if he had actually cared to get his grades in order (and avoided 'indulging' off the court - lots of rumors there).
Cooke and Carmelo had played 2 days prior to the matchup with LeBron. Carmelo outscored Cooke like 17 to 14 but Cooke's team won by 20 and Lenny had a ton of boards and assists in that game as well. At the time I thought Carmelo and Lenny were basically equivalent talents, but Carmelo kept improving and Lenny's life was a freakin' soap opera.
Lenny was sort of like a 3 inch taller version of Paul Harris - just a relentless rebounder, great defender, and a pretty good passer and ballhandler as well. Not a great outside shooter but at that stage he didn't need to be because so few people could stop him from getting to the rim. With good coaching and structure, who knows how he would have turned out?
As far as LeBron goes, I had seen him 6 months earlier in Columbus OH when I went out to see Billy Edelin play for Oak Hill against St. Mary's St. Vincent (also an incredible game that Oak Hill won on a last second drive by Edelin). So I already knew James was the real deal and that he was going to blow up that camp. The day before the Cooke/LeBron game, Lebron made what I still consider to be the single greatest basketball play I've ever seen in person... Trevor Ariza got a steal and what appeared to be a breakaway dunk - he had like a 20 foot headstart on everyone on the court - he rose up for a tomahawk, taking off about 3 or 4 feet inside the free throw line... LeBron somehow tracked him down, cut in front of him, jumped in the air and PALMED the ball right out of Ariza's hand. No contact or anything, just rose up on a guy about to throw down a tomahawk and took the ball out of his hand like candy from a baby. The gym literally went silent. An incredible play and I still remember the eerie feeling in the place, like no one could believe what they had just seen. I wish I could describe the play well enough to do it justice. Honestly, it was like seeing a magic trick.
Another great story from that Cooke/LeBron game was that I sat next to a scout from the Supersonics. The guy told me LeBron would be the #1 draft pick if he came out THAT YEAR (just finished his SO year of high school), and further told me that Cleveland was going to get the number one pick 2 years down the road when he did come out.
Mason