Three years ago, the Lakeside boys basketball team was one measly point away from a state title. If star guard Tramaine Isabell had converted the front end of a one-and-one with one second left in regulation of the Class 3A championship game against Rainier Beach, the relatively small, extremely wealthy private school on the Seattle-Shoreline border would have won it all in Washington’s toughest division.
But Isabell missed the free throw, and the Vikings went on to a 62-59 victory in overtime to earn their second straight crown.
Seventeen months later, reporter Mike Baker of The Seattle Times published a lengthy investigation of the program’s surprising rise to prominence. The findings weren’t pretty. Lakeside, the Times alleged, had been a party to a series of WIAA rules violations and other unsavory activities, including illegal recruiting through the A PLUS Youth Program, a basketball nonprofit run by Lions head coach Tavio Hobson. The school had also relaxed its admissions and eligibility standards for basketball players and provided unusual benefits to some of its stars, including Isabell, whose driver’s license listed as his address the $6 million lakeside home of Rich Padden, a lawyer and prominent booster of Lions athletics. At the center of the Times story was former Microsoft CEO and future Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, whose three sons all attended Lakeside and who, it was alleged, had catalyzed the school’s newfound commitment to athletic excellence.
Thus began an exodus of talent, which in turn began the boys basketball program’s steady slide back to mediocrity. Isabell transferred to Garfield for his senior season; he now plays at the University of Missouri. D’Marques Tyson transferred to prep school in North Carolina; he now plays at the University of Portland. Hobson was replaced as head coach. Before this season, Daejon Davis, a future Washington Husky, also transferred to Garfield. In the 2015-16 campaign, Lakeside is 6-8 in league play and 10-9 overall, smack dab in the middle of the Metro League standings.
But the Lions still have Isiah Brown. A 6-foot-3 senior scoring machine who will play at Northwestern next season, Brown is the last remaining link to Lakeside’s 2013 state runners-up. He’s averaging 34 points per game this season, according to the Times; in 84-62 loss to Garfield earlier this year, he poured in 50 points, more than 80 percent of his team’s output. On Tuesday, I went to Lakeside to watch Brown’s final home game in the maroon, white, and gold.
When I arrived at the Paul G. Allen Athletic Center, senior night festivities were underway. Lakeside coach Shea Robinson said a few words about each of the honorees. When it was Brown’s turn, Robinson launched into a spiel I truly wish I had recorded, one that involved a series of references to Brown’s former teammates who had taken “the easy way out,” which I think we can all readily interpret. It was a strange start. There’s a junior guard on the Lakeside roster named Aaron Ballmer, and after a look around the gym, sure enough, there was Steve Ballmer, wearing a red polo shirt and a black jacket in the top row of the bleachers. A few minutes later, during player introductions, when Brown was announced as the fifth and final Lions starter, Ballmer mouthed along with his name: “I-zay-uh Brown!!!”
Brown got started on the first possession of the game, catching an entry pass on the right block, wheeling to his left for one dribble, and rising for an eight-footer to put Lakeside up 2-0. It all happened so quickly that the double-team from Roosevelt, the night’s opponent, never had time to arrive.
The next time Brown touched the ball, two Roughriders defenders made sure to immediately descend. So this time, he whipped a cross-court pass to a wide-open teammate for an easy three-pointer. A couple trips later, Brown swished a catch-and-shoot three of his own from about 23 feet away at the top of the key. Another 50-point night started to seem quite plausible.
The rest of the first quarter slowed down, however. Brown is clearly the Lions’ best player, by leaps and bounds, and seems to have free rein to shoot to his heart’s content (as he should). That led to some forces: An airballed three-pointer, two missed runners in the lane on which Brown tried to go one-on-three. He drained two free throws late in the period to finish it with seven points, and Lakeside led 15-8.
Brown began the second quarter with two more misses; on one, he came around the corner on a pick-and-roll to find three Roosevelt defenders in his path and decided to attack anyway. Then he heated up: A drive from the right wing for an and-one, followed shortly thereafter by a lovely Eurostep in transition that led to a layup and Lakeside’s first double-digit lead of the night, at 20-10. Brown had 12.
He closed the half with a rollercoaster flurry: A splashed three-ball from the left corner off an in-bounds play, followed by a miss from 25 feet — nearly standing on the midcourt logo — followed by a gorgeous baseline take that resulted in a 10-foot bank shot over two defenders, followed by a split of two free throws. The Lions led 31-22 at the half, and their star had 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting from the field and a 4-of-5 performance from the stripe.
A 13-3 run by Roosevelt cut the Lakeside lead to 31-27 early in the third quarter. After playing man-to-man in the first quarter and using a box-and-one on Brown in the second, the Roughriders returned to man after the intermission, siccing their own star guard, Jonathan Lang, on Brown, with healthy amounts of help. It was their most successful defensive stretch. Brown made just one field goal in the third quarter — a layup in transition after he blocked a shot on the other end to spark a one-man break — and only attempted two others, a forced jumper from the elbow early in the period and a long three just before the buzzer. He got to the line twice, though, making four of five attempts, to enter the fourth quarter with 24 points.
Brown’s next bucket was the result of Lakeside’s best offensive set of the night. He looped from the left wing underneath the basket, then curled around a double screen to get a clean look from 20 feet, which hit nothing but net. It seemed like the sort of thing the Lions should run more often. A couple trips later, Brown picked Lang’s pocket and went the length of the court for a conventional three-point play, bringing his point total to an even 30.
From there, most of Lakeside’s remaining possessions unfolded the same way. The four other Lions would pass the ball around the perimeter, trying to find an opening to feed Brown, who was posted up on the left block. When they did get him the ball, Brown would bull into the lane and draw a foul. When they didn’t, the Lions would fire up a three. Enough of them went in to swell the lead, eventually all the way to 56-39. Brown drained his final four freebies of the night and exited the action with 1:09 left on the clock, finishing with 34 points on 9-of-21 shooting, including 3-of-7 from long range and a 13-for-15 performance from the free-throw line. Lakeside won 61-47.
It was a little bit like watching James Harden. Brown clearly didn’t have his best shooting night, as a handful of airballs can attest, but the senior refused to allow that to prevent him from finding points. He worked creatively in the post and showed no fear of being hacked, consistently barreling through contact toward the bucket, and took advantage of his free-throw opportunities. He entered the night averaging 34.0 points per game and found a way to match that total exactly.
Brown is a truly gifted talent, but he’s also a grinder. That’s a trait that will serve him well at Northwestern — still the only major-conference team to never make the NCAA Tournament. It’s also a trait that helps explain why he stuck around at Lakeside even as the rest of the program dematerialized around him, as other kids chose to take “the easy way out,” as his coach might put it. Steve Ballmer’s dream of turning the Lions into a basketball powerhouse is gone, kaput — foiled by hubris, reporting, and the WIAA — but Isiah Brown is still here.