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Wall Street Journal
By ALEX RASKIN
Feb. 13, 2015 9:07 p.m. ET
With the NBA’s All-Star festivities encompassing not one but two boroughs this weekend, both the city and the league have taken the opportunity to remind the world that New York is “the mecca of basketball.”
There are even meccas within the mecca. Madison Square Garden, which will host the All-Star Game on Sunday, has been called the spiritual home of basketball, as has Holcombe Rucker Park, the famed Harlem playground where such legendary New Yorkers as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) and Connie Hawkins played as kids.
These days, though, New York is more literally like basketball’s Mecca, because it produces about as many great players as the Saudi Arabian city does.
Sunday’s All-Star Game will feature only one New York City-born player, Carmelo Anthony, and he’s really a Baltimore product, having moved there from Brooklyn when he was 8. And the coming NBA Draft, traditionally littered with New Yorkers, has recently become more of a showcase for cities like Seattle and Toronto, the latter of which has produced the top pick in each of the past two seasons (Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins).
“I firmly believe that there are more top players developed in Toronto than in New York City,” said legendary St. Anthony High School (Jersey City) coach Bob Hurley Sr.
Most telling of all, this year marked the fourth in the past five that the McDonald’s All-American roster was void of any New York City boys. (South Shore Victory Collegiate High School’s Brianna Fraser, a Brooklyn native, was picked for the Girls East team).
‘We seem to identify players at a very early age now, and we rank them. And when we rank them, they have a tendency to believe that these rankings are, in fact, legitimate. And the kids who have that early success, it’s a curse. ’
—Bob Hurley Sr.
Back in the 1980s and ’90s, two or three boys from New York City high schools would reliably make the McDonald’s All-American team (which dates back to 1977), a remarkable number considering that the squad covering the eastern portion of the country accommodates just 12 players. In 1989 alone, New York City was represented by Kenny Anderson (Archbishop Molloy), Darryl Barnes (Franklin K. Lane), Jamal Faulkner (Christ the King), and Conrad McRae (Brooklyn Technical). In 1990, four more local phenoms were chosen by the McDonald’s voting board, which comprises coaches, athletic directors and principals, according to a spokesman.
So why have there been only six since 2002?
The problem, like anything involving education and amateur athletics, is a knotty one. Some things are obvious, like the abundance of diversions suddenly competing for kids’ attention.
“My generation, we needed basketball,” said Anderson, a former New Jersey Nets star and the first local player to be named All-City four times. “We were real serious about it because we wanted to go to college. We wanted to get a scholarship. That was free money. Our mothers, our families couldn’t afford it.”
A bigger problem, agreed Hurley and Tom Konchalski, the editor and publisher of High School Basketball Illustrated, is that players face new forms of discouragement—sometimes even disguised as encouragement.
“We seem to identify players at a very early age now, and we rank them,” said Hurley, who has won 27 New Jersey state titles and four national championships with St. Anthony. “And when we rank them, they have a tendency to believe that these rankings are, in fact, legitimate. And the kids who have that early success, it’s a curse. The flip side of it is, those who don’t have early success, because of all the attention given to the other kids, are made to feel that they can’t develop as players because they can’t have a rating or an evaluation like that.”
But perhaps the bigger impediment to New York City boys basketball resides beyond the five boroughs in the form of college preparatory schools and their recruiting machines. Many of the prep schools around the country offer a less-challenging path than a public or Catholic school in New York. Outside of New York state, students aren’t required to pass Regents Exams, and prep schools can offer any number of other advantages, such as the ability to start as a freshman or an easier curriculum. For students who failed to capitalize on the court or in the classroom during their four-year high-school careers, prep schools can offer a mulligan in the form of a postgraduate year.
“If kids did not get recruited the way they hoped to get recruited, if they didn’t qualify for initial eligibility in the NCAA, then they would do a postgrad year,” explained Konchalski.
That’s not to say all prep schools are diploma factories geared toward passing players off to top collegiate programs. Connecticut’s South Kent School has recruited several New York City standouts without having to lower its academic standards, according to its coach, Kelvin Jefferson. Current Orlando Magic forward Maurice Harkless, for example, left Forest Hills High School in good academic standing to attend South Kent, where he faced the elite New England Preparatory School Athletic Council competition.
