He Had No Idea Who These Players Would Become

posit that there is NBA all-star DeAngelo Russell but you already knew that and this is a clip from a USA basketball practice back in 2012 when Blake Griffin put on a show for some young Hooper's but you already knew that as well I mean the original video has over 4 million views but do you know who this is or this or this you probably know him and him but what about him see last summer six years after this original video was recorded the NBA released it again only this time they highlighted some of the more notable players throughout the video because a lot can happen in six years in fact a lot did happen in six years since these kids were left speechless back in 2012 so today I wanted to take a deeper look into who exactly was in the background of this video how they managed to get so much young talent into one gym and where these young basketball players are today in 2019 how their careers have turned out and who has come out on top as the best basketball player in this massive group of Hooper's first things first you may be wondering why these guys are wearing matching polos like a private school with the most elite basketball program ever assembled well all these players are actually part of the USA basketball youth program u16 u-17 and you eighteen teams I can't find much information on this event but I'm assuming it's similar to a basketball camp environment where Team USA basketball invited the nation's best high school players ranging from freshmen to juniors going into their senior year as a method of getting the best young basketball talent in the country accustomed to tough competition and to just give these kids a great experience for all their hard work but as exceptional as these players are even the best of the best have a tough time climbing the professional ranks so let's start from the bottom all these players are exceptional in their own right you don't just accidentally get invited to join USA basketball but with that being said not everyone can be the best so let's first remove all the players that never played in the NBA well that was quick the only player out of this entire group that hasn't played in the NBA up to this point in his career is Kennedy Meeks and even he is quite the Hooper average 19 and 16 in high school McDonald's all-american and an NCAA champion next let's look at the players that played in the NBA but had forgettable stints in the league like Xavier retain Mays whose NBA career lasted just five games before being demoted to the G League diamond stone the sixth ranked recruit in the entire country his senior season a player who was ranked above Derrick Jones Donovan Mitchell and deshante Murray played just 24 minutes in his entire NBA career while shooting just 23% from the field and then there's cliff Alexander the third ranked player in the class of 2014 ranked above karl-anthony towns Kelly Oubre DeAngelo Russell Devin Booker and about a dozen other legit NBA contributors played just 23 minutes in the league and scored a whopping 10 points in his entire NBA career which is 10 more points than I have ever scored in the NBA myself besides those four players everyone else who appeared in that 2012 video has played considerable time in the NBA so let's start with the least considerable CEO Penson short for Theophilus Alfonso Penson possibly the greatest name ever played just 18 NBA games this past season and averaged 4 point 5 and 2 rebounds a game Theo's most notable basketball moment came in 2017 when he won an NCAA basketball championship with the Tar Heels Isaiah Briscoe went on to play at Kentucky but unlike many of his teammates his NBA career was cut short at just 39 games after averaging 3 points and 2 assists a game Chris McCullough was an IMG Academy Product and after just half of 1c at Syracuse he declared for the NBA Draft despite only playing one half of his freshman season in college and recovering from an ACL injury Chris was taken in the first round of the 2015 NBA Draft but has since struggled to get any momentum in his three NBA seasons but that doesn't take away from Chris's incredible hustle in his four years since leaving college chris has played for nine different teams that includes seven teams in the past two seasons and that doesn't include the San Miguel Beermen he will be playing for this season the San Miguel Beermen I like it Tyler Ennis gained popularity in 2014 after his impressive play throughout the college basketball season despite being ranked as the 20th best player in his class and his may have had the best college season of any freshman that year after becoming an NCAA Naismith Player of the Year finalists and being selected as the 18th overall pick in the 2014 draft and has had for mediocre seasons in the NBA where he averaged four points and two assists again now although Troy Williams was one of the lowest ranked players in this video coming out of high school and going undrafted in 2016 Williams has had short stints with multiple NBA teams and now has a two-way contract with the Sacramento Kings now the next tier of players featured in this video are guys who still have spots in the NBA but play few minutes and