Growing up in Chester, Jameer Nelson reached a point where he always had next. Always, always, always. For a time he had been a reluctant baller in a hoops hotbed, but by the age of 16 that had changed. Whether he was playing at the Seventh Street Courts, the city’s ultimate proving ground, or elsewhere, everybody wanted Jameer on their team. There would be no shooting on a side court for him, no slumming it with the scrubs.
“I don’t think I came off the court ever, win or lose,” he recalled recently.
By then he was well on his way to establishing himself as a legend at his hometown high school.