The NYC Basketball History Project (@nycbbhistory)

LENNY COOKE Born on April 29, 1982 in Atlantic City, New Jersey where he attended middle school. The family later moved to the Bushwick section of Brooklyn New York. Cooke's parents struggled to find employment, and the family lived in poor conditions. However he was fast developing into an extraordinary basketball player, which helped to smooth the jagged reality of the poverty that had engulfed him and his family. Cooke, had grown to be 6 ft 4 by the 8th grade, and entered Franklin K. Lane High School in Brooklyn. He had difficulties in the classroom and failed the 9th grade. Transferring to La Salle Academy in Manhattan from 1999 to 2000 he repeated 9th grade. Finally Cooke was eligible to play as a sophomore and was an all-city selection, averaging 20 points and 11 rebounds a game, in his first season of organized basketball at the age of 16! His development went rapidly averagng 25 points and 10 rebounds during his junior year and remarkably was ranked higher than LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony as a high school baller in 2001. His skills expanded further as he averaged 31.5 points for the first eight games of his senior year. However, when he turned 19 in 2001, he was declared academically ineligible to play! Cooke's complicated basketball and life journey are not easy to follow. In the summer of 2000, Cooke earned Underclassmen MVP honors at the Adidas ABCD Camp and was 2nd leading scorer in the Rucker League in Harlem playing among professional players like Stephon Marbury, Ray Allen, Zach Randolph and Omar Cook. Cooke next appeared at Mott Adult High School in Flint, Michigan, working on his equivalency diploma, but confined to playing pickup games and tournaments. Still, at the end of the 2001–02 school year, Cooke had multiple options because of his elite basketball skills: North Carolina, Seton Hall, St. John's, Miami and Ohio State. A dozen NBA teams considered him and at least three guaranteed they would take him in the 1st round if he were available. He chose to skip college and declare eligibility for the 2002 NBA draft, ending his chances to play college basketball. Bad luck ensued when all 29 NBA teams passed on Cooke in both rounds of the draft. Cooke's complicated life and basketball career is the subject of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival documentary film "Lenny Cooke" by the Safdie Brothers.

DICK & AL McGUIRE Brothers in the Hall of Fame The only pair of brothers from the New York City basketball community to ever be enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, are the McGuire Brothers. Raised in the Rockaway Beach neighborhood of Queens, the older Dick was born in the Bronx and younger brother Al, in Brooklyn. Dick McGuire was born January 25, 1926, in The Bronx where his parents operated a bar & grill, attended La Salle Academy, an all-boys high school in lower Manhattan. He was a four-time All-New York City basketball selection graduating in 1943 as WWII raged in Europe. He easily moved to the next level, to play college ball at St. John's University and then to Dartmouth College where he served 2 years in a wartime military training program. He returned to play at St. John's in 1946. The 1st year of the NBA. Dick McGuire, elected to the Hall of fame in 1993 was a standout player at St. John's. He was a 7-time NBA All-Star point guard for the New York Knicks and Detroit Pistons, leading the Knicks to three consecutive NBA Finals in the 1950s. Dick McGuire passed away on February 3, 2010 at the age of 84 in Huntington, New York. Brother Al was born September 7, 1928 in Queens, New York, and attended St. John's Prep which was located in Brooklyn at the time, graduating in 1947. Al McGuire who was elected to The Hall in 1992, played 4 seasons for his hometown NY Knicks from 1951 to 1955, but gained his Hall of Fame recognition for his legendary coaching career, most notably for leading Marquette University to the 1977 NCAA National Championship. He passed away on January 26, 2001 at the age of 72 in Brookfield, Wisconsin after finally succumbing to a rare blood disease! The spirits of these NYC basketball legends, have left an indelible mark and always seem with us! Never forgotten! May they Rest in Peace!