Probably was and forever will be the most hyped high school basketball player ever. It was the perfect confluence of factors: HS straight to the NBA still a thing, a ridiculous talent, the boom of the early-ish internet and social media era, arguably peak ESPN… List goes on of all of the things that lined up just right. The access to players was approximately at the high level it is now, but it was still new enough that he was kind of the only big deal and we as a culture didn’t know how to put our guards up and cast a wider net with these kids. Whereas now there is too much and lots of kids just exist in a sea of other names. He was a big deal in the social consciousness. It was like a cloud hanging over the Cleveland franchise and affected the players that were currently on the team (see Boozer, Carlos lol).

Tl;dr: big deal. Mega hyped.