Dallas County’s Lee picked to play against state’s elite
Published 8:19 pm Friday, June 14, 2013
By Daniel Evans
The Selma Times-Journal
For Dallas County basketball star William Lee, the only thing rolling in faster than recruiting offers might be prestigious honors and rewards.
Lee is one of 60 juniors that have been named to the 2013 North-South Boys and Girls All-star basketball squads. The game is scheduled for July 17 at Alabama State University’s Dunn-Oliver Acadome.
The 6-8 power forward is regarded as one of the best-shot blockers in AHSAA history, with some unverified reports that he averaged as many as 15 blocks per game last season. He scored around 19 points per game last season while regularly recording double-digit rebounding numbers.
Lee was also named the class 4A player of the year by the Alabama Sports Writers Association.
“William can beat you three different ways — he can beat you scoring, he can beat you rebounding, and he can beat you with his defensive presence,” Dallas County head coach William Moore said earlier this year when discussing Lee’s chances at winning 4A player of the year. “Not very many players can do that, and he’s averaged a triple-double all year long. He’s a Division-I athlete and we sort of expect that from him.”
The Hornets shot blocker is ranked by ESPN.com as the No. 65 overall prospect in the 2014 recruiting class. According to ESPN, he has offers from Alabama, Auburn, Georgia, Houston, Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Rivals.com also lists an offer from Murray State.
Lee will play on the South squad, giving him the opportunity to go head-to-head with the North squad’s Isaac Haas from Hokes Bluff. Haas is a 7-2 center that is also being heavily recruited nationally.
In the Hornets’ regional semifinal loss to Dora last season, Lee finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds, and 12 blocks.
“He’s sacrificed a lot of his game personally just for the betterment of the team. Most people don’t realize that William can do a lot more from a skill standpoint than he’s able to do for us,” Moore said when describing his big man in a previous interview with the Times-Journal. “We allow him to play inside because that’s where we need him to play. He can do a lot more as far as facing up, shooting, shooting threes, but he doesn’t do all of that because he plays where we need him to play to give us the best chance to win.”