The 6 high school basketball players to make Sports Illustrated cover
BY DAN CAHILL Twitter: @dancahill_cst May 16, 2012 5:10PM
Simeon junior Jabari Parker is just the sixth high school basketball player to be touted on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Check out our gallery of the others and how they fared.
Updated: May 17, 2012 9:52AM
By putting Simeon junior Jabari Parker on its cover this week, Sports Illustrated has elevated the hoops prodigy to a very select group. Only five high school basketball players have been touted* on the SI cover previous to this week’s proclamation that Parker is “the best since LeBron James.”
And while the magazine is well-known for its cover jinx, Parker shouldn’t be too worried. Of the five cover boys, none has really bombed out unless you consider Sebastian Telfair, an 8-year NBA veteran who has made more than $16 million, a failure.
Parker’s appearance is even more impressive when you consider that such high school greats as Wilt Chamberlain, Ralph Sampson and Kobe Bryant never got a cover. Even Power Memorial sensation Lew Alcindor—later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar—didn’t rate a cover and was limited to appearances in the “Scorecard” and “Faces in the Crowd.”
Take a look at the other high school hoops phenoms to make the SI cover and see how they have fared:
*Note: Two other prep basketball players were on the cover—Mike Peterson (1971) and Richie Parker (1996)—but it was more for their stories than their basketball potential.
