“My girl at that time, which is my son’s mother now, was going to college in Albany, and as soon as school was over I broke out and bought two ounces to start pitching up in Albany,” he said back in 2011 on the Juan Epstein podcast. That demoralizing first-round loss hit hard, though, and before his senior year even ended, Cam bolted the city. Devastating.”Ĭam’ron claims to have been recruited by Miami, Georgetown, Syracuse (“Jim Boeheim, he called me up and sent me letters, sent recruiters to the games,” he says, “though there were certain rules, like you can’t talk to them or whatever”), and Cam’s own mother has provided proof that some top-level programs had interest in her son: We went 25-0 and lost in the first round of the playoffs. Yet again, postseason success eluded them, and they lost in the first round of the playoffs. In reality, however, he kept on hooping for both Riverside Church and The Gauchos-two elite AAU teams-and in high school, where as a senior, Parker and him achieved a perfect 25-0 regular season at Manhattan Center.
In Cam’ron’s self-produced, semi-autobiographical movie Killa Season, that miss is portrayed as the shot that changed everything after it rims out, Cam turns to a life of drug-related crime and violence. Unfortunately, Cam bricked a running three-pointer at the buzzer that would’ve given his team the victory, and Manhattan Center fell 55-53. He famously played on the same high school team as Mason Betha-later known as the rapper Ma$e-and as sophomores in 1992, the two, along with Richie Parker (who would later lose a scholarship to Seton Hall because of a sexual assault charge), brought the team all the way to the Public Schools Athletic Class A championship at Madison Square Garden, defeating Stephon Marbury’s Lincoln squad to get there. He grew up around 140th Street and Lennox Ave in Manhattan (where Nicky Barnes got rich as fuck)-coming of age in the same building as future NBA player God Shammgod-in a neighborhood littered with basketball courts, eventually attending Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics in East Harlem.
That’s because this Harlem native isn’t merely a former hoops prodigy these days, Giles is known as Cam’ron, a platinum rapper with a bevy of hit singles, high-charting albums and an incredibly popular group to his name.ĭespite his rap success, Cam’s earliest goals were your pretty standard hoop dreams. Yet when Giles saunters through the park, it’s not just a select few who show respect- everyone loses their shit. When former hoops stars return to the courts for events like this-a Reebok-sponsored high school all-star game featuring some of the best young talent in the city-they’re generally embraced warmly, with daps and hugs thrown in their direction by everyone from local legends to up-and-comers with a respectable knowledge of roundball history.
It does not store any personal data.Cameron Giles, once one of the best high school basketball players in New York City, is showered with love as he walks through Rucker Park during a hot late-summer day in August of 2014. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics". These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly.