CHICAGO -- Back when Lenny Cooke was Lenny Cooke, Joakim Noah was his biggest fan.

Cooke was just a teenager, but to a young, gawky French kid who had just moved to New York City, he was Noah's Michael Jordan.

"This guy was my hero," Noah said.

As that skinny benchwarmer on Cooke's AAU team, Noah had the best seat in the house for a truly American story. He watched the story again Sunday night with more than 200 other people at a viewing of the long-delayed "Lenny Cooke" documentary at the Gene Siskel Film Center.

If you're a basketball fan of a certain age, you remember that back in the early 2000s, the wiry, 6-foot-6 Cooke was hyped to be something like the next Kobe Bryant.

After going undrafted in 2002, he wound up being New York City's successor to Chicago's Ronnie Fields, the fallen Farragut Academy star; a "Where Are They Now?" candidate with no happy ending.

Now that his movie is out, Cooke is a bleak update to Fly Williams in Rick Telander's "Heaven is a Playground" and Arthur Agee and William Gates in the immortal film "Hoop Dreams."

The movie is a sobering look at the life of Cooke, from his teens to his 30s. It is occasionally funny, often infuriating. Movie producer Adam Shopkorn and his camera followed Cooke early on as he became famous, and then after a long hiatus, caught back up with him as an unemployed adult full of ruminations.

The "Coulda,shoulda,woulda" Club. Biggest club in the world.

No NIU guys repping for Billy "The Kid" Harris? I guess they all must be tired from being on Jordan Lynch's jock.

Jamie Brandon never really came through on the potential.

You mean the kid that ended the U of I city connections????

Had a long talk once with Tracy Dildy about city guys and Dildy gave me the Brandon story that basically U of I was going to help him with his grades for shit because of the Deion Thomas propation shit, so he didnt qualify, good luck kid.

Almost every program creates some NCAA eligibility program for athletes and Illinois used to do it as well, but when the eyes of the NCAA were upon them it was a see ya kid.

The thing about Brandon is, he was as good in eighth grade as he ever got. Still a good player though.

he was no Everette

You think Stephens was better than Brandon? I guess he turned out to be a better college player. Kleinschmidt was a better high school player than both of them.

Everette was solo....Maybe a Francois jean Paul as a Soph?

Lou Wool- tough as nails, man. Big dopey Steve Kling at center. Is he the guy I see on real estate signs? I'm guessing yes.

Played against Everette in one pickup game he was wearing jeans, played against brandon 1 play ( 3 Mins stretch), played tons of pickup with Lou Wool, played 3 summer games v Veltra Dawson. Everette by far the best of the group in my personal view and I am not sure he was trying that hard.

The guy was an NBA first round pick, so someone agreed with me

Veltra Dawson! That's a blast from the past. Zion, right? Went to Villanova.