Lance Stephenson -- School Night

by Josh Hersh
The New Yorker
June 30, 2008

Lance Stephenson, the best high school basketball player in New York City, was in midtown one recent Monday night to watch an early cut of a new documentary in which he stars. The film, ?Gunnin? for That #1 Spot,? was directed by Adam (MCA) Yauch, of the Beastie Boys, and it chronicles an exhibition game that Stephenson played in, at Rucker Park, in the summer of 2006. The movie, which comes out this week, the day after the N.B.A. draft, includes quickie portraits of eight young basketball players who participated in the game, several of whom?Michael Beasley (Kansas State), Jerryd Bayless (Arizona), Kevin Love (U.C.L.A.)?are expected to be top picks. Stephenson is the youngest of them?he is just about to finish his junior year of high school?and was the only one who showed up at the screening.

Half an hour before the film began, Stephenson sat on a bench outside the screening room, typing into his Sidekick. His phone had run out of juice during the school day, and so he had taken a seat near an electrical outlet. His entourage milled around nearby: dad, Lance, Sr. (Stretch); mom, Bernadette; two-year-old brother, Tookie; an aunt; a teacher. His uncle, Lawrence Britt, who is only a few months older than Stephenson, sat beside him, typing on his own Sidekick. Britt had a curly figure, like a misshapen paper clip, shaved into his hair, and someone asked him when he?d had it done.

?I dunno,? he said, reaching up to trace the pattern with his fingers. ?A few days ago maybe??

?What, are you kidding?? Stephenson said, looking up from his Sidekick. ?You did that yesterday. You don?t remember??

?Oh, yeah,? Britt said. The boys laughed, and then went back to typing.

Stephenson plays for Abraham Lincoln High School, the public school in Coney Island that produced Sebastian Telfair and the Knicks? enigmatic star Stephon Marbury. In their youth, Bassy and Steph were already viable celebrities?talkative, full of smiles. Stephenson, by contrast, can be remote, almost sullen, but, by most people?s reckoning, he is the superior athlete. That afternoon, Lincoln had played a scrimmage against St. Anthony?s, a Catholic school in Jersey City that is ranked first in the country. Stephenson scored twenty-six points in the game, which ended in a draw.

The screening finally began. Stephenson and his dad sat in the front row. They both slouched low in their seats, their long legs stretched out. Stephenson appears only briefly in the first forty minutes of the film, so he got up to check his phone. At one point, the cameras follow Kevin Love around the relative luxury of his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where his mother discusses his nutritional plan. Later, Love is shown working out with a personal trainer and shooting free throws using a rebounding machine. When Stephenson?s image was finally projected onto the screen?he is two years younger, walking down a Coney Island street with his father, and pushing Tookie in a stroller?he straightened in his seat. In the game scenes, Stephenson appears to be having a lot of fun, throwing down slam dunks, and even, at one point, dancing a little jig. In the fourth quarter, muscling his way to a rebound, he smacks Love in the face with his forearm, busting open his lip.

When the film was over, Bill Feinberg, a sports marketer, and a close family friend of Love?s, found Stephenson at the back of the theatre, checking his messages.

?So how did you like the movie?? he asked.

?Oh, uh, I liked it a lot,? Stephenson replied, barely looking up.

Feinberg told Stephenson that Love had called and sounded angry about his lip. Stephenson looked stricken. ?Really?? he asked softly, missing the joke. ?Kevin?s not mad at me anymore, is he??

By the time the screening was over and the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk, it was almost ten-thirty. A homeless man tried to sell Yauch an issue of a street paper with the Beastie Boys on the cover. ?This is so weird,? Yauch said. (He bought five copies.) A few feet away, Stephenson and his family discussed getting dinner at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, next door, but Coney Island was a forty-five-minute drive away. ?It?s pretty late,? Bernadette said as they headed toward the car. ?And, anyway, Lance has homework to do.?

http://www.newyorker.com/talk/2008/06/30/080630ta_talk_hersh/