Top Hotbeds for Hoops Talent
By Gee Kane
February 7, 2008
Once basketball becomes the next sport on the calendar to crown college and pro champions, discussions begin to pop up at college campuses, barber shops, dinner tables, playgrounds, and message boards concerning which section of the country produces the best hoops talent.
Traditionally, New York has the bragging rights locked down. Philadelphia and Chicago could make their cases, but New York City has long been considered the domestic headquarters for basketball. I asked Tee’s Weekly founder Tee and another industry expert, Mick the C, to rank the top 10 basketball states for talent. Both put New York at the top of the list. New York still can make a strong case for the best history of all time, but right now New York doesn’t even qualify as a hotbed of talent.
Name the best basketball player from New York in today’s game. Ron Artest? Please. He is the last NBA all-star who was a NYC product and he was only selected once in 2003-2004. If Ron-Ron is the best pro New York has to offer, the news doesn’t get any better for New Yorkers searching for the best college talent from the city.
I guess it would have to be Jonny Flynn from Syracuse, although Jessie Sapp, Edgar Sosa, and Levance Fields, like all good NYC guards, have the ability to make big shots in big spots. Flynn is currently ranked the 70th NBA prospect by Chad Ford. Really? That’s the best the city has to offer, Ron Artest and Jonny Flynn?
The biggest story of the past 20 years of American basketball has been the infusion of international players. Nonetheless, Americans are still developing basketball players. So where are they coming from if not from the New York City area?
In order to find out who has replaced the city as the nation’s top hotbed for hoops talent, I decided to have the Tee’s Weekly mathematics department rank the 50 or so best American talents right now. The list they came up with ranged from current high school seniors to anyone presently in college to any NBA pro who has not passed his prime. Below is a ranking of the state hotbeds that produced at least one basketball talent in the Tee’s Top 50 list.
| State | Count | State | Count |
| GA | 1 | MI | 2 |
| NY | 1 | FL | 2 |
| AL | 1 | LA | 2 |
| MO | 1 | OH | 2 |
| OR | 1 | VA | 2 |
| TN | 1 | IN | 3 |
| WI | 1 | PA | 4 |
| WA | 1 | TX | 4 |
| NC | 2 | CA | 5 |
| IL | 2 | MD | 9 |
The list of Maryland (including DC) players is impressively young and talented. The three current professionals in the group that were drafted by the NBA were drafted second, third, and fifth overall and have two Final Fours and a national championship among them:
AUSTIN FREEMAN |
Hyattsville |
MD |
CARMELO ANTHONY |
Baltimore |
MD |
CHRIS WRIGHT |
Bowie |
MD |
DONTE GREEN |
Baltimore |
MD |
JEFF GREEN |
Hyattsville |
MD |
KEVIN DURANT |
Washington |
DC |
MICHAEL BEASLEY |
Washington |
DC |
ROY HIBBERT |
Adelphia |
MD |
TY LAWSON |
Clinton |
MD |
After we ranked the current talent by hotbed area, we ranked American’s states on their all-time contribution to the game by adding their top 10 players’ total NBA points and ranked their top three players of all time on rep alone.
Hot Bed |
Top 10 NBA Player Pts. |
Three Best Talents |
NY |
230,280 |
Kareem, King, Dr. J. |
LA |
202,983 |
Mailman, Russell, Drexler, |
IL |
183,304 |
Isiah, Aguirre, Wade |
CA |
180,904 |
Reggie, Glove, Kidd |
PE |
172,884 |
Kobe, Wilt, Pistol |
NC |
166,851 |
MJ, Worthy, Sleepy |
MI |
164,833 |
Gervin, Magic, Webber |
IN |
151,793 |
Bird, Kemp, Oden |
VA |
148,428 |
Alonzo, AI, Moses |
MD |
138,912 |
Carmelo, Durant, AD |
TX |
126,950 |
Grant Hill, Larry Johnson, Bosh |
This formula was then scrubbed by a team of MIT statisticians to reveal the following rankings for the 2008 Tee’s Weekly Top 10 Hotbeds (chart below). It seems that despite its lack of history for creating great pros of the past, the great state of Maryland is this generation’s New York. It took 10,000 man hours from the mathematics department at Tee’s Weekly to compile the list. You probably wouldn’t understand it if I tried to explain it to you, so just take my word for it. But make no mistake about it, these days it is the playgrounds of Maryland in PG County, Bowie, Rockville, Baltimore, and the District that produce America’s best games and players.
HOT BED |
OVERALL |
Murdaland |
111 |
Pennsylvania |
78 |
California |
74 |
Indiana |
72 |
Louisiana |
65 |
New York |
62 |
Illinois |
62 |
Carolina |
62 |
Virginia |
59 |
Texas |
59 |
Michigan |
57 |
Ohio |
56 |
Florida |
52 |
Georgia |
45 |
West Virginia |
41 |