# Teen basketball is for pros

- Link: https://www.tehranianonline.com/teen-basketball-is-for-pros/
- Published: 2026-05-22T23:20:46+03:30
- Author: MohammadReza AbeshAhmadLou

When King Bacot took the floor in the starting lineup for Petersburg High School
in the Virginia state championship game, it was in front of a sellout crowd and 
his coaches sported matching burgundy suits.

King was already used to a big-time basketball atmosphere. He has multiple recruiting
offers from Division 1 schools, a manager and more than 100,000 followers on Instagram.
He’s received endorsement offers and has traveled all over the country for basketball
tournaments, workouts and gym sessions with NBA trainers.

He’s also a 15-year-old freshman.

The last time Petersburg won a title game was 52 years ago, when reporters from 
all over the country marveled at their 6-foot-10, 19-year-old senior superstar named
Moses Malone. After leading his team to back-to-back undefeated championship seasons,
Malone upended college and pro basketball alike by taking a seven-year, $3 million
deal with the Utah Stars of the American Basketball Association — making him the
first modern player to jump from high school to the pros.

King is many things, at a young age, but he’s not Moses Malone. He was not even 
the flashiest player on his own Petersburg team — that would be senior Latrell Allmond,
a McDonald’s All-American headed to Oklahoma State. In the championship game, Allmond
put up 15 points, 8 rebounds and 4 blocks in a 56–35 victory over Lake Taylor. King
scored only 9, while busily directing traffic and delivering the ball to his go-
getting teammates. Some writeups of the game left him out entirely.

King doesn’t need to be a legend just yet. As one of the top-ranked players in the
high-school class of 2029, he’s already part of a professional-style network of 
fame, opportunity and obligation. He arrived at Petersburg along with its new head
coach, Ty White, who was not only an established championship high school coach 
but the head of a powerhouse AAU squad called Team Loaded, whose teen superstars
joined the new program at Petersburg.

In season, King said he leaves for the gym at 6 a.m., goes to school, goes to the
gym again, and then gets home again around 10 p.m. He was hosting back-to-school
giveaways and signing autographs when he was in middle school. Now, he’s in negotiations
to sign a paid endorsement deal with a major shoe company.

“The phone rings all the time,” said Joya Bacot, King’s mother. “It could be schools,
it could be brands, it could be anybody that wants King to be a part of what they
got going on.”

---

For a teen star like King, the chasm that Malone once had to hurdle between the 
Petersburg High School varsity team and professional basketball has been replaced
by something more like a tricky but continuous series of conveyor belts. Players
used to be required to serve long apprenticeships as amateurs before getting paid
for their abilities: playing local high school and AAU ball, or possibly being recruited
to a regional powerhouse private school, and then moving on to an unpaid commitment
to a college program before eventually, possibly, getting drafted the NBA, or making
their way to an overseas pro league.

Now, that sequence has collapsed. Over the course of the past decade, college players
secured the right to receive sponsorship money, booster funds and a share of athletic
revenue for themselves. At the same time, they began hopping or being pushed from
school to school through the NCAA’s transfer portal en masse, following money or
on-court opportunity. College basketball is a professional sport in its own right,
with the best players earning seven figures.

![](https://www.tehranianonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2486-1.webp)

The NIL has become so normalized that events like the NIL Summit allows student-
athletes to meet with executives, influencers and others to learn more about NIL
and other professional development opportunities.
NIL Summit/USA Today Network/Reuters

And the level of basketball below has been transformed as well. Players still in
secondary school are now potentially eligible, like college players, to sign lucrative
Name, Image and Likeness sponsorship contracts. Elite or maybe-elite prospects can
pursue stardom and experience in an ever-expanding array of programs: not just AAU
and conventional high schools, but basketball-first prep schools and outright sports
academies.

While specific rules vary by state, and not every high school can offer NIL deals,
it’s become common for players to not only move high schools, but to even move from
state to state, all in pursuit of the best basketball program that will offer them
the most college recruiting eyes, the best facilities and the most money.

Tyran Stokes, hailed as the top prospect in the high school class of 2026, has bounced
up and down the West Coast, attending three different high schools in four years,
while fans on Reddit[ scrutinize his performance](https://www.reddit.com/r/NBA_Draft/comments/1opjify/tyran_stokes_has_withdrawn_from_notre_dame_high/)
and national media agonize over his oscillating college decision. AJ Dybantsa — 
who finished his freshman and presumably only season at Brigham Young University
scoring 35 points in a first-round NCAA tournament loss — spent his high school 
years going from Massachusetts to California to Utah, where he completed his senior
year at Utah Prep and was reportedly paid a landmark $600,000.

King’s older brother Armando Bacot Jr. played for Trinity Episcopal in his hometown
of Richmond for three years, before transferring to Florida’s IMG Academy for his
final year to prepare for college. From there, he went to the University of North
Carolina, where he carried the team to the national title game as a junior and then
stayed around for two more years, becoming the Tar Heels’ all-time leading rebounder
and collecting lavish sponsorship deals.

![](https://www.tehranianonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2486-2.webp)

North Carolina forward Armando Bacot Jr. shoots over North Carolina State University
forward DJ Burns Jr. King grew up watching his brother Armando and their parents
navigate the business side of basketball.
Scott Kinser/USA Today Sports/Reuters