3x NBA champion Shaun Livingston says that he didn’t back down from the hype of high school phenom Sebastian Telfair at 2003 ABCD Camp.
(via Knuckleheads with Quentin Richardson and Darius Miles):
“So I’m going out there, y’all know me, man, I’m quiet. I don’t do all the rah rah, I’m just going out there to hoop. So, I’m by myself. I know people, so we all know each other’s players. I’m cool with some of the players that’s there, but Bassy a rockstar at this time. Rockstar, like he really got it. I’m talking about he coming in, he got the big chain on. Only one, like he all iced out. He a real rockstar at that time, he had it. So, everybody was scared of him. He had that aura like, ‘Damn.’ He had it. You didn’t have social media, we wasn’t as close like that. So you just heard the stories, you might see some highlights. He playing in front of probably 15,000, 10-15,000. Jay [Z] showing up to the games, celebrities showing up. Stephon [Marbury] his older cousin. So, just the legend of Bassy building up. So we walk in, he got like 20 people with him, 30 people with him. That’s how he moving in high school. And then just coming out of there, I just remember my godfather at the time, he gave me some advice I’ll never forget. He’s just like, ‘Man, seize the moment. You don’t never know when this moment, you’ll get this again.’
“That was my only time to really match up with him. I didn’t see him in the AAU circuit really. I wasn’t a Nike or Adidas guy. Usually, it was one or the other. So that was my moment, that was my time to really match up with him. I’m looking, I’m like 6-5, 6-6. I’m playing in Chicago against some goons already, I’m like, ‘I ain’t scared of him.’ So just going at him and having that mentality at the time and like I say, Bassy, he was nice. Super fast, he really had it. But also too, the aura that he moved with at the time, the confidence that he had, I think he had a lot of that over a lot of players. Before the ball would even go up, you dead if you buying into it. So for me, I play to win. I don’t know what the stats was, but I’m playing to win and just having that mentality and going at him. I’m seeing the crowd and everybody, all the gas. He do something, they hyping it up or putting all the extras on it. I’m like, ‘OK, cool. Take the ball out. Let’s keep playing.’ That was my mentality and I just remember coming out of the camp, people saw what they saw. I came out the camp with that renewed confidence like, ‘OK, I feel like I’m one of them ones.’”
