Despite attending five high schools, getting busted in a drug sting almost immediately upon arriving at UNLV and getting shot three times in the chest over $8 of crack, 6-7 shooting guard Lloyd Daniels managed to play parts of five seasons in the NBA in the early 1990s. The Queens native will be the subject of a documentary, The Legend of Swee' Pea, that will come out later this year.
Daniels was always a wild ride, a sort of Lamar Odom 1.0 whose playmaking skills and size made him the most highly regarded New York City basketball prospect since Lew Alcindor came out of Power Memorial in the 1960s. Daniels averaged more than thirty points, ten rebounds and ten assists in his one full season at Andrew Jackson High School in the PSAL and was good enough that notorious UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian (and plenty of others) recruited him despite his third grade reading level. But what makes Daniels a compelling subject isn't just his game or the fact that he made it to the league despite the bullets he took to the chest on a Queens street. It's his personality.
"What kind of freak of nature can get shot three times in the chest and almost die, and spend years smoking crack cocaine, and still compete at the highest level of basketball showmanship on the planet?" asks director Benjamin May, "Lloyd Daniels is a legend and a freak and probably the most amazing thing about all of this is that a documentary hasn't already been made about him!"
Daniels cooperated with May and producer Dan Levin and has mellowed little, if at all, with age, as can be seen in the trailer:
May and Levin are currently putting the finishing touches on the film. Their Kickstarter page is located here—they are trying to raise $50,000 (they've raised just under $18,000 so far).
