A Worthy Rival: Zeke Thorne's Legacy (MyNBA, 2K26)

[NaturalThunder87]

A big thank you to Rizzo who led me here from OS from where I've been creating various 'Chise Threads since 2010. My time dedication waxes and wains as I am in a much different place in life than I was 16 years ago, now living a happy domesticated life with a wife, three kids, and a fairly demanding career. But, like 16 years ago, this remains my favorite hobby/outlet when I have down time. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and appreciate everyone who follows Zeke Thorne's journey as a worthy rival to LeBron.

Below is my intro/background for this journey. It is copy-pasted from my OS thread LINKED HERE.


This thread is my creative sandbox for Zeke Thorne, a late-rising high school phenom from the class of 2003. I’m crafting his journey, stats, and rivalries with an eye toward creating a natural rivalry with LeBron James. So LeBron stays in Cleveland, Dwyane Wade in Miami, Chris Bosh in Toronto, and the Pistons get it right this time and draft Carmelo Anthony instead of Darko Milicic. To set the stage, I’ll “play God” with the top 5 draft order, keeping Zeke opposite LeBron in the Western Conference and making sure the #2 pick goes to the worst Western Conference team if it doesn’t land there naturally. The first posts pick up in the 2003 NBA off-season with the draft and a preview of Zeke’s NBA home, blending narrative, simulation, and pure “what if” basketball fun.

[EZEKIEL “ZEKE” THORNE: The Meteor from Wichita

The Unranked Sophomore

There are basketball hotbeds, and then there is Wichita, Kansas: a proud city of hard winters, aircraft plants, and high school gyms that still smell faintly of popcorn and varnish. It is not, historically, a finishing school for lottery picks. And yet over the past two years, inside the gymnasium at Wichita Heights High School, something occurred that no recruiting service predicted and no scouting model fully accounted for.

Ezekiel Thorne began his sophomore year as a 6-foot-1 point guard with a sturdy build and a better-than-advertised feel for the game. He was thick through the shoulders and carried extra weight in the way teenage boys sometimes do before their bodies decide what they are becoming. He handled the ball well, shot it comfortably, and saw the floor instinctively, but he was not ranked nationally. Not top 100. Not top 200. He was, in the language of recruiting databases, unlisted.

He was, quite simply, not yet a story.

The Growth Spurt That Changed the Trajectory

Then the body changed. Between the end of his sophomore season and Christmas of his junior year, Thorne grew eight inches, standing 6'9". He did not stretch into a narrow, spindly frame. He grew into himself. The stockiness did not vanish; it reorganized. By the time he stood a verified 7-foot-0 as a senior, he weighed 265 pounds; not soft weight, but anchored, functional mass. The former “overweight guard” had become a tank with perimeter skills.

What Wichita Heights wisely refused to do was reduce him to a post presence. The ball remained in his hands. He initiated offense, navigated pick-and-rolls, stepped into transition threes, and threaded passes that most forwards never attempt. Opponents tried sagging, trapping, fronting, collapsing, yet none of it quite solved the geometry problem he posed.

As a junior he averaged 25.8 points, 11.3 rebounds, nearly six assists, 3.2 blocks, and 2.1 steals per game while leading Heights to a Kansas 6A state championship. As a senior, those numbers ballooned to 32.1 points, 14.8 rebounds, 7.2 assists, and over four blocks per game, punctuated by a second straight state title and another tournament MVP.

The gyms were full. The questions were growing.

From Unranked to No. 2

The state trophies forced attention. The AAU summers changed everything. Thorne did not align himself with a national, shoe-backed powerhouse. He played for the Wichita Padres, a regional program that drove to tournaments rather than chartered flights. When he entered the AAU summer before his junior year, he was still unranked nationally — an intriguing local curiosity.

By the end of that summer, after word spread of a 6-foot-9 ball-handler dismantling traps and switching defensively across positions, he had cracked the top 25. Then came the final AAU circuit following his senior season.

In Kansas City and later Chicago, against elite competition and in front of a heavy scouting presence, Thorne’s performances stopped being anecdotes and became evidence. He handled pressure. He shot confidently from distance. He defended multiple positions. He passed out of double teams without panic. And he did it against the very best players in his class.

