TRENTON – The kid came flying out of his crouch behind the backboard, propelled by his heart. And in that moment, he underscored exactly why we’d all gathered in this dreary depot by the Delaware River.
This was late in the second quarter Saturday night inside Sovereign Bank Arena, and LeBron James had just brought the kinetically charged crowd to its feet again, and almost everyone’s head immediately shifted to the scoreboard above so they could confirm with replay what they’d already seen with their eyes.
All except the kid, maybe 9 years old, maybe 10, a ballboy who’d spent the whole night with his eyes as big as silver dollars and now couldn’t help himself anymore. James was waving his arms, drinking in another burst of adulation, when suddenly here came the kid, dashing from the baseline, sprinting right toward him.
And jumping right into his arms.
For one of the few times all night, James seemed shocked, and genuinely touched, his smile doing all the talking for him. He’s heard cheers since he was 14, and no matter how loud an auditorium gets anymore, it isn’t anything he hasn’t already felt, and seen. But this was new.
“Now that’s awesome,” he mouthed to no one in particular as he went back to the business of a basketball game a few moments later, and it was a beautifully unscripted break from what has to seem like the most scripted, public high school life outside the kids from Dawson’s Creek.
The thing is, there were many people inside Sovereign Bank Arena who felt exactly what the kid was feeling, the raw energy of looking onto a basketball court and seeing the future. You don’t get that in any other team sport. Baseball phenoms disappear into the minors for years at a time. No one ever really knows how football talent translates from one level to the next.
But a basketball prodigy, that’s different.
“Basketball fans know that if you get a special kid, one who’s a once-in-a-lifetime kind of player, they have to see him,” said Ed Azzam, the coach of Los Angeles’ Westchester High School, which spent Saturday night serving as James’ personal band of Washington Generals. “You always hear guys say, ‘I saw Alcindor play back in the day, I saw Michael back in the day.’ Well, someday, there’ll be an awful lot of people who will be awfully proud to say they saw LeBron James back in the day.”
It’s what basketball fans do. It’s what they’ve always done. It’s why people used to flock to the Garden like it was a holy shrine whenever Patrick Ewing paid a visit to St. John’s, because that’s where you came to see The Next Big Thing.
Now, to catch The Next Big Thing, you have to watch high school games, and there is something about that new reality that makes people wring their hands and beat their breasts, as if they’re doing something wrong. As if they’re doing something dirty, the statutory gaping of an 18-year-old athlete.
That’s crazy, of course.
Oh, you can rail at a Catholic school like James’ St. Vincent-St. Mary, which promotes National Merit Scholars like Sarah Durve, Ruth McDowell and Frank Carson in its brochures yet peddles its basketball team to pay its bills. You can kill the sneaker companies, they’re an easier target than a paralyzed deer. You can snicker at the alleged “adults” in James’ inner circle.
You can even shake your head at James himself, for disingenuously explaining away Jersey Gate by saying he believed he was being rewarded for good grades (if so, someone ought to send an investigator after Durve, McDowell and Carson at once, right?).
So many villains, so little time.
You aren’t one of them just because you want to satisfy your basketball jones by stealing a quick peek at tomorrow. Nor are you alone.
There wouldn’t be a new reality show on television every week if there wasn’t an audience hungry to gobble up every Jerry Springer moment of the proceedings, after all. Same deal with these high school basketball jamborees.
Basketball fans want to see the future before it dawns. Doesn’t matter if you’re 60, trolling to find the young Cousy, or 9, jumping into LeBron James’ arms as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. They want to see The Next Big Thing. And they want to see it now. No penance necessary for that.