Is There Such a Thing as a Perfect 10?

Justin Jenifer, one of the country's most-talented 10-year-old basketball players, has become hotly pursued by aggressive AAU teams, high school coaches and shoe companies. (Preston Keres - The Washington Post)

"It's about brand loyalty," Bowden said. "If you're in my uniform at 10 or 11, maybe you will stay with me later on. I'm not always happy we're focusing on 9-, 10-, 11-year-old kids. That's so early. But this is a business. And if that's what I've got to do now, then that's what I'm going to do."

The Adidas representative blames his recruitment of Justin on an inevitable chain reaction: Three shoe companies -- Adidas, Nike and Reebok -- try to get top players on AAU teams they sponsor. High school players quickly develop firm allegiances. The companies shift to the next set of available players, which means a younger and younger demographic.

Bowden, who is the principal at Golden Ring Middle School in Baltimore, has moonlighted as an Adidas consultant for more than 10 years. Bowden gets about $100,000 worth of Adidas equipment and cash each year, he said. With that he has built the Baltimore Select AAU program, which has four teams in four age groups. Bowden pays for his team's travel to top tournaments across the country; players dutifully wear only Adidas. The company has about 50 or 60 consultants in the United States who operate similarly, Kalish said.

Never had Bowden invested in a player younger than 11 or 12, but Justin, Bowden said, "had a chance at greatness." So the consultant befriended Howard and asked to drop by a Bentalou practice with a little surprise. Late one afternoon in April 2005, Bowden gathered a dozen 9-year-olds around him. He dropped 12 Adidas gym bags on the floor, each one stuffed with shoes, headbands, jerseys and socks. "It was like Christmas," Howard said.

Said Bowden, "I just wanted to give them a little taste of what I could do."

During the months that followed, Howard said Bowden's gift felt more like a backhanded bribe. Bowden wanted Justin to play for the Baltimore Select 10s and 11s this season, each to be backed by an estimated budget of almost $20,000. When Howard, driven by loyalty, decided that Justin would play 10s with Bentalou and 11s with Select, Bowden refused to talk with him for two months.

Justin enjoys the rewards of his courtship: He displays almost 20 pairs of shoes in his room, and he has come to expect free Adidas headbands. He's oblivious, though, to the obligations attached to those gifts. In March, Justin asked his dad, "Why can't I just play for every team?"

"I feel like they give you all of these nice things just trying to lure you to them," Kisha said: "I told Howard, 'Don't take anything else from them. If you take too much, it's like they own you.' "

Said Todd Kays, a sports psychologist who counsels young athletes and their families for the Athletic Mind Institute in Dublin, Ohio: "Those sorts of gifts can create a lot of pressure. I used to think the pressure of sports hit in high school, but now it happens more in middle school. That's risky. It can make a young child a major candidate for low-grade anxiety and burnout."

Moving On

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Playing with Bentalou implies risks of its own, Howard said. The organization's teams must raise funds exhaustively, and top tournaments sometimes have entry fees costing several hundred dollars, more than Bentalou can afford. "It could kind of hold Justin back," Howard said. He has made it clear that Justin will not play at all for Bentalou after this year, causing a virtual bidding war.

Bowden said he fully expects Justin to repay his loyalty by playing exclusively for Select next season. Coaches for D.C. Assault have suggested Justin would get more personal attention if he left Baltimore and played for a Washington-based team. Carlton Carrington, coach of a Baltimore-based AAU program called Team Melo, said Nike sponsors his team and could help Justin pay for air travel. If that pitch fails to entice, Carrington said he will have Carmelo Anthony, the NBA star who also funds the team, call Justin to woo him.

"I'll throw everything at them but the kitchen sink to bring them over to me," Carrington said. "I can give them like three trips a year on the bird. It'll be my ace in the hole to have the big fella call them and say, 'Shorty, this is where you've got to be.' And once 'Melo calls, it's basically impossible to say no."