Michael Cooper wasn’t highly recruited out of Pasadena High School, but is now the 17th player from a California High School inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. Copyright 1987 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)
We offer some notes and tidbits on California boys high school basketball as the 2024-25 season approaches. This will be our 45th consecutive season that CalHiSports.com (Cal-Hi Sports) will provide state rankings, state record updates, honor all-state players and serve as the home of the Mr. Basketball State Player of the Year.
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Note: We’re in the process of compiling our Cal-Hi Sports preseason state rankings in boys basketball (set for Nov. 14) and updating our Cal-Hi Sports Hot 100 player rankings in the 2025-2027 classes for Gold Club members. This winter we’ll also introduce the 2028 class as the season tips off. You can get more daily boys basketball updates by following Ronnie Flores on Twitter: @RonMFlores
Michael Cooper Enters The Hall
Former Pasadena standout Michael Cooper is entering the Naismith Hall of Fame this weekend. He was known for his defense and timely 3-pointers as a somewhat underrated member of the 1980s Showtime L.A. Lakers team that came to the forefront just as Cal-Hi Sports was getting off the ground. It was a memorable time in the NBA and jumpstarted the league to what we see today with a global audience and astronomical salaries. The following are some unique notes about Coop’s induction:
• He is the third California product who played at a California junior college after high school. After graduating from Pasadena High School in 19774, Cooper played two seasons at Pasadena Junior College before earning a scholarship to New Mexico. The other two JUCO HOF products are 2010 inductee Dennis Johnson (Compton Dominguez), who attended L.A. Harbor, and 2012 inductee Don Barksdale (Berkeley) who attended the College of Marin before earning a scholarship to UCLA. Most of the 17 Golden State high school products to make it to the Naismith HOF were highly-recruited out of high school and didn’t necessarily need to go the JUCO route.
• Cooper wasn’t considered an all-state level player at Pasadena High School and reportedly his only scholarship offer out of high school was, by his own accord, to Seattle Pacific. It didn’t mean Cooper wasn’t an excellent prospect, as Pasadena had quality teams in the 1970s, he just needed time to hone his skills. The most unsung high school player of the 17 that have made the HOF? That would be Johnson, who barely played at Dominguez and after toiling on the bench was discovered by the L.A. Harbor coaches while playing in an industrial league . The legendary Bill Russell was also a high school backup at Oakland McClymonds in the early 1950s to future MLB Hall of Famer Frank Robinson. Russell had talent, but credit the USF coaches for realizing what a weapon his defensive skills could be, as Russell revolutionized the way basketball was played by creating the fast break after a big defensive play.
• Don’t look now but California is going to be see its HOF numbers go up significantly in the coming years, as there are six active players who are certain Hall of Famers. All graduated from high school between 2006 and 2009. James Harden (Lakewood Artesia), Russell Westbrook (Lawndale Leuzinger), Damian Lillard (Oakland), Paul George (Palmdale Knight), Kawhi Leonard (Riverside King) and Klay Thompson (Santa Margarita) look like locks. DeMar DeRozan (Compton) is closing his career strongly and he’ll likely get in at some point. We have two questions now that Cooper has been inducted. Will Marques Johnson (L.A. Crenshaw ’73) finally get his due? In his prime, he was considered much more of an all-star and all-NBA level player than Cooper was. And with Cooper getting his due as a defensive specialist, does that open the door for Jrue Holiday (North Hollywood Campbell Hall) at some point down the line? Incredibly Lillard, George, Thompson, DeRozan and Holiday all graduated in the same year (2008). Holiday was our Mr. Basketball choice and the nation’s best prospect was also a SoCal product who made the NBA: Brandon Jennings of Oak Hill Academy in Virginia, who started at Compton Dominguez. Holiday was the Gatorade National Player of the Year and Jennings was named Mr. Basketball USA, as voted on by a 10-man panel of grassroots basketball scouts.
• The 2008 class is turning into an incredible one, easily one of the state’s all-time best, and it was highly thought in real time, even with Jennings leaving to Oak Hill Academy after his sophomore season. Is it the best class California ever produced? Not really. Keep in mind there is a big difference between how good a player is in high school and projecting how good he will be in college and beyond. The 2008 class is one of our better classes, but it might not be as good as some of the classes we’ve seen in the past, including 1997, 1993, 1986, 1979 and, of course, the class that still stands the test of time, the famed 1975 class.
• When Cooper was a senior, the class of 1974 wasn’t considered very strong at all. The most highly recruited senior in NorCal was Ray Townsend (Camden, San Jose), a guard who went on to UCLA. In SoCal, it was high-scoring guard Mark Wolfemeyer (Troy, Fullerton), who actually signed with the California Angels in MLB. That year, the state’s juniors overshadowed the seniors easily. In fact on our retroactive all-state team, four of the five players on first five were juniors and seven of the first 10.
2026: The Best Class Ever?
