NORTH AUGUSTA, S.C. — Every year, the Nike Peach Jam gets bigger and brighter with its star power and big-tent presentation.
LeBron James, who’s attended a few Peach Jams in the past, has never been more prominent than he was the past few days here at the Riverview Park Activities Center. James took on the role of head coach, picking up the whiteboard and tutoring his son, Bryce, and their Strive For Greatness team. Beyond the spectacle of arguably the greatest player in NBA history strutting the sidelines in a South Carolina gym, the NBA (for the first time) invested in live streaming all week. It’s taken what was once a proud-but-niche recruiting event and morphed it into a buzzy, week-long celebration of high school basketball at its highest level.
NBA greats can be seen all over the facility. Carmelo Anthony’s been on hand to watch his son, Kiyan, play for Team Melo. Chris Paul, as he’s done for years, is back and coaching his CP3 program. Bradley Beal and Russell Westbrook are here. Rajon Rondo is LeBron’s assistant. It’s always awesome to see NBA legends giving back like this.
The best of the best in the 2024, 2025 and 2026 classes have also shined: Dylan Harper, the No. 1 player in the ’24 class, has reliably drawn crowds while playing for the New York Renaissance. The biggest non-LeBron draws, by far, are the two bigs in 2025: Cooper Flagg (Maine United) and Cameron Boozer (Nightrydas Elite). And on Friday, there was a must-see matchup between the top two players in 2026: A.J. Dybansta (Expressions Elite) vs. Tyran Stokes (Vegas Elite).
But beneath the glamour of the megawatt recruits, there’s a thrum of uncertainty and more than a dash of cynicism with a lot of high school recruiting — much of it tied to the realities of the transfer portal and how that has upended the calculus of program-building for power conferences and mid-majors alike.
“A lot of freshmen don’t want to be…
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