The recruiting services took notice and corrected themselves in dramatic fashion: from unranked entering his junior year to the consensus No. 2 player in the 2003 class.

It was not hype. It was recognition.

The Measuring Stick

Two of those AAU games carried particular weight.

In Kansas City, Thorne’s Wichita Padres faced a heavily scouted Oakland Soldiers squad headlined by LeBron James. James authored the stat line expected of him by notching 28 points, 12 rebounds, nine assists while blending power and vision in familiar proportions. Thorne countered with 24 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, and four blocks, switching onto drives, contesting without fouling, and pushing the ball himself after securing defensive boards. Oakland won comfortably though, 84-62, but Thorne did not recede into the background.

Months later in Chicago, the rematch tightened. Thorne finished with 27 points and 15 rebounds, anchoring defensive possessions and spacing the floor offensively. Late in a tie game, James created separation on the wing and delivered the decisive jumper. A turnover on the next possession sealed a six-point margin, and Thorne's Padres fell to LeBron's Soldiers once again. This time in a much closer contest, 77-71.

Two games. Two losses.

But there was no shrinking, no visible deference. Just the quiet acknowledgment that when placed on the same floor, Thorne belonged in the conversation.

The Draft Dilemma

Thorne has declared for the 2003 NBA Draft at 18 years old.

There is no collegiate résumé, no NCAA tournament run to steady cautious executives. There is instead a 7-foot, 265-pound forward who handles like a wing, shoots beyond the arc with confidence, passes instinctively, and has climbed from anonymity to the No. 2 ranking in his class in less than two years.

He will not be the first name called. That selection carries its own inevitability. After that, however, the calculus grows complicated. Some will prefer the championship polish of Carmelo Anthony, whose college dominance feels reassuring. Others will stare at Thorne’s frame and skill set and see the outline of where the league is heading: a power forward who bends positions rather than occupies one. Small-town prospects often arrive with caveats. Seven-foot, 265-pound guards rarely do.

The league must now decide whether Wichita produced a curiosity, or something far more disruptive.
​

[NaturalThunder87]

Postseason Summaries

Award Winners History

League Leaders History

[NaturalThunder87]

Memphis Grizzlies Season Summaries

Ezekiel Thorne Season Averages

Ezekiel Thorne Season Totals

[NaturalThunder87]

2002-2003 NBA Playoffs Summary

2003-2004 NBA Playoffs Summary

[Captain Canada]

Super compelling stuff you got here, definitely going to be following!

[NaturalThunder87]

Super compelling stuff you got here, definitely going to be following!

Thank you!

It's been a fun one so far.

[NaturalThunder87]

2003 NBA Draft Preview

The 2003 NBA Draft lottery was a study in both inevitability and intrigue, a delicate balance of destiny and deal-making that had been quietly building for years. At the very top, the Cleveland Cavaliers emerged victorious, securing the first overall pick and, with it, the sweeping promise of LeBron James. The buzz surrounding the prodigious high school phenom had reached a fever pitch, but Cleveland’s triumph in the lottery was hardly a surprise—the league seemed to sense that the Cavaliers had been patiently positioned to claim their generational cornerstone.

But while Cleveland basked in the glow of the LeBron sweepstakes, the story of the number two pick was far more complicated, a tale stretching back to the late 1990s. The Memphis Grizzlies, who now found themselves holding the second overall pick, did so not by luck but by a quirk of NBA history—and one of its largest trades. In 1999, following the drama of Steve Francis refusing to report to Vancouver after being selected No. 2 overall, a three-team, eleven-player deal reshaped futures in ways no one could have foreseen. Houston acquired Francis and Tony Massenburg from Vancouver, along with Don MacLean and a future first-round pick from Orlando; Vancouver, now the Grizzlies, received Michael Dickerson, Othella Harrington, Antoine Carr, Brent Price, and a future first-round pick from Houston; and Orlando collected Michael Smith, Lee Mayberry, Rodrick Rhodes, and Makhtar Ndiaye from Vancouver. That future first-round pick, shuffled and reshaped through trade corridors and front-office maneuvers, had matured into Memphis’ golden opportunity in 2003.

