by Joshua Hersh June 30, 2008
Lance Stephenson, the best high school basketball player in New York City, was in midtown one recent Monday night to watch an early cut of a new documentary in which he stars. The film, “Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot,” was directed by Adam (MCA) Yauch, of the Beastie Boys, and it chronicles an exhibition game that Stephenson played in, at Rucker Park, in the summer of 2006. The movie, which comes out this week, the day after the N.B.A. draft, includes quickie portraits of eight young basketball players who participated in the game, several of whom—Michael Beasley (Kansas State), Jerryd Bayless (Arizona), Kevin Love (U.C.L.A.)—are expected to be top picks. Stephenson is the youngest of them—he is just about to finish his junior year of high school—and was the only one who showed up at the screening.
Half an hour before the film began, Stephenson sat on a bench outside the screening room, typing into his Sidekick. His phone had run out of juice during the school day, and so he had taken a seat near an electrical outlet. His entourage milled around nearby: dad, Lance, Sr. (Stretch); mom, Bernadette; two-year-old brother, Tookie; an aunt; a teacher. His uncle, Lawrence Britt, who is only a few months older than Stephenson, sat beside him, typing on his own Sidekick. Britt had a curly figure, like a misshapen paper clip, shaved into his hair, and someone asked him when he’d had it done.
“I dunno,” he said, reaching up to trace the pattern with his fingers. “A few days ago maybe?”
“What, are you kidding?” Stephenson said, looking up from his Sidekick. “You did that yesterday. You don’t remember?”
“Oh, yeah,” Britt said. The boys laughed, and then went back to typing.
Stephenson plays for Abraham Lincoln High School, the public school in Coney Island that produced Sebastian Telfair and the Knicks’ enigmatic star Stephon Marbury. In their youth, Bassy and Steph were already viable celebrities—talkative, full of smiles. Stephenson, by contrast, can be remote, almost sullen, but, by most people’s reckoning, he is the superior athlete. That afternoon, Lincoln had played a scrimmage against St. Anthony’s, a Catholic school in Jersey City that is ranked first in the country. Stephenson scored twenty-six points in the game, which ended in a draw.
The screening finally began. Stephenson and his dad sat in the front row. They both slouched low in their seats, their long legs stretched out. Stephenson appears only briefly in the first forty minutes of the film, so he got up to check his phone. At one point, the cameras follow Kevin Love around the relative luxury of his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon, where his mother discusses his nutritional plan. Later, Love is shown working out with a personal trainer and shooting free throws using a rebounding machine. When Stephenson’s image was finally projected onto the screen—he is two years younger, walking down a Coney Island street with his father, and pushing Tookie in a stroller—he straightened in his seat. In the game scenes, Stephenson appears to be having a lot of fun, throwing down slam dunks, and even, at one point, dancing a little jig. In the fourth quarter, muscling his way to a rebound, he smacks Love in the face with his forearm, busting open his lip.
When the film was over, Bill Feinberg, a sports marketer, and a close family friend of Love’s, found Stephenson at the back of the theatre, checking his messages.
“So how did you like the movie?” he asked.
“Oh, uh, I liked it a lot,” Stephenson replied, barely looking up.
Feinberg told Stephenson that Love had called and sounded angry about his lip. Stephenson looked stricken. “Really?” he asked softly, missing the joke. “Kevin’s not mad at me anymore, is he?”
By the time the screening was over and the crowd spilled out onto the sidewalk, it was almost ten-thirty. A homeless man tried to sell Yauch an issue of a street paper with the Beastie Boys on the cover. “This is so weird,” Yauch said. (He bought five copies.) A few feet away, Stephenson and his family discussed getting dinner at the Hawaiian Tropic Zone, next door, but Coney Island was a forty-five-minute drive away. “It’s pretty late,” Bernadette said as they headed toward the car. “And, anyway, Lance has homework to do.”
