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Caseloads
Posts: 27725
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Joined: 7/29/2001
Member: #41
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http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/story/339205p-289709c.html
The next big thing
At 14, Lance Stephenson has the game,
the posse, the bling - but can he survive the hype?
By EBENEZER SAMUEL
DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER
Coney Island hoops phenom Lance Stephenson is sitting pretty.
The NYC Hoops Festival at Baruch College isn't going according to plan. OJ Mayo's AAU team never showed - one of those "coach's personal problems," as festival promoter Gary Charles called it, kept Mayo from a marquee showdown with Coney Island's 14-year-old phenom Lance Stephenson.
The pair had played against each other at Adidas' ABCD camp a few weeks ago, and the eighth-grader had alternately held his own and gotten schooled, depending on whom you asked. Without Mayo-Stephenson II, the Hoops Festival is losing much of its luster.
"The comp is still up there," Charles argues. "Derrick Caracter is here. Corey Fisher is here. (Doug) Wiggins is here."
Those names mean little, though. Lance Stephenson is the Hoops Festival's lone star now. Some call him a taller Sebastian Telfair; others compare him to Stephon Marbury. He has the same Coney Island pedigree, the same velvety jumper, the same electric first step ("the best since Fred Astaire," scout Tom Konchalski calls it) that leaves even high school seniors grasping at air.
He also has the issues that follow a prodigy - the entourage, the expectations, the endless adulation. Wherever Stephenson goes, he is surrounded by adults - his parents and coaches are always around, answering questions for the junior high-schooler still trying to become media savvy.
"Lance has to navigate a terrible minefield of people telling him he is great," says Konchalski. "And there is a great deal of media hype around him. If he can rise above this, he has the potential to be a great player. But he must get through all the people telling him he is great, and that's going to be tough. If Michael Jordan grew up in New York, he wouldn't have been a great player."
None of this enters Stephenson's head when he arrives at 24th and Lexington Avenue and strides into the basement gym. He just got back from a basketball camp in California and he just wants to play OJ.
His 6-4 frame is covered by a grey XXL-tall T-shirt. Long black shorts sag below his knees and his brownish S. Carter sneakers are loosely laced. Gold-and-silver earrings with the inscription "Lance is #1" cling to his ears, and a gold chain dangles from his neck. At 14, Lance Stephenson is all iced out.
He tugs at his small RocaWear backpack as somebody lets him know that Mayo's team cancelled on New York.
"Oh," he says quietly, his eyes wandering. He opens his mouth but before he can say anything else, his father steps in.
"He probably got scared," says Lance Stephenson Sr. "Lance played him tight the last time."
Stephenson watches his father as Lance Sr. talks about everything from high school basketball to school choices to his profession, Coney Island construction. He eyes the older man, shifting from one foot to the other, sheepishly fiddling with the drawstrings from that RocaWear backpack.
Lance Sr. pulls no punches, however, as he describes his son's future and the choices the family has made for him - Lance won't follow Telfair and Marbury to Lincoln High; he'll make his own way.
"He's going to Bishop Loughlin because we wanted to give him more structure and more discipline," Lance Sr. says before he invokes a lofty comparison to Houston Rockets star Tracy McGrady. "Since we came from Coney, I guess (Lincoln High coach) Tiny Morton assumed he would go there. But we're doing what's best for Lance ... Lance, we feel, can be better than Telfair. We feel he can be a T-Mac kind of player."
Charles, who says he discovered Stephenson as a sixth-grader, adds to the hype. "He has the confidence that he can play with anybody in the country. And unlike Sebastian, who couldn't always match up with bigger players, Lance doesn't have that problem. He has a tremendous in-and-out game, and for an eighth-grader, he already has perfected the two-bounce pullup."
Never mind that Konchalski says Stephenson still needs to learn to play without the ball. Charles and Lance Sr. can only rave about him, about how he was the best eighth-grader at ABCD. The 14-year-old can barely get a word in. Somebody asks him if he would rather be a streetballer or an NBA player.
"My goal is..."
"We're not even thinking about that stuff right now," Lance Sr. interjects.
If Stephenson could, he would tell you that he thought Mayo's teammate, Bill Walker, was amazing at ABCD. He would tell you that he likes his own ability to "go to the hole real good."
He would tell you that, even though he's just about to begin his freshman year at Loughlin, he dreams of going to the University of North Carolina.
His father never had that opportunity. A a Coney Island lifer, he grew up with Tiny Morton and Loughlin coach Khalid Green. He vouches for both and justifies his son's attendance at Loughlin by doing so.
"Khalid came up through Tiny's system," Lance Sr. says. "People try to make it like there was some animosity between them but there's not. There's love. Tiny helped Khalid get started."
Lance Sr. left Coney Island for two years in the late 1980s when he played basketball for UC Santa Barbara. But he came back in 1990 and reunited with his high school sweetheart Bernadette. Lance was born in September of that year.
"Lance is our only child," Bernadette says. "And he's real special. He was playing with a basketball when he was two. That's how serious it is. He grew up with the basketball. He liked to hold it and if you took it away from him..."
Basketball came easily to Stephenson, and the Coney Island life made it easier. He played every day, often with his dad. Bernadette and Lance Sr. worked for the New York Housing Authority, but Lance Sr. quit so he could concentrate on his son's game.
Stephenson attended Sethlow Junior High School, and played as a sixth-grader for an AAU squad, Team Next, where he was discovered by Charles.
His life now is basketball. On Wednesday, he played at the Hoops Festival. On Thursday, he played pickup games on the Coney Island playgrounds and at PS2 and on Friday, he played a tough game at the Hoops Festival, matching up against high school junior-to-be Corey Fisher.
He scored 15 points in a blowout win and took one nasty fall late in the game. But he got up quickly, shrugged off help, and nailed a pair of free throws.
"Remember he's playing against good players," Konchalski says. "Fact is that he's in eighth grade - you have to be easy on him even though he has that skill level."
Stephenson doesn't have time to enjoy the victory; he has to return to Coney Island to play in the Sebastian Telfair Basketball Tournament later that night. He says he's tired and glances at his right ankle. The knuckle on his skinny right index finger shows peanut-sized swelling, a reminder of a fall nearly a month ago. Lance Sr. has just started Stephenson on light weight training and he's not worried about his son's fatigue.
"Yeah, maybe he's a little tired," Lance Sr. says. "A little worn, but I look at it as it's just the season. After this (August) he can recuperate."
"This is a regular New York summer," Green adds. "All this'll slow down when the fall hits."
Until then, Stephenson will keep playing, winding down the summer on the court, playing game after game after game.
"I played a lot of games this whole summer. I want to play," he says. "My dad wants me to play."
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8/23/2005 7:49 AM
. They describe him as shy and his father and coaches are saying he doesn't like the attention he is getting.....he just wants to play ball. That's cute....kids are innocent. Just because he can play ball at 14 doesn't mean he will be a lock for the NBA. Too much pressure for anyone to handle. Alot can happen to a kids mind in 4 years.