Greatest high school basketball player from each decade

MaxPreps takes a look at the best high school players from each decade dating all the way back to the 1900s.

Greatest high school basketball players from each decade
1900s
Lynch Conway, Peoria (Ill.), 1908
Conway was the star of the first state championship in Illinois, scoring 22 points in Peoria's state championship win. Conway's total was a state championship game record for 43 years. He was also a state champion in the high jump and finished second in the 100-yard dash. He went on to play college basketball at Bradley.

1910s
Paul Endacott, Lawrence (Kan.), 1919
An All-State guard at Lawrence in 1919, Endacott went on to earn national Player of the Year honors at Kansas, where he played under legendary coach Forrest "Phog" Allen. Endacott was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame and was called by Allen, who coached Wilt Chamberlain, the "best player I ever coached."



1920s
John Wooden, Martinsville (Ind.), 1928
While most well-known for his extraordinary coaching record at UCLA, where he won 10 NCAA championships, Wooden was also an outstanding high school player at Martinsville (Ind.). He led Martinsville to the finals of the Indiana High School state championships three years in a row, winning it all in 1927. He was named to the All-State team three straight seasons. At Purdue, Wooden was a three-time All-American and was the Helms Player of the Year in 1932. After a professional career in the National Basketball League (a league that predated the NBA), Wooden accepted a coaching position at UCLA in 1948. He coached there until 1975, winning 664 games and losing 162.

1930s
Hank Luisetti, Galileo (San Francisco), 1934
One of the originators of the running one-handed jump shot, Luisetti dominated basketball in San Francisco during the mid-1930s. He led Galileo to a pair of city championships and was the city's leading scorer as a junior, averaging over 10 points per game. The 6-foot-2 forward went to Stanford, where he twice led the NCAA in scoring and twice earned the Helms Player of the Year honor. He was also a three-time consensus All-American. Although spinal meningitis contracted during World War II prevented a professional career, Luisetti was voted in 1950 as the No. 2 greatest player in the first half of the century behind DePaul's George Mikan.

1940s
Dwight Eddleman, Centralia (Ill.), 1942
There are few athletes who can match the all-around career of Eddleman. As a sharpshooter at Centralia in the early 1940s, he led his team to a state championship and finished his career as the all-time national scoring leader with 2,702 points. He was also an All-State running back in football, a three-time state champion in the high jump and a member of the baseball team. In college at Illinois, in a career split by his service in World War II, Eddleman earned honorable mention All-American honors in football, was twice All-American in basketball. He received Major League Baseball offers during the 1940s as well and he won the silver medal in the high jump at the 1948 London Olympics. He played four years of basketball in the NBA and made the All-Star game twice.

1950s
Wilt Chamberlain, Overbrook (Philadelphia), 1955
The 1950s had several outstanding high school players who could be considered for "Player of the Decade", including Oscar Robertson at Crispus Attucks (Indianapolis) and Jerry Lucas at Middletown (Ohio). However, only one high school players in the 1950s was so dominant that the NBA decided to change its rules because of him. In the 1950s, college players were subject to territorial picks by NBA teams. If a team felt that a local college player would help the team, and boost attendance, they were allowed to choose that player over other teams. When Chamberlain came along, Philadelphia Warriors owner Eddie Gottlieb that Chamberlain would go away to college and be a territorial pick for another club. So Gottlieb got the league to pass a rule that high school players were also subject to territorial selection. Thus, Chamberlain became a territorial draft pick of the Warriors in 1959. Why was Chamberlain so coveted? Because, at one point, he scored 74, 78 and 90 points in consecutive games while leading his school to a pair of city championships. He finished his career with 2,252 career points. After a short stint at Kansas, in which his team lost in triple overtime to North Carolina in the 1958 NCAA championship game, Chamberlain went on to a professional career in which he finished as the NBA's all-time leading scorer.

1960s
Lew Alcindor, Power Memorial (New York City), 1965
The greatest player in the history of New York City, Alcindor, later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, is also on the short list of the greatest players in NBA history. He also gets the majority of the votes when it comes to deciding the greatest college player ever as well. At Power Memorial, Alcindor led his team to three City championships, a 95-6 record, and 71 straight victories while scoring 2,067 points. At UCLA, Alcindor led the Bruins to three NCAA titles and was three times named the NCAA Player of the Year. In the NBA, Alcindor played 22 seasons, won six NBA titles, was 19 times an All-Star and was the NBA's Most Valuable Player six times.

1970s
Moses Malone, Petersburg (Va.), 1974
The first high school player drafted into professional basketball, Malone was drafted in the third round of the ABA draft by the Utah Stars. He went on to play 21 years in the NBA, earning league MVP honors three times and making the All-Star game 12 times. He ranks No. 3 all-time in rebounds and No. 9 all-time in scoring. At Petersburg, Malone led his team to two straight state titles, going undefeated each season. He scored 2,124 points in his career and scored a then state record of 896 points in 25 games his senior year.



1980s
Patrick Ewing, Cambridge Rindge & Latin (Cambridge, Mass.), 1981
In the year that Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin, Karl Malone and Charles Barkley all graduated from high school, it was Patrick Ewing who was the most coveted high school player in America. A three-time Parade All-American, Ewing led Cambridge to three state titles, a 96-5 record and scored 1,763 points. In college, Ewing was a three-time consensus All-America while leading Georgetown to the NCAA finals three times in four years, winning it all in 1984. The No. 1 overall pick in 1985, Ewing made the All-Star game 11 times and is a member of both the Basketball and College Basketball Halls of Fame.

1990s
Jason Kidd, St. Joseph Notre Dame (Alameda, Calif.), 1991
Before Jason Kidd came along in the early 1990s, Southern California teams dominated the state playoffs in California. That ended when Kidd led St. Joseph Notre Dame to back-to-back state titles in 1991 and 1992. He was the two-time player of the year in California, as chosen by Cal-Hi Sports, and he is the state's all-time leader in assists and he scored 2,621 points. He was national Player of the Year by Naismith, Parade, and USA Today and he was a McDonald's All-American. He was a consensus All-American in college at California-Berkeley and the No. 2 overall pick in the NBA Draft by the Dallas Mavericks in 1994. He was a 10-time NBA All-Star making All-Pro five times. He ranks second all-time in NBA history in assists and steals.

2000s
LeBron James, St. Vincent-St. Mary (Akron, Ohio), 2003
The easy choice after leading his team to three state championships in four years and a national No. 1 ranking in 2003. He also earned Parade Magazine first team honors twice and second team once while also earning USA Today Player of the Year honors as a junior and a senior. He continues to build on an outstanding professional career, making 14 All-Star Games and winning All-Pro first team honors 12 times. The four-time NBA MVP currently ranks No. 5 on the league's all-time scoring list.

2010s
Jabari Parker, Simeon (Chicago), 2013
MaxPreps named Parker the two-time Mr. Illinois Basketball the National Junior Player of the Year in 2012 and the National Player of the Year in 2013. He was also the Gatorade National Player of the Year while helping Simeon win its fourth straight Class 4A state title. He was a first team All-American as a freshman at Duke and was the No. 2 overall pick by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 2014 NBA Draft. In four seasons, he has averaged 15.1 points per game.