Sebastian Telfair was THE Point Guard of the 2000′s
Words. Casey Mack
New York City hype has led to disaster for a lot of former high school superstars. For much of the last decade, every year there seemed to be an NYC prep product who was destined to be the “Next Big Thing.” And in many of those cases, it never worked out.
But for the most hyped of them all — Sebastian Telfair of the Lincoln H.S. (Brooklyn) class of 2004 — the jury is still out for how the rest of his career will pan out. Even as the 25-year-old enters his sixth year as a pro, his name has dropped drastically from the minds of basketball fans. Telfair was The One; the point guard of the future. With his basketball bloodlines and natural talent beyond his years, he seemed a no-brainer to succeed. Once he turned pro, however, things didn’t quite turn out that way.
But that doesn’t take away from his past achievements, or diminish what he did when he was running the show for the Railsplitters and first became a national star. Simply put, Sebastian Telfair is not only one of the Top 10 point guards in high school basketball history, he is the PG who defined the last decade. The fact that Telfair didn’t crack my HSH colleague Jason Jordan’s list of the Top 10 high school point guards of just the last decade is crazy.
Like many of the other players on Jason’s list, Bassy was a star at Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD camp. However, Sebastian did it like no other: In 2000, he was the youngest to ever compete in the camp as an eighth grader. Telfair paved the road for youngsters with mature games. Despite his small frame, he turned heads with his ball-handling and passing ability. He was selected to the Underclassmen All-Star Game that same year. He would also go on to win the game’s MVP award the next two years. He turned Vaccaro’s camp into his own personal stomping ground.
Bassey set all kinds of records in the high school hotbed of NYC. He passed Kenny Anderson to become New York state’s all-time leading scorer with 2,785 points (a record since broken by Lance Stephenson). He holds the single-game scoring record at Lincoln (which also produced his cousin, Stephon Marbury) at 61 points. Telfair also holds the McDonald’s All-American Game assist record with 13 dimes. He is a multiple-time Parade Magazine All-American, and in 2004 was voted Parade’s national Player of the Year.
Telfair’s game attracted some of the world’s biggest stars to his high school gym. It was not unusual to see Jay-Z sitting in the front row at Lincoln games. Derek Jeter was another fan of Telfair’s showmanship. LeBron James would even take time out during his NBA rookie season to check out his boy Bassy at work.
The hype may have been overdone — the books, the movies, the huge sneaker contract before he’d played a pro game — but the hype was there for a reason. Sebastian Telfair’s performances made critics into believers. There was a reason he and LeBron were once held in equally high regard.
Sebastian was decidedly the best high school point guard of the last decade.
Haha are you serious??????
You must be telfairs cousin?
If I hadn’t watched him myself I might’ve bought into the hype. He wasn’t even top three in his class.
You’re from ny right?
tell me what point guards in his class where better then him your not from ny or you would not make dumb statements.
SHAUN LIVINGSTON
telfair doesn’t have the assist record…he did not get 13, so I don’t know what you’re talking about
if you watched that game, it was reported that he tied the record that day with thirteen. But unfortunately, the announcers were wrong. Go figure!
Yeah, Telfair came up a few assists short of the assists record for the McDonald’s game. You can see that on the Through The Fire movie. Or you could just look it up. With that said, he was an excellent High School PG. With a few years of college seasoning, he could’ve possibly been a Tony Parker type PG. At least his family should be taken care of financially. That’s the most important thing.
Haha I was gonna say the same thing about the assist record.
All these “facts” aren’t true. Next.
Ya’ll are really bugging. Shaun Livingston only had better PROtential because of his height. But @ 6’7″, he was not as skilled as Bassy – but d@mn close. But the problem is Bassy was the one who killed the misconception that a HS point guard could not make the jump to the Pros. How he made his argument: having one of the most dominant HS careers ever. If he had gone to college, there would be no doubt. Moreover, MIN, LAC, & (unfortunately) NYK spell career enders for rookies – whether it be to organizational issues or bad Kharma. We have not had the chance to see what he can do – dont think we ever will. Luckily, we arent arguing potential. We are discussing the fact that a kid was good enough to score 50 @ the McDonalds, but decided to go for the assist record; a kid who dropped 61 without trauma – he did it “just cause”; Own the ABCD, PAL, and EBC – all of which at the time were the “to do” or “who’s who” for the prep basketball world. Maybe he should not have made the jump. Fine. Good Point. But like Flip Johnson said, “They cant take what we was (snap)… can’t take what we was… (snap)..”
I played in many tourneys against Telfair back in the summer of 1999, before our high school days. I was on the BQE team coached by Artie Cox of Christ the King. Our starting point guard’s name was Japhette Mcneil. I truly believe that Mcneil was a better point guard than Telfair and he usually proved that by getting the win. If my memory serves me correctly, we only lost to Telfair’s team ONE time in an I.S. 8 tournament championship game that summer when he was on the Brooklyn Bridge team, and i believe Lebron James was on that team as well…check the books. Summer of 1999 I.S. 8 league, BQE vs. Brooklyn Bridge Championship Game, coach Artie Cox.
Sebastian Telfair was without a doubt one of the best point guards I have ever seen and played against during my childhood career. I have the upmost respect for him and he deserves to be where he is today. That being said, in my opinion I believe that Japhette Mcneil was and still to this day is better than him and ALSO deserves a shot at the NBA.