The NYC Basketball History Project (@nycbbhistory) “LENNY COOKE Born on April 29, 1982 in Atlantic City, New Jersey where he attende” — TopicDigg

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.