Trevor Ariza shed some light on his experience playing against LeBron James before either player ever made it to the NBA.

Trevor Ariza spoke recently about coming up as a player around the same time as LeBron James and other great players. In an interview with ‘Run Your Race’ podcast, Ariza stated that LeBron James was the best player in the country while he was in high school.

Ariza added that during their time in high school, it was a very competitive situation. Players would only see each other during camps and tournaments, and they would get to know their style during those events, as being able to access tapes or clips of players was much harder at the time.

“For real though… Bron has been probably the best player since 15… It was extremely competitive. Remember, you only see it on Instagram or are hearing about them, or whatever clip or however it is, whatever they want to put out there. They had like high school magazines to see the player but you don’t get to see clips of them or anything that they do.”

“So the only time you really get to see them is at camp or tournament time. When you go to camps, you’re checking your trap… There was stuff that we were doing at home with the group that we were doing it with, we were in the right direction.

(Till 2:20)

Ariza and James were playing high school basketball and were competitive against each other. James was playing for St. Vincent-St. Mary in Akron, Ohi, whereas Ariza played high school basketball at Westchester. The two were very competitive against each other. In fact, James once dropped 52 points on Ariza after the latter’s uncle said Ariza was better than James.