contribute on an inconsistent basis they can put together impressive games from time to time but not often enough to gain much recognition players that are still young enough to make an impact in years to come but still have a long way to go like son Darius Thornwell after averaging 21 and 7 in his senior season at South Carolina Thornwell was drafted with the 48th overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft and although he has had a less than inspiring NBA career so far putting up four points and two rebounds a game in his first two seasons Thornwell currently plays for the Clippers which means he may become an NBA champion soon you may not recognize the name jor-el Martin but not too long ago he was one of the top-ranked players in his entire class after following up his prep hype with two dominant seasons at LSU Martin was selected with the 25th overall pick in the 2015 draft since then he has played for mediocre seasons in the league with career highs of eight and four a game not a good player not necessarily a bad player but a 25 year old with a spot in the NBA nonetheless similar to Martin is Wayne Selden Wayne Selden is a player that has never had much buzz surrounding his name but has been a solid contributor in the NBA for the past three seasons recently traded to the Chicago Bulls Selden has proven that he can come off the bench and get the job done averaging Kate in 3 again after an unforgettable high school career that earned him the spot as the sixth best player in the country and after playing just one season at Kentucky Trey Lyles along with six of his Wildcat teammates declared for the draft that is the starting five along with two bench players all going to the league in the same year Lyle's has put up solid numbers so far in his young NBA career averaging 10 and 5 in 2018 just a couple weeks ago Lao signed with the Spurs which I think will prove to be a great move for him Noah Vonleh was ranked as the 13th best player in the class of 2013 and his play over the past few years makes you wonder why he wasn't ranked higher after being selected with the 9th overall pick in the 2014 NBA Draft Noah made his NBA debut just two months after turning 19 years old last season with the Knicks Vonleh averaged a career-high in points blocks steals assists rebounds and game started at this point I think it's fair to say that Vaughn Lee will have a long and successful NBA career Josh Hart had possibly the biggest come up of anyone on this list being ranked as the 92nd player in his class coming out of high school to being drafted in the first round of the in a draft Josh Hart's incredible play throughout the 2016 NCAA tournament instantly gained him the admiration of basketball fans around the country and dramatically raised his draft stock after becoming a summer league legend and giving the Lakers two solid seasons part now plays for the New Orleans pelicans where I think his career will soon take off and he will have a breakout season now this next group of guys includes the five best players featured in this video ranging from NBA starter to NBA star these five players are young talented and in some cases have the potential to become all-time greats now if you look closely way in the back doing his best impression of a serial killer is Bobby Portis an underrated young NBA talent after dominating college basketball for two seasons Portis was selected with a 22nd overall pick in the 2015 draft and in his four NBA seasons Portis has gotten better each and every year despite having an injury-plagued season in 2019 he had career highs in 8 of the 10 major statistical categories Portis has proven himself to be a major contributor on a regular basis and the two-year 31 million-dollar contract he signed this offseason is evidence of that another underrated young talent in today's NBA is Julius Randle who you can see here absolutely losing his mind Randle came out of high school as one of the best players in the entire country stepped up his game in college to earn himself a spot as the seventh overall pick in the 2014 draft and has since improved his game every single season since he's been in the NBA lately some NBA fans have been making the parallel that Zion Williamson is a better more athletic version of Julius Randle and although Zion ceiling is incredibly high Randle just wrapped up a season where he averaged 21 and a game contrary to this belief that has been floating around Julius Randle is everything that he was projected to be people forget that as a rookie Randall suffered a broken leg and missed the entire season all things considered and at the rate that his game is improving he may end up being one of the best power Fords in the entire league in just a few years alongside his fellow Hooper's watching Blake Griffin put on a dunking clinic is one of the best dunkers ever in Zach Lavine a kid who in just three years time would leave us all speechless with his performance in the 2015 dunk contest I mentioned in my d1 story video that back in high school I played against Zach a few times and although he was good back then I don't think anyone expected him to rise up into the player that he has become today in high school he was