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Brooklyn's finest Eighth-grade guard Telfair draws crowds at ABCD
Posted: Tuesday July 11, 2000 11:14 AM
By Albert Lin, CNNSI.com TEANECK, N.J. -- Ask Sebastian Telfair, the next great point guard from New York City, where he wants to go to school, and the answer pops right out of his mouth: “Lincoln.” That would be Lincoln High School. Telfair, you see, just completed eighth grade and is the youngest camper at the adidas ABCD Camp. The Brooklyn resident’s name has long been familiar to those who follow prep basketball. He has been tabbed the best player in his class by one publication since he was in the fifth grade. “At the time I didn’t know exactly what it meant,” Telfair says. “But I’m still No. 1 in the eighth grade, so that’s good. I want to be No. 1 wherever I go. All the other guards come at me and try to outdo me. I don’t have to prove anything. I’ve just got to stay focused so people don’t think I’m overrated.” Telfair, who clearly has a precocious mouth as well as a precocious game, turned 15 on June 9. He stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 135 pounds, but from a distance those numbers seem exaggerated -- maybe because facially he doesn’t look a day over, oh, 12. Despite his inexperience and his slight frame, he has acquitted himself well here. “Me being the youngest, it doesn’t mean I have to do anything but play hard,” he says. “I have to live up to being the youngest, to show them that I’m up to playing with them.” Telfair is not shy, which makes him a perfect floor general. He possesses neither blazing quickness nor flashy ball-handling skills, but he has that sixth sense all point guards seem born with. He always delivers the ball to the right person in the right place at the right time. “I try to show I can run the team,” he says. “Usually the young players come in and try to show they can score. Me, I just want to show I can run the team. “I’m the pioneer, the leader, every time I’m out there.” Where does he get his ability? It’s in the blood. Telfair’s mother is the niece of Mabel Marbury, the mother of Stephon and matron of New York City’s first family of basketball. His older brother is Jamel Thomas, the former Providence star who was CBA Rookie of the Year and finished the season on the roster of the Portland Trail Blazers. “When I was little, Stephon and Jamel had to watch me,” Telfair says. “I went to their games, saw them play. As I got older I realized how good Stephon was, and I started to pattern my game after him.” Both continue to help guide him on and off the court. “Everything I see [Stephon] do, things he tells me, things he says, I pick up everything,” Telfair says. “He’s one of the greatest point guards to come out of New York City. “When Jamel is in New York, he always shows me, teaches me things NBA people tell him. Simple things, like coming off the pick-and-roll, how to get low and shoot it. Defense, things like that. “He’s taught me what went on in his life, what I should do, what I shouldn’t do. He tells me about the mistakes he’s made in his life, that he doesn’t want me to make. He tells me to go to school.” When someone has been heralded for as long as Telfair already has, the possibility of him attending college doesn’t seem very likely. With more and more high schoolers heading directly to the NBA -- plus the developmental leagues being established -- there’s probably a greater chance of the Los Angeles Clippers fielding a winning team than Telfair matriculating at a university. “I do want to go to college; it’s one of my biggest dreams,” he says. “But if I get a good offer ...” Marbury spent just a year at Georgia Tech, and his is the name most often mentioned in the same sentence as Telfair’s. The youngster welcomes the comparisons. “I feel good being linked to him, because he’s in the NBA,” Telfair says. “If I’m linked to him, I figure that means I’m going to the NBA, too.” That’s at least four years away. We hope.
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