Even more convoluted was how the Detroit Pistons came to hold the third overall pick. The saga begins in August 1997, when the Vancouver Grizzlies, under GM Stu Jackson, traded a future first-round pick to Detroit in exchange for veteran Otis Thorpe. Thorpe, now an afterthought, would only play 47 games for Vancouver before being moved to Sacramento, yet the pick he had inspired was the gift that kept on giving. Protections designed to safeguard Vancouver’s interests rolled over year after year, each season prolonging the pick’s eventual destiny. From 1998 through 2002, the Grizzlies had the right to keep the selection, but as the 2003 Draft approached—a draft heralded as one of the richest in NBA history—the protections had almost entirely evaporated. With a top-one protection in place, the stakes were crystal clear: should the Grizzlies land the first pick, they would keep it. Anything else—from second to thirtieth—would pass to Detroit, setting the stage for a Pistons selection that would forever link the fates of three franchises.

Thus, when the lottery dust settled, the top five draft order reflected a mixture of foresight, misfortune, and the art of maneuvering across a decade of NBA history: Cleveland would select first and secure LeBron James; Memphis, via Houston, would pick second; Detroit, via Memphis, third; followed by Miami at four and Toronto at five. It was a snapshot of how league mechanics, trades, and sheer happenstance converge to shape history—a narrative where each pick carried the echoes of years past, the weight of potential, and the tantalizing possibility of rivalries and dynasties yet to come.

Dream Duo: Zeke and Pau Ignite Memphis’ Rising Core

For Ezekiel “Zeke” Thorne, the journey from high school phenom to NBA lottery darling had always felt both inevitable and improbable—a dream nurtured through endless gym floors, late-night workouts, and the quiet hope that scouts were paying attention. And now, that dream had materialized in the most dazzling way: drafted second overall by the Memphis Grizzlies, Zeke was stepping into a franchise ready to embrace the future. His arrival wasn’t just the addition of another rookie; it was the ignition of a bold new vision, the kind that makes fans sit forward in their seats and pundits scramble for superlatives.

Memphis, a team once quietly building toward relevance, now had its young pillars in place. Zeke would anchor the frontcourt alongside Pau Gasol, a 22-year-old whose length, skill, and versatility had already begun turning heads across the league. Pau’s 18.8 points, 8.8 rebounds, 3.5 assists, and 1.3 blocks per game last season hinted at a player who could dominate multiple facets of the game, and pairing him with Zeke promised a frontcourt duo that might one day be whispered about in the same breath as the league’s legendary tandems. On the wing, Shane Battier—just 24 and already an NBA-certified glue guy—offered length, intelligence, and defensive prowess, while contributing 14.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.8 assists, and 1.6 steals per night. At point guard, the electric Jason “White Chocolate” Williams orchestrated the floor, a 27-year-old with 13.0 points, 10.5 assists, 2.8 rebounds, and 1.1 steals, capable of threading passes that left defenders and commentators alike shaking their heads in awe.

The chemistry practically hummed on paper: a rangy frontcourt pairing of youth and skill, a savvy wing defender capable of changing the flow of games, and a wizardly floor general who could turn chaos into opportunity. For Zeke, the emotions were impossible to contain. Here he was, a boy from humble beginnings, now living the dream in Memphis, part of a “Frontcourt of the Future” that carried the promise of greatness. Every practice, every possession, every glance across the court at Pau or Shane felt electric, like the universe had finally conspired to place him exactly where he was meant to be. The city, long waiting for a reason to believe, now had its cause. Memphis basketball had a heartbeat, and Zeke Thorne had become its pulse.

[Captain Canada]

I know the Nuggets mad as hell going from getting Melo to Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon

[NaturalThunder87]

I know the Nuggets mad as hell going from getting Melo to Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon

Yeah, tough break for them. Hinrich has actually been surprisingly good pretty much every time we've played him. In one of the very first games of the season last season (their rookie year) he dropped 30+ on us. He's had 30+ in at least 2 of the 5 matchups so far.

[GM Rizzo]

I can’t wait for my referral bonus!

Glad to have you make the move here my man. I think you will find it’s a great place for us ‘chise nerds.