I'm sure a lot of you guys remember Lenny Cooke. Better than LeBron, better than Carmelo, better than Stoudemire. Then it all came crashing down... I've read all the articles, heard all the interviews, but I can't wait to see the movie, and I hope Lenny gets a good % of the profits. Hell, I've had a reference to the guy in my sig since I came back posting on s2. I'm definitely pumped to see this one. It's a rougher story than even Maurice Clarett's, and I can't wait to finally get some real, inside, accurate knowledge about his downfall. EDIT: Just noticed Joakim Noah was an Executive Producer... good looks getting the story out Noah, good looks... [video=youtube;ne61w4R20QE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne61w4R20QE[/video]
Just watched this video from the ABCD camp - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFNS6IR742Y The featured players were Cooke, Bassy, and LeBron. The interesting thing is that LeBron said, "Sometimes it goes to people's heads, but me it don't go to my head. You've got to put your mind to it if you really want to play this game, and you've got to work as hard as you can." When they interviewed Cooke, there was a lot of talk about playing Kobe in the NBA, some talk about Jordan, and not really any talk about working and ignoring the distractions.
I'm honestly surprised there's not more interest in this story on this board. I know that a lot of the posters are strictly NBA types, but in the early 2000's, Lenny Cooke was just as much of a "next big thing" as LeBron and Carmelo, and now he's a fat, miserable, failure. Without even being a fan of the game, I'd still be intrigued by that storyline, but actually being a fan of the game, and remembering the Lenny Cooke hype, I can't wait to watch this film. I've always had so many questions left unanswered about his fall from the top, and hopefully this film will answer some of them and put it all into perspective.
How'd he go through the draft and nobody picked him? The teams must have known something about him that scared them off, eh? Like that he's such a fuck up?
Why the hell do we want to watch a documentary about a sadsack fat fuck who tried to follow his dreams but got stuck in a dead-end instead? Most of us can just look in a fucking mirror to get that story!
Read about this awhile back..... Can't wait! This could was a baller! Sent from HCPs Baller-Ass iPhone 5...FAMS!
That mid-2000's era, where everyone was going high school-to-pro, you had a lot more interaction between agents and high schooler's, and they were telling every other kid who could ball on the AAU circuit that they were the next Jordan. This is why I love the NBA age limit. You can point to HS-to-pro busts like Ndudi Ebi and make them the poster childs for the age limit, but the real guys that were hurt at the time were the guys like Lenny Cooke and DeAngelo Collins. At the height of the "high school talent craze," these guys had all sorts of people leading them in the wrong direction from an early age. Thankfully, there have been enough regulations set in place to keep too many of these guys from repeating that madness. And btw, BlazerCaravan, Lenny Cooke wasn't just some other dude who pissed it all away. He was the dude in the modern era that pissed it all away. I remember in high school AAU, looking up to Lenny Cooke, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James, in no particular order. They were the top upperclassmen in the game, and it wasn't even until LeBron took on Lenny Cooke in the ABC that anyone thought he was a better player. That's why I'm saying this isn't just some Rumeal Robinson sort of story. This is a guy who should have been an all-time great. It's still in the back of my head every time I hear the media go on about Carmelo... "man, Lenny Cooke had that dude's number."
BTW - Denny, this was a YouTube sidebar to the film, where your man, Joakim Noah, EP on this film, has his take on the situation - [video=youtube;wCsFVTSzLXk&NR]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCsFVTSzLXk&NR=1&feature=fvwp[/video]
Still doesn't explain why all the NBA teams passed on him for two rounds. If the guy could play, he could play. If he signed with an agent, he was plenty eligible to go pro. LeBron went from HS to the pros the same year, no? Noah's such a new yorker.
I've often wondered whatever happened to...Felipe Lopez (? I think that's his name). Dick Vitale basically had an orgasm everytime that kid played and then he dropped off the face of the earth. Google, I'm gonna be talking to you in a bit.
This is running on Showtime this month. Just watched and it was pretty good. I guess it is pretty easy looking back to say it was a no-brainer that Lenny was going to be a failure. It did shed some light on the basketball hype machine as well as how money makes it to these kids.
Everytime I hear a story like this, I ask the same question. Was EVERY adult in this kid's life a parasite or syncophant? Was there nobody who cared enough to tell him "stop!" ?
Cooke stood out in high school because he was always a year older than his classmates. When NBA teams factored that into the equation they realized the switch from playing younger players to playing against older players would be too great a leap for him. Turns out they were right.
