THE MOVES
SCHEA COTTON HAD
TO MAKE
By Gordon Glantz
In the late 1980s, out of New York
City, arose a basketball prep wunderkind
named Lloyd Daniels. Known as “Swee’
Pea,” it was written that the 6’7” Daniels
was Magic Johnson with the jump shot of
Larry Bird.
But Daniels never quite achieved that
status. A resume that included hitches
abroad and in stateside minor leagues
that came and went, like the USBL, was
highlighted by a pedestrian five-year NBA
career with six teams.
A decade later -- out of Los Angeles, the
nation’s second-largest city -- came one
Schea Cotton. His prodigious skill set
attracted national attention and a feature
in Sports Illustrated. Just as Daniels was a
Magic-Bird amalgam, Cotton – known as
“Manchild” -- was seen as a combination of
Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan.Or as
testimonials of Baron Davis, Elton Brand,
Tyson Chandler, Ron Artest, Jarron Collins,
Paul Pierce, Drew Gooden, Jason Collins go
– in the new documentary “Manchild: The
Schea Cotton Story” – Cotton was “LeBron
James before LeBron James.”
As difficult as it was to live up to, it has
been more of a struggle to live down.
Cotton did not have as much drama in
his life as did Daniels, whose journey is
also being told in a documentary called
“The Legend of Swee’ Pea.” He was never
busted in an undercover drug sting, shot
three times in the chest, nor in and out of
rehab. He didn’t get passed along through a
dysfunctional school system while reading
at a third-grade level.
Instead, as he says, he “did what he was
supposed to do, did things the right way.”
But unlike Daniels, who never played a
minute of college basketball, Cotton never
set foot on an NBA court (the closest he
came was summer leagues and the NBA’s
developmental league). That would be
enough to fill a man with angst, and
Cotton lived many years with a bitter
taste in his mouth as he played in foreign
leagues from Serbia to China to France and
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Fall 2016
coachandplayer.com
photograph by Michael Angulo