LYNWOOD, Ca. – Some of the better boys’ basketball players set to enter their freshmen years in a few weeks – if not sooner – were on display Saturday during The Orientation, presented by Beach City Hoops and hosted by the Lynwood High basketball program.
Created by Beach City Hoops founder Alex Carmon (a former standout at Long Beach Poly High and San Francisco’s Academy of Art University), the event showcased 34 players from the Class of 2026 in a variety of competitive drills and three scrimmages each – “won” when the first team hit 50 points.
Some of the Saturday standouts also were terrific the weekend before in Anaheim during the Ballislife Junior All-American Camp presented by EBC at Open Gym Premier.
Among those were terrific left-handed guards Jason Crowe Jr. (Lynwood High) and A.J. Johnson (Newport Pacifica Christian), as well as Kaiden Bailey (Irvine Crean Lutheran) and Braeden Davidson (Orange Lutheran).
Teams headed by Crowe and Johnson met in the final scrimmage, with Johnson’s team coming out on top – by way of a layup by Aaron Balistrieri (Servite) – to finish 3-zip.
Five players at the event are scheduled to play for Coach Jason Crowe at Lynwood in 2022-23: His son, as well as Aiden McIntyre, Matthew Martinez, Jahaz Wright and Chace Holley.
One of the projected top ninth graders in San Diego County this season, 6-foot-1 Ty Ingram (San Ysidro), was another Saturday standout.
There were three exceptional “bigs” at the event, too: Brayden Kyman (6-7, Santa Margarita), Jackson Scarborough (6-7, Clovis) and Max VanLaningham (6-8, Roseville, CA, Rose Creek).
Kyman is the brother of Jake Kyman, an Orange County Player of the Year at Santa Margarita who played three seasons at UCLA and is now enrolled at the University of Wyoming.
Another sibling of note there Saturday was Malakai Perrantes, who is following his brother to Crespi High in Encino.
London Perrantes was a two-time all-CIF SS player in high school and a four-year starter at the University of Virginia who played for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 2017-18 (when they were swept by Golden State in the finals). He’s now playing professionally in Israel.
Another familiar last name? Richardson.
As in, “Jaxon Richardson”, who is going to be a freshman at powerhouse Las Vegas Bishop Gorman and is one of the sons of former NBA player Jason Richardson.
Jason Richardson Jr., a starter for the Gaels last season, will a junior for Coach Grant Rice’s program this season.
Others who caught my attention included (but were not limited to): Dylan Williams (Long Beach/no high school decision yet), Amir Jones (Harvard-Westlake), Caleb Newton (Birmingham), Josiah Andrews (Rocklin near Sacramento) and Jaden Whitehead (St. Bonaventure).
Leave a Reply