ranked as the 50th best player in his class ranked under dozens of guys you've never even heard of and even in college at UCLA Zach put up average numbers at best but in his five NBA seasons Levine's game has evolved from in above the rim slasher to an all-around skillful shot creating monster only four players under the age of 25 averaged more points per game than him this past season and he has asserted himself as one of the NBA's brightest young talents one of those four players under the age of 25 that put the ball in the hoop more than he does is this guy Devin Booker although Booker may be the most accomplished and well known player in this video he's actually the youngest player featured in this video which may explain why he looks like a 12 year old who just happened to stumble his way into a USA basketball camp in fact despite going to college for one year Booker's still made his NBA debut when he was just 18 years old he's always been regarded as one of the best players in his age group a top 20 recruit in the country a Kentucky commit and a one-and-done talent book has always been a threat on the court but in his four NBA seasons he has truly taken leaps forward in his game taking himself out of the young in conversation and asserting himself into the NBA star category check this out here are the stats of seven star in ba guards tell me which one is Devon book yeah with better numbers than nearly every all-star guard in the NBA it's unfortunate that book has struggled to lead his team to more wins otherwise he would be regarded as a 22 year old superstar on the other hand this video does feature a future all-star NBA guard DeAngelo Russell long before anyone had even heard of DeAngelo Russell millions of NBA fans recognized him as that one kid in the Blake Griffin video these days DLO is known for a whole lot more similar to Devin Booker Russell was highly regarded throughout high school went on a tear in his one and only season in college and has been a big-time player since stepping foot into the NBA they both came out of the class of 2014 and they both sat relatively close on the high school ranking leaderboards five years ago now in 2019 DeAngelo Russell was on the same all-star team as Blake Griffin seven years ago DeAngelo Russell looked on as Blake Griffin put on a show seven years later they are teammates during all-star weekend digging into the finer details of this video was really interesting I remember watching this video way back in high school and just like these guys I was tuning in to see Blake throw down and although 2012 seems like a long time ago I can remember it like it was yesterday most of the players in this video are my age so to see how far they have come in just seven years is pretty cool among the laundry list of pointless but intriguing facts I learned while researching this video here are a few of them 10 of the 20 players highlighted in this video have played in the NBA Playoffs that means 50 percent of the kids highlighted at that camp have played in the playoffs to put this into perspective only 40% of all NBA players have played in the playoffs coming out of high school this is what these players were ranked in the country within their class and this is what pic they were drafted with although there is some resemblance of a correlation between high school ranking and draft selection this should be eye-opening to a lot of young Hooper's out there rankings are far from everything in fact only six players were drafted with a selection higher than their high school rank which when you think about it is an incredible feat of these twenty players here is a breakdown of where they went to college of course Kentucky has the most recruits with four followed by Syracuse Indiana UNC and Kansas here's the table displaying the most points each of these players have scored in a single NBA game four players featured in that 2012 video have scored over 40 points in a game and when you include Devin Booker's fifty nine point performance from this past season each of these four players have accomplished his feat in the 2018 2019 NBA season 13 of these 20 players have scored 20 or more points in an NBA game which I find to be mind-boggling back in 2012 some guy with the camera captured a seemingly insignificant moment at a Team USA basketball practice panning through the crowd of NBA hopeful high schoolers losing their minds over a few dunks little did they know they were filming 19 future NBA players a future all-star a future two-time NBA dunk contest champion a summer league MVP a few installation pions and one of the league's most prolific scorers hope you all enjoyed and as always until next time [Music]

Channel: JxmyHighroller

Views: 3,007,891

Rating: 4.9276652 out of 5

Keywords: Zion Williamson, LeBron James Jr, Lamelo Ball, Lakers, Clippers Highlights, NBA Highlights, NBA News, NBA Breaking News, NBA offseason, NBA trades, Kawhi Leonard, Jimmy Highroller, NBA stories, NBA news, best dunks ever, stephen curry, Raptors, Ball Brothers, Kristopher London, Heat Check, House of Highlights, Jesser, Bronny Dunks

Id: q3r-myXShcs

Length: 16min 38sec (998 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 29 2019