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译文:
校园之夜【纽约客】
约书亚·何什 2008年6月30日
近来的一个周一晚上，纽约最优秀的高中篮球选手兰斯·史蒂文森(Lance Stephenson）出现在市中心，出席他参演的一部纪录片的首映式。这部名为《冲向巅峰》（《Gunnin’ for That #1 Spot》）的电影，由野兽男孩（Beastie Boys）乐团组合的亚当·约赫（Adam Yauch）执导。影片记录了2006年夏天Stephenson参加的一场在洛克公园举行的篮球表演赛，在本周NBA大会结束第二天，摄制完毕。这部纪录片简略地描述了篮球表演赛8名篮球少年的成长轨迹，其中的几位如：堪萨斯州立大学(Kansas State)的迈克尔-毕斯利(Michael Beasley) ，阿利桑那大学(Arizona)的贾里德-贝勒斯利(Jerryd Bayless)， 加州大学(U.C.L.A.)的凯文-勒夫(Kevin Love)等，都是冉冉升起的顶尖篮球新星。而Stephenson是他们之中最年轻的一个——即将结束他的高中生涯——也是唯一出席的一个。
电影开始前的半个小时，史蒂文森坐在放映室外的板凳上，忙着用Sidekick手机打字（发信息）。他的手机在白天已经用得快没电了，所以他坐在一个靠近电源插座的地方。他的亲友团在他身边打转，亲友团成员有：他爸爸兰斯(Lance)，他妈妈伯纳蒂特(Bernadette)，他两岁大的弟弟图基(Tookie)，他姨妈，他老师，还有仅大他几个月的叔叔劳伦斯·布里特(Lawrence Britt)。坐在他旁边的Britt也忙着用Sidekick手机打字（发短信）。Britt将头发剃成一个卷曲的图案，看起来像个变形的曲别针。有人问他什么时候弄成这个发型的。
“不记得了。”他伸手摸摸头发的纹路说，“大概几天前吧。”
“几天？别逗了。”史蒂文森从他的Sidekick手机那抬起头说，“你是昨天还在弄呢。你忘啦？”
“噢，对。”Britt说，几个大男孩笑了，完了继续埋头打字（发短信）。
史蒂文森效力于亚伯拉罕林肯（Abraham Lincoln）高中。这所位于科尼岛（Coney Island）的公立高中盛产球星，如塞巴斯蒂安-特尔菲尔(Sebastian Telfair)以及尼克斯(Knick)队的神秘明星斯蒂芬·马布里(Stephon Marbury)等。Bassy和Steph早在他们年轻的时候就已经是活脱脱的名人——健谈，且总是满脸笑容。与他们相反的是，Stephenson有点冷漠甚至阴郁，但在大多数人的评价中，他仍是个十分出色的运动员。当天下午，林肯高中跟泽西市（Jersey City）一所叫做圣安东尼高中的天主教学校进行了一场训练赛。Stephenson在比赛中独得26分，比赛结果是双方打成平手。
电影终于开始了。Stephenson和他爸爸坐在前排。他俩懒洋洋地窝在座位上，把长腿随意地伸着。Stephenson仅在电影的前40分钟有一些简短的出场镜头，于是他起身查看手机短信。片中有一段，Kevin Love在镜头中展示他那位于俄勒冈州奥斯威戈湖的家中的一些家族奢侈品，而他妈妈在谈论他的营养计划。随后出现Love跟他的私人教练一起健身，以及他用蓝扳机器练习自由投篮的画面。当Stephenson的形象终于出现在屏幕上时——那时他比现在还小两岁，推着一辆装着Tookie的婴儿车，和他爸爸一起走在科尼岛某条大街上——他在椅子上坐得笔直。在描写比赛部分的画面，Stephenson看起来非常快活，大力灌篮，甚至还小跳了一下吉格舞。在第四节，他奋力弹跳，用前臂给Love当面来了个盖帽，结果把Love嘴唇都盖出血了。
电影结束时，体育产品营销商，同时也是Love家的亲友Bill Feinberg，在电影院后面看到Stephenson正盯着手机看短信。
他问Stephenson：“你觉得这部电影怎么样？”
“哦，呃，我很喜欢。”Stephenson头也不抬地说。
Feinberg 告诉Stephenson 说Love给他打了电话，听起来对嘴唇被打破这件事很生气。“真的？”没觉察到这是玩笑，Stephenson弱弱地问，“Kevin不会生我的气吧？”
放映结束后，一行人涌到人行道上，这时已经快十点半了。一个流浪汉向Yauch 兜售一份以野兽男孩（Beastie Boys）为封面的街头小报。“这感觉太怪了。”Yauch说（他买了五份）。不远处，Stephenson在和他的家人讨论去旁边的夏威夷热带区（Hawaiian Tropic Zone）吃宵夜的事。但是这离科尼岛有约45分钟的车程。“现在已经很晚了。”他们去取车的时候Bernadette说，“再说，不管怎样，Lance还有功课要做呢。”
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