He’s a 6-6, 215-pound wing at Bishop Gorman (NV) High in Las Vegas, and he is arguably the best high school basketball player in the world. So of course Shabazz Muhammad is holding down our Basketball Diary for ’11-12. Following the path blazed by Stephon Marbury, LeBron James, Kevin Love, Tyreke Evans, Harrison Barnes and last year’s writer, Quincy Miller, Shabazz will update his diary all season—in the mag, and right here on SLAMonline. For updates on his college choice and more, keep it right here.
October 11, 2011
by Shabazz Muhammad / @phenom15balla
What’s up? I just got done with practice. It’s preseason, so we’re about to start conditioning, 
but so far it’s just been running plays. It’s been good to get back into it. I took about two weeks off at the end of the summer, which I needed. I played a lot of basketball, and sometimes you’ve gotta get your rest. I had a couple little injuries, nothing major, but I need to take care of my body. I did a lot of icing, doing some yoga, little things to try to prevent injuries. Now I’m pretty close to 100 percent, and I’m getting excited to get back at it.
Our team is looking good. We’ve got a really big starting lineup, and we can get out and run. The goal is simple: not lose a game, be national champions. I think we can do it. We’ve got a tough schedule, some ESPN games, the City of Palms tournament, so it’ll be a challenge. I’m looking forward to it.
Of course everybody wants to know about recruiting. I’ve got seven schools on my list, the same seven schools I’ve had for a while: Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, Memphis, Texas A&M, UCLA and UNLV. And even though you might hear different, I’m still interested in every school on my list. There are a lot of people who don’t really know anything about it saying I’m a UCLA lock or a Kentucky lock, but like I said, they don’t know. I just try to ignore it.
It is fun knowing that people want you at their school, though. Being in Vegas, we’ve had people coming to our practices, like 100 or 200 people sometimes, wearing UNLV jerseys with my number 15 on them. They actually have “Muhammad” on the back. I don’t know what they’d do with those jerseys if I don‘t go there. Honestly though, I’m just happy to have that kind of support.
Anyway, right now, I’m just talking to a lot of coaches, listening to what they have to say and trying to go from there. I’m a humble guy. I’m just trying to get all the information I can, and then whenever I think the time is right I’ll make my decision. I know if I take my time, it’s going to help me in the long run.
Of course I’m paying attention to the lockout. It’s crazy, but at least I did get to some of those games over at Impact Basketball, the “lockout league.” That was fun. I got to watch Josh Selby, John Wall, DeMar DeRozan, a bunch of guys. I didn’t get to work out with them, but just watching those guys and trying to learn from them was worth it. I’m trying to learn from everybody.
That’s it for now. I’ll let you know what’s new next month.
