Basketball Fiend

Posts Tagged ‘growing up’

Last year Adam Yauch (better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys) released a documentary about eight high school basketball players who travel to Rucker Park in New York to play in the Elite 24 (a game showcasing the best high school players in the nation). You may have heard of a few of these guys. Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Jerryd Bayless, Kyle Singler, Lance Stephenson. Some are playing in the NBA. Others were drafted in Thursday night’s draft. Others will be in the NBA soon.

I know I’m a year late on this, but the documentary was terrific. It captured not only the meaning of Rucker Park, but also the perspectives of some of the best young basketball players in the country.

Of particular interest to me: Tyreke Evans and Donte Greene, two of the hottest basketball prospects in the nation in 2007 (when the doc was filmed). Now both of them are Sacramento Kings.

As a Kings fan trying to figure out why the Kings drafted Evans over Ricky Rubio, watching interviews with Evans as a high schooler was enlightening; the basketball equivalent of reading a Rolling Stone feature on a favorite band. It sounds weird, but watching Yauch’s doc was like getting to know Evans for the first time. I learned more about him in this hour and thirty-six minute documentary than in all of the nationally-televised college games, YouTube clips, and Internet features combined.

If you’re a basketball fan and you have an hour and a half to kill this weekend, I highly recommend watching Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot. You can catch it on Hulu or, if you want a more permanent copy, you can order it from the Gunnin’ Movie website.

If not, I’ve got you covered. After the jump you’ll find a quick breakdown of each player (Greene, Bayless, Love, Jennings, Singler, Beasley, Evans, and Stephenson) and what the documentary teaches us about him.

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