Lenny Cooke

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Cooke gets another 
shot at LeBron 
 

 

 
Lenny Cooke hopes to settle an old score with LeBron James when he joins the Celtics' entry in the NBA's Boston summer league next month.
Cooke, the itinerant New York prep basketball star who faded away after he went unchosen in last year's draft, agreed yesterday to join the Boston squad for a tryout, said his agent, Kenny Glassman. The Boston team faces James' Cavs' squad on July 14, LeBron's first nationally televised game as an NBA player. 

"Boston is intrigued with what he's done in the USBL," Glassman says of Cooke. "Now he has to prove he belongs in the NBA."

Cooke's USBL team, the Brooklyn Kings, was eliminated by Pennsylvania in the first round of the playoffs this week in Dodge City, Kan., but Cooke was named rookie of the year yesterday. He led the league with 29.8 points per game.

Cooke was the top prep player in the country when he squared off against James at the 2001 ABCD Camp in New Jersey. James scored 24 and held Cooke to nine points in the game that propelled James into a national sensation and the first NBA draft pick this week. Cooke, who attended five high schools before declaring himself eligible for the 2002 draft, faded from sight.

Cooke has said in recent interviews that he's a better player than James, and Glassman says Cooke was eager to play against him in Harlem's Rucker Park summer league, although it is unlikely that the Cavaliers would allow James to play at Rucker.

 


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