I was 16 years old, 6'4,170 lbs, athletic. I was bussing dudes ass left and right in France for the 18 and under club team. I used be on that Lebron wait for your lay up and swat that shyt on the backboard.
I did a Nike event in Paris where they look for youngins who can hoop. A HS in South Carolina "invited" me to come to the US for a year and play HS ball. Nikka we made it!
I wasn't even done unpacking and they took me to meet my high school coach
-STAND UP SON.

-Do you lift weights with your team at home?
-no sir
-How old are you again son?
-16 sir
You 16 and you never lifted weights before?
-

No sir
-Open gym starts Thursday at 4, my son will be here, he's a freshman Shooting guard at USC, we'll see how you hold up…
I could blame it on the obvious size and strength mismatch, culture shock, language barrier, the weather (playing ball in a gym with no a/c in the summer in South Carolina is no joke ),
You can believe that I felt pressure playing 1vs1 against this kid in his daddy's gym, the gym that he grew up in and won state titles in.
You can even factor that dude had been in college for a year lifting, eating right, playing vs SEC athletes and I had been in the country 3 days and hadn't touched a basketball in weeks, much less played in that gym before. IT DIDNT MATTER!!!
dude basically bullied me on the court. He backed me down and scored at will 5 times before I scored my first bucket....He was talking that boss talk too

everytime he scored, he would yell something like GET BIG!!!! or FROMAGE!!!
when I saw that same dude as a sophomore at USC on espn and he was coming off the bench, he wasn't even a starter, he got in the game and got his shyt blocked and couldn't even beat his man off the dribble…
I knew both our nba careers were

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