Dime is the premier basketball magazine, covering the NBA, NCAA, High School, Playground and International basketball - as well as sneakers, fashion and music.
LETTERS
Tere's something special about watching Aquille Carr play. He's not the big- gest cat in the world, but he's still magnetizing. Most of the game's best little guys can drop buckets or have nights where they pile up numbers. But the one they call "Te Crime Stopper" is different. He can impose his will on a game despite being the smallest player on the court. Tat quality stands out. You can't take your eyes off him, and it's easy to forget there are other players on the court. It's just Carr and the poor soul who's trying to guard him. Carr has hype. But the difference is he backs it up. He's done it enough that we put him on the cover of Dime #65 and declared him the nation's most excit- ing high school player. So around the time we introduced Carr to the world, we asked our DimeMag.com readers:
WHO IS THE MOST EXCITING HIGH SCHOOL PLAYER EVER?
I dunno about the most exciting, but one of the most hyped ever was FELIPE LOPEZ. It's because of guys/players like Felipe Lopez that things grew and expanded to the point where years later, there would be a nation- ally televised regular season high school game. That game was all about LeBron... but getting to that point was all about guys like Felipe Lopez. -heckler
TIM THOMAS: 6-10, handle like a guard, post up, could knock down threes. If he had the drive, he could've been the best player in the NBA as his Bucks teammates used to say. Ask those high schools in NYC and around the country how good Tim was. Best player to ever come out of Jersey. -Bryant
More worthwhile is to ask, "Who's the most exciting high school player that you've seen?" because then it allows for personal opinion. If that's the case, I'd say PEARL WASHINGTON at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn back in the '80s. Tim Hardaway bit his crossover in the '90s, popularized it, then influenced ev- ery single guard's handle since, bar none. Unequivocal fact. None of you saw Wilt, Manigault, Rick Mount, Kenny Anderson (maybe some of you did) or Lew Alcindor in high school. If you did, you're lying! Haha. You probably haven't even seen photos. So just talk about what you know, please, and let's not disrespect our elders by bestowing some honor on a player that we truly have no idea if he was the most exciting or not. -Bobbito Garcia
EDDIE GRIFFIN was an absolute superstar in high school. "Effortless" is a suitable term to describe him. I saw him play in a tournament. Dude took off one step inside the free throw line and threw it down – and this was not on a fast break. This was a half-court set. Dude caught the ball, triple threat on the right side, three-point arc and then pulled a first step on the defender to the left, one stride and took off. The whole crowd was shocked. -bresaniel
SCHEA COTTON was killing fools back in the day. He was most definitely a man child. He was on every magazine, sports show and newspaper giving fools that two-piece combo. Special shout-out to EK (Earnest Killum). RIP, you were a legend on and off the court. -qbjjr
Gotta thrown AUSTIN RIVERS' name out there for the hell of it. I haven't seen any- body come along since LeBron that had people everywhere wondering what college he was gonna play for. I'm dying to see that kid in the NBA playing for his Dad… and Rondo… and Dwight, yeah I said it. -Brent Donley
DARIUS MILES was pretty huge back in the day. The hype surrounding him was as ex- treme as anyone else I can think of. -UncheckedAggression
Gotta rep the Chi! I remember cutting out articles of RONNIE FIELDS when him and KG were taking over Chicago media. I re- member seeing them do a play in a three-
on-three tournament where KG bounced the ball off the floor and bent down to tie his laces, and Ronnie Fields came running and jumped over his back to dunk the ball in! This was before the whole AND 1/Skip To My Lou tapes... So sad to see his career turn out the way it did. Ronnie Fields was not only better than KG, but used to jump out the gym! -Gaz Halim
The tape I've seen of KENNY ANDERSON was pretty unreal. Dude was an alpha point and did it with flash. -K Dizzle
I saw a documentary that the original Goat, EARL MANIGAULT, was just unstoppable and
entertaining as all hell in high school. Ap- parently he even had Lew Alcindor riding him. -2cents
It's RONNIE FIELDS! Partly because that's all I have to go on is "what if," but his athleti- cism was Vince or better in his prime. He wasn't the best player but by far the most exciting! -Dapro
Any New Yorker who was around the scene in the '80s will tell you that, from the per- spective of someone who understood nu- anced point guard play, no one could come
close to touching KENNY ANDERSON and PEARL WASHINGTON in high school. They weren't jumping out the gym and dunk- ing on everybody, but the wow factor came from the smoove sizzle and advanced IQ. -Ali
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