Prep work: Warren’s Davis shunned the trend and stuck with his school

Four Chicago-area basketball players from the Class of 2027 are ranked among the top 50 in the country by On3 Media.

Only one of the four is still playing at his original high school — Warren guard Jaxson Davis.

The others have moved on to prep basketball academies, a trend that will likely continue to grow.

“Everybody has a different path,” said Davis, who had plenty of offers to make the same move. “I just feel like I chose the right fit for me. I have all the resources I need, and I've seen guys make it to levels I want to go to by staying at their own high school.”

The three local players that switched schools are Bolingbrook native Davion Thompson, who is now at Link Academy; Devin Cleveland, who moved from Kenwood to La Lumiere Academy; and former Whitney Young forward Howard Williams, who went to Oak Hill Academy and now plays for Prolific Prep.

Davis and Thompson made history two years ago when both were named first-team all-state as freshmen. They're also AAU teammates for Mean Streets, so Davis watched Thompson consider the move last year, and still talks to him regularly. Link is ranked the No. 1 high school team in the country by some outlets.

“He loves it,” Davis said. “They're probably the best team in the country right now. He's starting, has a big-time role in the team.”

Davis and his father Brian, who coaches Warren's sophomore team, say they never seriously considered the prep school offers. Instead of checking out basketball academies, they spent the fall visiting colleges, where they were able to tour facilities and watch some teams practice.

Davis is considering schools like Purdue, Illinois, Northwestern and Marquette. Michigan and Xavier recently offered, while he's heard from Duke and Auburn.

“I feel playing in a high school atmosphere, rivalry games, people are on you all the time — that's what's going to get him ready and better anyway, in my opinion,” Brian Davis said. “He's got to do more to help his team win.”

Warren was the state runner-up last spring and is expected to be a top contender this season, though Davis is one of just two returning starters.

“Obviously, we're glad he's here,” Blue Devils coach Zack Ryan said. “I think he's in a great spot. It's a unique thing he's done, especially nowadays with how guys are leaving.

“I think it's cool for him and for our school and the community to have a kid that sticks around, and enjoys the high school experience, which is a big thing.”

Link to NBA

Bulls forward Julian Phillips took a leap of faith, leaving his home in Blythewood, South Carolina, to spend his senior year of high school at Link Academy. Link had previously been a place for players to spend a postgrad year before going to college. Phillips was part of its first high school team.

“We were kind of like the lab rats of it,” he joked. “We ended up making it to the high school national championship and lost to Montverde.”

Link Academy is located in Branson, Missouri, in a facility that's a summer camp three months out of the year and a basketball academy the rest of the time.

“It's interesting,” Phillips said. “The town is very nice, with scenery and stuff. It was like regular school. It was my senior year, so I didn't have a lot of classes.

“I had pretty much the majority of my credits from my public school that I came from. So I probably had one or two classes throughout the day and we would just go to our study hall room and our teachers would come in and teach us.”

Basketball academies have a long history in the U.S. Oak Hill Academy in Virginia was the first to build a national brand, with Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant among its most famous alums. In the 80s and 90s, the boarding schools were seen mostly as places to get academics in order for college or maybe escape a rough environment.

A significant change arrived when Findlay Prep opened in 2006. Named after its Nevada car dealer owner, Findlay was different because it wasn't a school. It existed for basketball, and players took classes at a nearby private school.

Now, it's all about competition. As these schools grow in numbers, they work together to build challenging national schedules. The top programs are split between boarding schools that have other tuition-paying students — like Montverde in Orlando or La Lumiere in LaPorte, Indiana, — and basketball academies like Link Academy or Prolific Prep.

Findlay closed in 2019, but more basketball academies will surely be opening, thanks to the growth of NIL in colleges. One business model is players train at an academy, which includes room, meals, classes and training facilities. Then the school negotiates NIL packages for the players as they move on to college, and the commissions help fund the school.

If it's run well, it's a nice deal for players. They don't pay for anything and get to spend more time in the gym trying to become a pro basketball player. The cost is less time roaming the halls of a regular high school.

“Yeah, that was kind of the main reason for going, just to be somewhere you could focus a lot more on the games and you get to play that national schedule,” Phillips said. “Being able to play the top high school competition throughout the year is a lot better and more competitive than at your average public school.”

So is it safe to say Phillips gives his year at Link Academy a thumbs-up?

“Two thumbs-up,” he said.

Future is unwritten

The two most prominent NBA players from the suburbs took opposite paths. Knicks all-star Jalen Brunson stayed at Stevenson for four years and won a state title as a senior. Bulls second-year forward Matas Buzelis left Hinsdale Central midway through his sophomore year, though the pandemic was a big reason for that.

Buzelis transferred to Brewster Academy in New Hampshire, then spent two years at Sunrise Academy near Wichita, Kansas.

A couple of factors made the decision to stay at Warren more obvious for Davis. One was the heartbreaking 1-point loss to Benet in the state title game. Another is one of his closest friends, Braylon Walker, is now in his senior year.

“Yeah, that's my best friend,” Davis said. “We've been playing together since third grade. I consider him like my brother.”

Walker said he didn't spend too much time sweating whether Davis would still be his teammate this season.

“We talked about it a lot, so I knew,” Walker said. “He wants to really win a state championship. So do I. That kind of took care of itself. We've known each other for a long time.”

Davis has some similarities to Brunson. Both are point guards who played in the North Suburban Conference. Both took their teams to the state title game as sophomores.

There's obviously some benefit to being the player opposing teams are trying to stop; being the reason opposing fans pack the gym for games. That kind of stuff is tough to replicate at a basketball academy.

Will Davis return to Warren for his senior year? That might depends on whether the Blue Devils can finally snag the school's first state title this season. Davis could switch to a basketball academy next year and he may also consider graduating and starting college early.

Warren's current starting lineup includes Davis and four seniors, but Ryan's secret weapon for the future might be the current sophomore team, which has yet to lose a game in high school. Davis could make another run at a state title with that group, in theory.

“Jaxson just tries to be a regular kid,” said Ryan, who has Davis in his precalculus class. “I think he likes going to high school, likes being a kid, likes hanging out with his friends. He just happens to be a really good, talented basketball player.”