In the late 1980s, a local high school coach named Ron Naclerio was playing there and noticed a kid hanging around, watching the older guys. There came a day when Naclerio's park team needed another body, so he stuck Alston in the game.
The boy dribbled the length of the court, spinning and ducking through larger defenders. He got his shot blocked but, Naclerio said, "in those 94 feet, people realized they had seen something incredible."
A hint of youthful rebellion -- if not desperation -- marked Alston's game, fueling his preternatural quickness and knack for improvisation. Each day, it seemed, he showed a new move.
There were staccato one-handed crossover dribbles. He went between his legs and around his back, flipping a no-look pass, all in one motion. He bounced the ball off the defender's head -- off da' heezie -- grabbed the rebound and darted past.
One day, Alston started a fast break by skipping down court as he dribbled, kicking his feet up in a strange kind of dance.
"The defender thought I wasn't paying attention to the ball, so he runs for the ball," he recalled. "I wrap it behind my back and throw it to my teammate for the dunk."
As is often the case with Rucker league games, there was an emcee, and he began singing "Skip to My Lou."
"Word filtered out, and the next game there were a couple thousand people there," Naclerio said. "By the time Rafer was 15 or 16 years old, he was a cult legend."
Transition game
Sitting courtside at Staples Center, resting before practice with his Orlando teammates, Alston thinks back on those days and smiles.
"It was a city game . . . our game," he said. "Especially in the summer, tons of people came out to the park to watch us play."
But the good times would not last.
As a teenager playing for Naclerio at a public high school in Bayside, Alston skipped too many classes and was ineligible for all but 10 games in his junior and senior seasons.
While his New York contemporaries -- including Stephon Marbury and future Lakers forward Lamar Odom -- went off to major universities, he came west and bounced from Ventura College to Fresno City College before landing at Fresno State for a season.
Then came the first of several brushes with the law. In college, he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor assault charges stemming from altercations with a neighbor and an ex-girlfriend.
