*With the high school basketball playoffs in full force in Georgia, our editor Justin Young dives back into the history books and examines the best players he's ever seen play. Georgia's Louis Williams was an easy choice. 

I first read about him on NBADraft.net, a site I did work for in the very early 2000s. There was a picture of a baby-faced Williams sitting on a staircase with trophies all around him. He was a schoolboy legend before he even played in high school. 

When I moved to Atlanta, I had to go see him play. I lived in Cobb County at the time Williams was a massive prep star. Getting from Marietta to Snellville was not an easy task, even before the massive suburban sprawl of the metro Atlanta areas. When I finally got out of my car after an hour-plus drive, there was a massive line that wrapped around South Gwinnett High School. Atlanta came out to see LouWill play. 

True story: I passed Ludacris, Michael Vick and Chipper Jones in line to get in. 

Yep. 

And the fact that such Atlanta legends were waiting outside to get in makes me appreciate this story even more. Respect to the English teacher who was in charge of manning the door and not letting in the kings of Atlanta. You, my friend, are a real legend. 

I digress. 

LouWill is the second all-time leading scorer in Georgia high school basketball history. Chew on that. He was named all-state four times in high school. Four-time. In that stretch, he helped South Gwinnett win the AAAAA state championship in 2004. 

As a senior, he was Mr. Georgia Basketball after posting 27.5 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5.2 assists a game. 

He told me back in 2003 that he was pretty sure he was staying close to home for college. He said: "I don’t really want to leave the southeast to play college ball. I’m a homebody. I don’t like to leave home really,” said Williams said.

Georgia was a player from the outset. He told me: 

“I think they’ve worked with me the hardest. I lean to the University of Georgia the most because they were the first school that started to recruit me. When Jim Harrick was there and with Coach Felton now there, UGA has always brought their head coaches out to see me. I think that shows me how much interest they really have in me and that says a lot about the character of their program.”

Williams and South Gwinnett teammate Mike Mercer eventually both committed to play at Georgia. Williams decided to forgo college and entered the NBA instead. He was selected No. 45 overall by the Philadelphia 76ers. He will go down as one of the greatest sixth men in NBA history. 

In high school, Channing Toney was the biggest foe. The Brookwood guard went on to play at Georgia and UAB. They were in the same region and played on the same travel team. They knew each other so incredibly well. Their rivalry was one of the best of the century. 

In the mid-2000s, ESPN started to broadcast high school games. They started with Dwight Howard against Randolph Morris. A year later, Williams was the featured man as South Gwinnett played powerhouse Dunwoody. 

But that was the legend of LouWill. He drew a bigger crowd than Dwight Howard. These were the two biggest prep stars in high school sports in North America at the time. Every game was a show before the mixtape mafia left no room on baselines. LouWill was a legend of newspaper headlines, local sports shows and random basketball blogs that were on the soon-to-be come-up. 

I wonder who he would have become if Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube were around when LouWill was a prep. Who would he be? How big would his profile be? I think he would have been bigger than Mikey Williams. LouWill had game, man. He was a killer on that court. 

There wasn’t a bigger high school star in Atlanta basketball history over the last 20 years quite like him. I’m not sure there will be one bigger. Two players were the No. 1 picks in the NBA Draft - Howard and Anthony Edwards - and neither one wrote the fable-like stories that LouWll did.

That’s legendary.