“Over the last few years, we’ve been able to produce top 100 players, many NBA players,” Jefferson said of the NEPSAC. “It’s been widely known as probably the best league in the country.”
One player who has resisted the prep schools is Rawle Alkins, a junior at Christ the King in Queens who is considering elite NCAA programs such as Kansas and Villanova. And the 6-foot-5-inch guard certainly had reason to go that route.
Born in Brooklyn, Alkins moved to Florida in the seventh grade, then returned to the city, where he was accepted to Christ the King. But instead of starting as a freshman, Alkins was sidelined with academic issues.
“He sat right there every single day and was tutored every single day,” said coach Joe Arbitello, pointing to a cluttered table in his office. “That is when I thought he was just gonna leave. That’s when most kids and their handlers are gonna tell you, ‘We’re here to play basketball, not to read and write.’”
“It was a long process,” Alkins said. “I would watch the team practice. I couldn’t even practice. My whole freshman year, I just had to work on my game at home by myself.”
Christ the King High School’s Rawle Alkins Alkins, a junior, recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history and has helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. ENLARGE
Christ the King High School’s Rawle Alkins Alkins, a junior, recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history and has helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Since becoming eligible, Alkins has recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history, scored more than 1,000 points, and helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. But while he remains enthusiastic about playing for Arbitello and attending Christ the King, Alkins may yet land at an out-of-state prep school. Since he played some varsity basketball as an eighth-grader in Florida (something that some states permit), the Catholic High School Athletic Association could rule him ineligible for his senior season, which would technically be his fifth year of varsity basketball.
If he eligibility is upheld, the city will likely have another McDonald’s All-American candidate next year. But to Alkins, who wants to win four state titles, such an honor is secondary. And to his coach, it’s almost meaningless.
“It’s a mess,” Arbitello said of the McDonald’s selection process. “I put zero stock in it. Call it like it is: Footwear companies, AAU teams, playing with the right teams.”
Perhaps that is the problem: As much infrastructure as adults can bring to basketball, the future of the game is in the hands of the student athletes.
“When the playgrounds are full again and the guys are out there testing each other, and they’re organizing the games themselves, then basketball will start coming back,” Hurley said.
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By ALEX RASKIN
Feb. 13, 2015 9:07 p.m. ET
With the NBA’s All-Star festivities encompassing not one but two boroughs this weekend, both the city and the league have taken the opportunity to remind the world that New York is “the mecca of basketball.”
There are even meccas within the mecca. Madison Square Garden, which will host the All-Star Game on Sunday, has been called the spiritual home of basketball, as has Holcombe Rucker Park, the famed Harlem playground where such legendary New Yorkers as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) and Connie Hawkins played as kids.
These days, though, New York is more literally like basketball’s Mecca, because it produces about as many great players as the Saudi Arabian city does.
Sunday’s All-Star Game will feature only one New York City-born player, Carmelo Anthony, and he’s really a Baltimore product, having moved there from Brooklyn when he was 8. And the coming NBA Draft, traditionally littered with New Yorkers, has recently become more of a showcase for cities like Seattle and Toronto, the latter of which has produced the top pick in each of the past two seasons (Anthony Bennett and Andrew Wiggins).
“I firmly believe that there are more top players developed in Toronto than in New York City,” said legendary St. Anthony High School (Jersey City) coach Bob Hurley Sr.
Most telling of all, this year marked the fourth in the past five that the McDonald’s All-American roster was void of any New York City boys. (South Shore Victory Collegiate High School’s Brianna Fraser, a Brooklyn native, was picked for the Girls East team).
‘We seem to identify players at a very early age now, and we rank them. And when we rank them, they have a tendency to believe that these rankings are, in fact, legitimate. And the kids who have that early success, it’s a curse. ’
—Bob Hurley Sr.
Back in the 1980s and ’90s, two or three boys from New York City high schools would reliably make the McDonald’s All-American team (which dates back to 1977), a remarkable number considering that the squad covering the eastern portion of the country accommodates just 12 players. In 1989 alone, New York City was represented by Kenny Anderson (Archbishop Molloy), Darryl Barnes (Franklin K. Lane), Jamal Faulkner (Christ the King), and Conrad McRae (Brooklyn Technical). In 1990, four more local phenoms were chosen by the McDonald’s voting board, which comprises coaches, athletic directors and principals, according to a spokesman.
