ALL-AREA BASKETBALL: Chargers King named boys' player-of-the-year

By Justin Hayes
Published in Sports on March 24, 2017 9:59 AM

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The orange cones, arranged in a warped jump-shooting polyagonal, are his plot points this afternoon.

Upon a slap of the ball, he sprints from the baseline in clean-catch mode and takes a pass from his coach, David Flowers, who is serving as the session's rhyme and meter.

After a quick rise-and-fire make, there's a look of affirmation between the two -- then a hurried reset.

For the better part of an hour, the hustle-and-flow of in-game speed bursts, step-back jumpers, head fakes and rim runs is broken up only twice -- once in a hilarious discussion about who is the better golfer, and once when the prodigy brings something to the attention of his workout partner.

Amongst other means, that's how Jamal King, the 2016-17 News-Argus All-Area Boys' Basketball Player-of-the-Year earns his 17 days.

*

King isn't happy.

The workout's second interruption -- a botched bit of warp-speed, right-left-right staccato footwork designed to promote gathered force and acceleration by a defender, is a mess.

Cones, after all, don't trample themselves.

So without a word, he stops the live action and begins wandering through his recent way. Step by step, he shuffles through the cycle, faux-dribbling and wondering aloud in a tone that makes others look at him, then at each other, then back to him.

Flowers smiles -- he's seen this stunt before.

"You good?" Flowers asks with a smile.

King is slow to answer, preferring instead to nail down the final few frames of his chopped-up, impromptu dress rehearsal.

"Got it," the kid replies.

And just like that, the 6-foot-5, 215-pounder does.

From the baseline he explodes, in letter-perfect form this time, gathering his frame in nonchalance before ghosting his would-be defender with a sales-job bit of fakery near the arc and a power dribble through the lane.

Done and done.

"It's the small things," Flowers says later as King embarks on full-court dribbling exercise. "He's a student of everything, so (any mistake) is a quick fix."

*

The student of everything has some things to say.

Drenched in the rinse of his workout, King describes Flowers' session as light fare, and that his trainer, a gentleman named Larry Bratcher, will be here shortly for another, more intense bit of open run.

That's when he mentions the number 17.

Aside from a week of down time immediately following the end of Wayne Country Day's season, it's the only other break he allows himself all year.

And just to be uber clear, it's not a 14-day respite from pickup games with three days of light shooting. Nor is it nine with a bevy of do-as-you-like options. It's also not 12 days of junk-food grace and five of wall-to-wall hoop video games as a back-end reward.

It's 17 days away, plain and simple -- and he must earn them.

"My trainer knows the strength and conditioning coach of the Denver Nuggets," King explained. "And he said 17 days off -- strictly 17 -- and do nothing."

King laughs and details that he isn't entirely sure why the timeout lasts for such a determined stretch, and no, he isn't diving into the NBA's science module to find out why. It just works for him, which is all that really matters.

Odds are decent, however, that he uses the sequester to ponder who he is and where he wants to go -- because as of right now, he's simply not impressed with himself.

*

Here's an exercise.

Google-search any one of half-a-dozen prep hoops websites, then drill down by graduating class, then by state, then by playing position and name, and voila -- Jamal King appears.

Projections and player rankings across the board tout him as a top-50 wing player in two years with strong interest from schools such as Georgetown, Ohio State, Georgia Tech and Connecticut.

Other high-profile institutions competing in the bonanza for his services include Cincinnati and Wake Forest, among others.

But that's not what he's focused on now.

"There's always going to be someone more talented than you, more skillful than you... that you have to outwork," King said. "And there should be no one else that works as hard as you."

So he is making sure they don't.

King, you see, isn't a paid subscriber to the glory and praise heaped upon him by people he doesn't know. He addresses his flaws first, personal achievements later, and fully recognizes there is room to expand beyond a sophomore campaign that saw him produce 22 points and 11 boards a night -- even if the internet tells him otherwise.

He's just about the 17 days -- and he'd rather earn them, it seems, than enjoy their comforts.