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How Basketball In LA Helped Prepare Three US Olympians

LOS ANGELES – If one player on Team USA hailed from the Los Angeles area, no one would make much of it. If two players on Team USA hailed from the L.A. area, it could be considered a feat. 

Getting three players on Team USA who grew up around L.A. and Southern California and graduated the same year in high school, is, as DeMar DeRozan put it, “crazy.” But that’s the circumstance DeRozan finds himself in as he prepares for the Olympics alongside Paul George and Klay Thompson, two players he grew up playing against.

“I’m pretty sure we all remember playing against each other when we were young,” DeRozan said. “To be sitting here, being multiple All-Stars, whatever you want to call it now, now on this level of team…it’s definitely crazy.”

Peek back at the Rivals Top 150 rankings from 2008, and it at least makes sense in DeRozan’s case.

Three of the top four rated high schoolers in the nation were from the L.A. area. There was Jrue Holiday, who went to Campbell High School in Studio City. There was Brandon Jennings, who was listed from Oak Hill Academy in Virginia but grew up in Compton and spent his first two years at Dominguez.

And there was DeRozan, the No. 3 ranked player in the nation, who also grew up in Compton and attended Compton High School. In case there was any question about how DeRozan felt growing up in L.A. prepared him to get to this moment, donning a Team USA jersey, he made his feelings clear.    

“It’s the reason why I’m here,” DeRozan said.

When people think about the cities producing top NBA talent, Chicago and New York often come to mind. But there’s a reason why Team USA went to STAPLES Center last weekend and the game sold out. There’s a reason why the Clippers, who are represented by DeAndre Jordan on Team USA this year, have sold out 234 straight games, including regular season and playoffs.

As DeRozan thinks back to players he went up against in high school, James Harden – who was part of the 2007 class from Artesia High School in Lakewood – comes up. So does Jennings.

Had DeRozan continued listing the many L.A. athletes who grew up around the same time as him and went on to the NBA, the name of Russell Westbrook, who graduated a couple years prior, would’ve assuredly come up.

“There’s so many guys I can name,” DeRozan said.

Including the two Team USA athletes from Southern California sitting beside him, who also believe there may not be a better area to grow up around basketball than L.A. 

“I mean, I’m biased,” said George, who grew up in Palmdale. “But I think Southern California is a hotbed for basketball. You go to play and see some of the most amazing talents. I feel like we’re already prepared to go out and compete and play at the highest level already, growing up playing constant talent night in and night out.

“It prepares us. It gets us ready, and you learn a lot growing up playing against each other.”

For George, that learning process started immediately. Adversity came quickly. 

The talent around George in the L.A. area was so prodigious that glancing back at that Rivals Top 150 class would be a fruitless task for anyone trying to find George’s name.

The skilled Pacers forward, one of the NBA’s top talents and the feel-good story this year for Team USA, was a lightly-recruited three-star athlete, largely overshadowed by other eventual pro talents.

Two of them – Holiday and Thompson – even played on his AAU team. 

“We all knew DeMar was destined for greatness,” Thompson said. “I knew Paul was going to be great, too, but he really excelled past everyone’s expectations. Going from a small high school, to Fresno State, to being a franchise guy, I’m proud of both of those guys.”

And the magnitude of the moment, sitting next to guys he played with and against in Thompson and DeRozan on Team USA, isn’t lost on George.

“It’s awesome,” George said. “We’ve all really grown up with one another. Me and Klay played on the same travel team, battled DeMar numerous amounts of time from AAU to high school basketball. It’s great to see us grow up, really, in this foundation.”

If DeRozan was the cream of the 2008 crop and George was the diamond in the rough, Thompson was somewhere in between, listed as the No. 51 player in the country on the Rivals Top 150. In case DeRozan’s No. 3 ranking wasn’t enough, Thompson already knew firsthand how skilled DeRozan was on the court.  

“I’ve been playing against DeMar since I was 14,” said Thompson, who grew up in Rancho Santa Margarita in Orange County.

And Thompson won’t let DeRozan forget about it.

To this day, Thompson still lets DeRozan hear about the CIF Playoffs their senior year, when Thompson’s Santa Margarita team took down DeRozan’s Compton squad, 62-55, in February 2008.

Even without the reminders, DeRozan remembers, much to his chagrin.

“Oh yeah, they beat us,” DeRozan concedes, before offering a disclaimer. “I beat Paul, though…But, yeah, Klay stopped us from getting to the CIF championship.”

That’s long in the past for DeRozan, who - even then, ranked as the third overall prospect from his class - couldn’t have possibly predicted where he’d be now, set to go to the Olympics alongside two players he knew back in his teenage years.

The rivalries and friendships among DeRozan, Thompson and George go back long before USC, Washington State and Fresno State, respectively, and Toronto, Golden State and Indiana, respectively.  

As cool as it is going through Team USA training next to some of the top athletes in the world, the three Southern California natives realize how much cooler it is to do it next to players they grew up playing with or against.

One-fourth of the athletes on the Team USA basketball team honed their skills together as prep athletes in Southern California, and that’s not lost on those three players.

“It’s really special,” Thompson said.