A camp full of wannabes enjoyed their chance to absorb some up-close time with The King himself, LeBron James.
A mesmerized group of basketball campers keep close watch on LeBron James as he took some shots before starting a pickup game at his skills camp at Rhodes Arena Monday.AKRON, Ohio -- It was real and surreal all at the same time. A Lebron James Skills Camp full of wannabes, in the same Rhodes Arena with The King himself, LeBron James.
While the camp's college players lined up on one court Monday afternoon to do their pre-workout exercises, beside them on a second court, with still cameras above him and TV cameras a court-length away, LBJ stretched. All the face people, from ESPN's Shelly Smith to WEWS' John Telich, to several print media members were sprinkled among a crowd of NBA scouts that included a pair of former Cleveland State basketball coaches, Ray Dieringer and Kevin Mackey.
There was a former Cav, Ron Harper, on hand as well.
Cleveland basketball's past, present, and perhaps somewhere on the court, it's future.
Sorry, no admittance: The LeBron James Skills Academy is not open to the public, although family and selected guests can be on hand. That changes Thursday when the players move to Cleveland State for the two-day King James Classic. Fans can attend the sessions for $5.
Who's here: The selected roster of college players includes guard Shelvin Mack from Butler, forward Chris Wright from Dayton, forward William Buford from Ohio State and forward Kyle Singler from Duke. While the NBA scouts littered Rhodes Arena, the one thing they covet was not on hand among the collegians. There was not a legitimate center in the bunch.
That wasn't the case on the prep roster, however. Three true post bodies stood out in 6-9, 280-pound DaJuan Coleman from Syracuse, N.Y., 6-10, 220-pound Deng Leek from High Point, N.C. and 6-11, 233-pound James (also known as Zach) Price, 6-11, 233 pounds out of Cleveland's St. Edward High.
They're off! Tuesday is the first official day of two 10-day NCAA's summer evaluation periods. A 10-day quiet period will begin July 15, then another 10-day evaluation period. By definition, an evaluation period is when coaches and assistant coaches are allowed to assess the athletic and academic ability of prospective student-athletes, but cannot conduct off-campus (personal or one-on-one) visits. In other words they can look, but they can't talk.
A quiet period is when recruiting is limited to on-campus contact as part of an official or unofficial recruiting visit. In other words, a student-athlete can go check out a coach and/or a school, but the coaches can't leave their campus to talk with a student-athlete.