So why have there been only six since 2002?
The problem, like anything involving education and amateur athletics, is a knotty one. Some things are obvious, like the abundance of diversions suddenly competing for kids’ attention.
“My generation, we needed basketball,” said Anderson, a former New Jersey Nets star and the first local player to be named All-City four times. “We were real serious about it because we wanted to go to college. We wanted to get a scholarship. That was free money. Our mothers, our families couldn’t afford it.”
A bigger problem, agreed Hurley and Tom Konchalski, the editor and publisher of High School Basketball Illustrated, is that players face new forms of discouragement—sometimes even disguised as encouragement.
“We seem to identify players at a very early age now, and we rank them,” said Hurley, who has won 27 New Jersey state titles and four national championships with St. Anthony. “And when we rank them, they have a tendency to believe that these rankings are, in fact, legitimate. And the kids who have that early success, it’s a curse. The flip side of it is, those who don’t have early success, because of all the attention given to the other kids, are made to feel that they can’t develop as players because they can’t have a rating or an evaluation like that.”
But perhaps the bigger impediment to New York City boys basketball resides beyond the five boroughs in the form of college preparatory schools and their recruiting machines. Many of the prep schools around the country offer a less-challenging path than a public or Catholic school in New York. Outside of New York state, students aren’t required to pass Regents Exams, and prep schools can offer any number of other advantages, such as the ability to start as a freshman or an easier curriculum. For students who failed to capitalize on the court or in the classroom during their four-year high-school careers, prep schools can offer a mulligan in the form of a postgraduate year.
“If kids did not get recruited the way they hoped to get recruited, if they didn’t qualify for initial eligibility in the NCAA, then they would do a postgrad year,” explained Konchalski.
That’s not to say all prep schools are diploma factories geared toward passing players off to top collegiate programs. Connecticut’s South Kent School has recruited several New York City standouts without having to lower its academic standards, according to its coach, Kelvin Jefferson. Current Orlando Magic forward Maurice Harkless, for example, left Forest Hills High School in good academic standing to attend South Kent, where he faced the elite New England Preparatory School Athletic Council competition.
“Over the last few years, we’ve been able to produce top 100 players, many NBA players,” Jefferson said of the NEPSAC. “It’s been widely known as probably the best league in the country.”
One player who has resisted the prep schools is Rawle Alkins, a junior at Christ the King in Queens who is considering elite NCAA programs such as Kansas and Villanova. And the 6-foot-5-inch guard certainly had reason to go that route.
Born in Brooklyn, Alkins moved to Florida in the seventh grade, then returned to the city, where he was accepted to Christ the King. But instead of starting as a freshman, Alkins was sidelined with academic issues.
“He sat right there every single day and was tutored every single day,” said coach Joe Arbitello, pointing to a cluttered table in his office. “That is when I thought he was just gonna leave. That’s when most kids and their handlers are gonna tell you, ‘We’re here to play basketball, not to read and write.’”
“It was a long process,” Alkins said. “I would watch the team practice. I couldn’t even practice. My whole freshman year, I just had to work on my game at home by myself.”
Christ the King High School’s Rawle Alkins Alkins, a junior, recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history and has helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. ENLARGE
Christ the King High School’s Rawle Alkins Alkins, a junior, recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history and has helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Since becoming eligible, Alkins has recorded the first three triple-doubles in school history, scored more than 1,000 points, and helped the Royals to a pair of state titles. But while he remains enthusiastic about playing for Arbitello and attending Christ the King, Alkins may yet land at an out-of-state prep school. Since he played some varsity basketball as an eighth-grader in Florida (something that some states permit), the Catholic High School Athletic Association could rule him ineligible for his senior season, which would technically be his fifth year of varsity basketball.
If he eligibility is upheld, the city will likely have another McDonald’s All-American candidate next year. But to Alkins, who wants to win four state titles, such an honor is secondary. And to his coach, it’s almost meaningless.
“It’s a mess,” Arbitello said of the McDonald’s selection process. “I put zero stock in it. Call it like it is: Footwear companies, AAU teams, playing with the right teams.”
Perhaps that is the problem: As much infrastructure as adults can bring to basketball, the future of the game is in the hands of the student athletes.
“When the playgrounds are full again and the guys are out there testing each other, and they’re organizing the games themselves, then basketball will start coming back,” Hurley said.
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