• Our current class of 2026 looks like it could be one of the best of all-time with two seasons to go. With the emergence of Christian Collins, who is now at St. John Bosco of Bellflower after being the top reserve at St. Bernard of Playa del Rey as a sophomore, the 2026 class now boasts six of the top 10 consensus prospects in the rising junior class (in no particular order): Collins, Jason Crowe (Inglewood), Alijah Arenas (Chatsworth), Brandon McCoy Jr. (St. John Bosco), Tyran Stokes (Notre Dame, Sherman Oaks), and Tajh Ariza (Westchester, Los Angeles). Only McCoy and Arenas stayed at the same high school as last year. We predicted a meteoric rise for Collins in our Cal-Hi Sports Hot 100 update for the 2026 class back in February before he blew up this summer. All but Stokes of the “California 6” have been invited to the USA Basketball Junior National Team Mini-Camp in Colorado Springs, Oct. 11-13. The other California players invited are seniors (2025) Brayden Burries of Eastvale Roosevelt, Nik Khamenia of North Hollywood Harvard-Westlake and freshman (2028) Jordan Mize of Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth, a 6-foot-4 small forward.
• Incredibly, a class like 2026 is nothing new for California. Recruiting was a bit different back then and national recruiting networks didn’t exist, but the 1975 class had basically the same amount of the nations top recruits, and perhaps even more, than our current junior class. Bill Cartwright (Elk Grove) was the nation’s top recruit and Roy Hamilton (Verbum Dei, Los Angeles), David Greenwood (Verbum Dei), James Hardy (Jordan, Long Beach), Brad Holland (Crescenta Valley, La Crescenta) and Reggie Theus (Inglewood) were considered six of the top dozen or so recruits in the country. You throw in Bill Laimbeer (Palos Verdes) and Flintie Ray Williams (Dorsey, Los Angeles), you’re taking eight of the top 25. Go further and you’ll see Wolfe Perry (Technical, Oakland), Paul Mokeski (Crespi, Encino) and Ray Ellis (San Gabriel) were considered top 50-75 recruits. Incredibly, Cartwright, Laimbeer, Mokeski and Ellis were seven footers and the class had incredible size across the board. That year, the USA Olympic Basketball Developmental League put on two all-star games named the California Basketball Classic pitting a California club vs. a legit U.S. National All-Star team (eight of the 10 first team Parade All-Americans played in the games), one in Sacramento and one at the Long Beach Arena. California won both games, 110-100 in NorCal and 91-80 in SoCal, with Cartwright and Hamilton (who scored 32 and 18 points) leading the way. So for now, 2026 and any other class will have to play second-fiddle.
• McCoy or Stokes, who transferred from Prolific Prep in Napa (a non-CIF program), are considered the No. 1 and No. 2 prospects in the national class of 2026, depending on whom you trust. Greenwood was the No. 2 prospect in California behind Cartwright in 1975 and probably in the top three or four in the country. Right now, Stokes is in a cast and reportedly will be out for at least the first few weeks of the regular season. We hope to see him at the Tarkanian Classic (Dec. 18-21) in Las Vegas, where the Knights could meet Roosevelt of Eastvale in the championship final.
Trinity & Mission League at Intuit Dome
• McCoy and Stokes will be in the NBA; playing on a NBA court that is. On January 10, the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, now home to the L.A. Clippers, will feature a series games between Trinity League and Mission League foes. The first teams to actually play that day at the new arena will be Servite of Anaheim versus Orange Lutheran at 11 am. Bosco and Mater Dei will meet in a league showdown at 6:30 pm and then it’s Notre Dame vs. Sierra Canyon of Chatsworth at 8:30 pm in a game that will be nationally televised.
• Ariza was Collins’ teammate at St. Bernard, but is now at the school were his dad, Trevor Ariza, earned Mr. Basketball honors in 2002-03. Crowe is now playing for his father at his alma mater, Inglewood, after playing for him for two years at Lynwood. He’s on pace to become the CIF’s all-time leading scorer according to our own state record book. Not only did Stokes transfer from Prolific Prep, but so did the nation’s top recruit in the 2025 class: wing forward A.J. Dybansta, who is originally from Brockton, Mass., but is now at Utah Prep. Dybansta left, but The Crew now has Darryn Peterson, who is a consensus top three player in the national 2025 class along with Dybansta and forward Cameron Boozer of Miami Columbus. The 6-foot-5 Peterson, originally from Ohio who played last year at Huntington Prep in West Virginia, is easily as good as any senior in the CIF ranks. Dybansta and Peterson had not made their college commitments publicly known and Boozer is headed to Duke.
Preseason Rankings Dates Set
• There are fall league games every weekend and we’ll evaluate plenty of the nation’s top players and teams even before the official start of the CIF season, which is Monday, November 18. We will release our preseason boys basketball rankings package on November 14. In the days leading up to the 14th, we’ll release or annual impact transfers list and will have updated our annual Cal-Hi Sports Major Showcase Schedules as well. On a national level, there is no CIF team in the running for preseason No. 1 in the nation in the FAB 50 National Rankings on Ballislife.com, but expect clubs like St. John Bosco, Notre Dame, Roosevelt and defending CIF open champ Harvard-Westlake to be in the running to crack the list of teams. Look for the preseason FAB 50 in a three-part series, beginning October 30 through November 1. The preseason West Region Top 20 is scheduled for Monday, Nov. 11. Look for the Cal-Hi Sports girls preseason girls rankings package by Tuesday, November 19.
Ronnie Flores is the managing editor of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at ronlocc1977@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow him on Twitter: @RonMFlores
