Lenny Cooke Documentary Full Movie Free Download
- In uncommon instances, however, inefficiencies can occur and gifted players may fall through the cracks. Such is the story of Lenny Cooke. In 2001, Cooke was the number-one ranked high school basketball player in America, with future NBA greats LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony listed beneath him.
- Apr 19, 2016 The first documentary feature from American independent film scene fixtures Josh & Benny Safdie (Daddy Longlegs, The Pleasure of Being Robbed), LENNY COOKE explores the fascinating question of how.
Before YouTube provided endless mixtapes of teenage basketball stars, before LeBron James changed amateur basketball forever to fuel a 24/7 appetite for online updates on hot prospects, Lenny Cooke was basketball's next big thing.
Dec 06, 2013 “Lenny Cooke” and the Problem with Best Documentaries. Featured in the movie.) “Lenny Cooke” is, in effect, a nonfiction drama; it’s a documentary film in the literal sense of. The Lenny Cooke Documentary is a Real Eye Opener(link inside) Check it out here. I was expecting a prefabricated movie showing his past highlights and lecturing high schoolers with cheesy narration. I thought this was just a means for him to cash out on what little notoriety he still has. But it truly shows the struggles he goes through today.
Cooke, a 6-foot-6-inch swingman out of Brooklyn, was the nation's top player, seemingly on the fast track to NBA fame and riches. But he never made it.
See also: A YouTube Legend Battles for His Basketball Future
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That disconnect is the subject of Lenny Cooke, a powerful documentary exploring the dark reality of prodigious promise gone unfulfilled.
Seeing a bloated Cooke rationalize his basketball demise is sobering indeed after watching him confidently interact with future NBA stars including James and Carmelo Anthony as a teen. The film is aided tremendously by the fact that directors Ben and Joshua Safdie are able to use prime footage of Cooke as a high schooler that was shot by Adam Shopkorn in the early 2000s for a never-completed documentary about the young star.
That old footage provides a fascinating, surreal and sometimes disturbing window into Cooke's life as a basketball prodigy. We see him treat future NBA stars as peers or younger brothers. (One of his old friends, Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls, produced Lenny Cooke.) We see the eye-popping skills that built his reputation. We see the tough neighborhood where he grew up and the white suburban mom with whom he lived in his late teens. But we also see him sullenly brush off coaches' advice and party like an adult while in Las Vegas for a tournament.
The trove of old content makes the film's final 25 minutes all the more powerful. Cooke throws himself a 30th birthday party, ending the night on the couch drunkenly scooping food into his mouth in front of the TV. He briefly reunites with Noah and other players on the Madison Square Garden floor after a recent New York Knicks game, an encounter that contrasts Cooke's current circumstance with what might have been. And an emotional argument with friends he rarely sees anymore is a painful reminder of how much has changed since they were all cocky teenagers.
Lenny Cooke's one glaring hole is the narrative gap between its subject's promising younger years and current reality. Short clips of him playing in lowly minor leagues speed the timeline along, but the film never digs into what exactly happened during that decade — the why of his cautionary tale. Was he simply overhyped? Did his skills not develop as expected? Or was Cooke handicapped by personal issues?
To hear Cooke tell it late in the film, he just never had a passion for the game. Under-the-table payments and stardom's accompanying fast life, however, meant he couldn't stay away. Whether that's revisionist history on his part or the simple truth, the rest of us will never know. But as an overweight Cooke says of his fans, handlers and enablers: 'They made me this person. That fucked me up.'
That's something to keep in mind next time highlights of basketball's latest underage phenom pop up on YouTube.
Lenny Cooke is currently in limited release in cities around the United States. Check the film's website for more details on screenings and distribution.
Image: Lenny Cooke film
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 29, 1982 (age 37) Atlantic City, New Jersey |
| Nationality | American |
| Listed height | 6 ft 6 in (1.98 m) |
| Listed weight | 206 lb (93 kg) |
| Career information | |
| High school | Northern Valley Regional (Old Tappan, New Jersey) |
| NBA draft | 2002 / Undrafted |
| Playing career | 2002–2006 |
| Position | Shooting guard |
| Career history | |
| 2003 | Brooklyn Kings |
| 2003-2004 | Magnolia Hotshots |
| 2003-2004 | Shanghai Sharks |
| 2004 | Magnolia Hotshots |
| 2005-2006 | Rockford Lightning |
| 2006 | Minot Skyrockets |
Leonard Cooke (born April 29, 1982) is an American former high school and professional basketball player.
Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, he is known primarily for having been ranked higher than LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony in the Summer of 2001. He had averaged 25 points, 10 rebounds, two steals, and two blocks per game in his junior year of high school. Following his junior year in high school, he averaged 31.5 points for the first eight games of his senior year. When he turned 19 in 2001, he was academically ineligible to play according to high school athletics' rules in his home county in New Jersey.
Cooke is the subject of the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival selected documentary film Lenny Cooke by the Safdie Brothers.
Biography[edit]
Cooke was a highly regarded young basketball player in high school, in the various basketball camps, and the AAU and tournaments. At one point he was considered one of the top recruits in the country, along with rival contemporaries like LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, and Amar'e Stoudemire. Future NBA player Joakim Noah was one of his close friends.[1]
At Franklin K. Lane High School, in Brooklyn, Cooke was honored as Freshman of the Year. Cooke attended La Salle Academy in the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City from 1999-2000, where he averaged 30 points and 15 rebounds. He earned MVP honors in the 2000 Adidas ABCD camp. He was taken in by Debbie Bortner to attend Northern Valley Regional High School located in Old Tappan, New Jersey, from 2000 to February 2002.
One of the featured anecdotes of the biographical movie Lenny Cooke was the 2001 ABCD Camp matchup between Cooke, the NYC area phenom and defending camp MVP, versus the lesser-known phenom from 'nowhere' LeBron James, in which LeBron effectively supplanted Cooke as the most highly regarded prospect in the country.
At the end of the 2001-02 school year, Cooke had a year left to graduate, but had exhausted his high school basketball eligibility. Against the advice of Bortner, he chose to transfer to Mott Adult High School in Flint, Michigan, where he worked to get his equivalency diploma and work on his basketball game. Ineligible for school play, he was confined to pickup games and tournaments.
On March 8, 2002, he scored 21 points to help the Eastern Conference defeat the West 115-103, at the EA Sports Roundball Classic at the United Center in Chicago. At that point, he was rated #4 High School Player in the United States in the Prep Stars Recruiter's Handbook.
Career[edit]
At the end of the 2001-02 school year, Cooke had multiple options for basketball: North Carolina, Seton Hall, St. John's, Miami and Ohio State. He professed a preference for St John's in the NYC area, but it was never clear whether he would have been eligible.[notes 1]
Amid enticing agent promises that explicitly stated a dozen NBA teams were seriously considering him and at least three guaranteed they would take him in the 1st round if he was available,[2] Cooke chose to bypass college and declare himself eligible for the 2002 NBA Draft, a decision which ended his eligibility to play college basketball.
To his surprise and disappointment, in the 2002 NBA Draft, all 29 NBA teams passed on Cooke in both rounds.[3] Because he was not selected, Cooke became a free agent, eligible to sign with any NBA team that wanted him.[notes 2]
That summer, after being bypassed in the NBA Draft, he played in the Rucker Park Summer League in New York for the Terror Squad team. Later in 2002, Cooke was drafted by the Columbus Riverdragons of the NBDL. In April 2003, he tried out for the Brevard Blue Ducks of the USBL, and in May 2003 was signed by the USBL's Brooklyn Kings. In 15 games, he averaged 28.8 points and more than 9 rebounds per game.
He played well enough there that the Boston Celtics invited him to play on their summer league team, but that was the closest he ever came to playing in the NBA.[1] While he played in several games, to his lasting disappointment he didn't get in the game when his team played the Cleveland Cavaliers' summer league squad featuring their just-drafted LeBron James.[2] Later in the summer of 2003, Cooke returned to play in the Rucker Park Summer League.
In the 2003-04 basketball season, he first played in the Philippine Basketball Association for the Purefoods TJ Hotdogs, followed by a stint with the Shanghai Dongfang Sharks where he averaged 16.7 points and almost 7 rebounds per game.[1]
In the 2004-05 basketball season, he returned to the PBA's Purefoods team but tore his Achilles' tendon, ending his season.[1]
In 2006-07, Cooke played for the Minot Skyrockets of the CBA where he blew out his other Achilles' tendon, ending his career.[1]
Legacy[edit]
Late in the summer of 2005, the NBA changed its rules to prevent future players from jumping directly from high school to the NBA by requiring all its players to be at least 19 years old and one year removed from their high school graduations.[4] One-time phenoms like Cooke, whose development was stunted by a haste to get to the NBA too quickly, are considered to be the impetus for the change.[2]
Cooke is the subject of the 2013 documentary Lenny Cooke which documents his athletic rise, fall, and subsequent life after basketball.[5] The film, made by the Safdie Brothers, was entered in the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival.
Notes[edit]
Lenny Cooke Movie Online
- ^His academic record was spotty, and reportedly he had never bothered to take college entrance exams such as the SAT or ACT.
- ^According to the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement, any potential player who wants to play in the NBA must go through the draft selection process once. If unselected, as Cooke was, a player then becomes a free agent, with the ability to negotiate and sign his first NBA deal with any team at any time.
External links[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ abcdeAraton, Harvey (March 3, 2012). 'Star-to-Be Who Never Was'. The New York Times.
- ^ abcSafdie, Ben; Safdie, Joshua (Directors) (2013). Lenny Cooke (Motion picture). USA.
- ^'2002 NBA Draft - Basketball-Reference.com'. Basketball-Reference.com. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^'CBA - National Basketball Players Association'. Retrieved 18 July 2017.
- ^Lenny Cooke on IMDb