Just when you think you've heard it all, just when you think nothing in sports really can surprise you anymore, just when you think the basketball biz has gotten about as flat out goofy as it can get, along comes something else to teach you that you really just fell off the turnip truck and don't have a clue.

Welcome to Sebastian Telfair, and the latest issue of Dime magazine.

Better yet, welcome to hip-hop basketball.

In case you've been hiding under a basketball rock somewhere, Telfair is the latest wunderkind to emerge from New York City high school basketball. He's only a junior at Lincoln High School in Coney Island, but already he's been living in fame's bubble for two years now, billed as the next great guard player to come out of the city, right there with Pearl and Kenny and Steph and all the others who were anointed early.

Making it all the better is Telfair has the kind of basketball bloodlines that make him playground royalty, since he's a Marbury cousin, and the half brother of former Providence College star Jamel Thomas. Suffice it to say that Telfair -- or "Bassy" as he's called -- is no wide-eyed innocent in the basketball biz.

So maybe it's not surprising that he's profiled in Dime, a slick mag that caters to the young hip-hop crowd, 11 pages of pictures of Telfair with three models who are never going to be invited to a Young Republicans Convention.

There's Bassy standing in the middle of two girls whose outfits would probably get them arrested in any high school corridor. There's Bassy in a Red Sox jersey with enough ice around his neck to entice any jewel thief. There's Bassy in page after page of outfits, basketball prodigy disguised as hip-hop star.

Most of all, there's Bassy in a setting we don't expect to see in a story about a high school basketball player, no matter how gifted he's supposed to be.

Or as the Dime story says, "oozing sexuality, three bikini-clad, drop dead gorgeous models flock to him. Approaching the outdoor hot tub on the roof of the trendy nightspot The Park ... the beautiful sirens try their damnedest to look as hot as possible just standing next to the man of the hour."

A long way from the locker room, right?

But Bassy's been living large for a long time now, maybe as far back as a 5-foot-8 eighth grader.

Or as the Dime story continues, "he signs autographs for kids and adults alike. He often rocks an iced-out watch, a diamond encrusted "A" necklace (standing for All-American) and a bejeweled ring for winning this year's state championship.

"His games are not just games, they're spectacles -- complete with celebrities from NBA ballers to hip-hip stats like Jay-Z. His two-way is a Rolodex to the stars. He travels the country to places like Las Vegas with his AAU team, the Juice All-Stars. He owns custom-made high school jerseys in a variety of colors embroidered with his initials and with his number 31 on the back."

And you still thought high school basketball was all about trying to win a letter.

But can anyone live up to the hype?

Probably not.

Already, there are little cracks in the Telfair legend. Word has it he was something a little less than spectacular at this summer's ABCD camp. He's being accused of being just another spoiled New York City point guard, the ones that always have the ball and want to shoot first and distribute second, much like the arrows that recently have been fired at his cousin Stephon Marbury. Basketball history is full of comets that speed quickly across the sky, only to disappear just as quick.

Nor does it probably do a young player any good in the long run to be paraded around like royalty before he's ever done anything than tool high school kids who aren't as quick as he is. The entourages? The celebrity? Diamond-encrusted necklaces? Photo shoots with models? A young kid walking through a war-torn minefield probably has a better chance of survival.

But this is Telfair's life, and it already seems to be spinning out of control, like some train going downhill that's lost its brakes. On the surface, anyway, he seems to be the new poster child for a basketball biz that all but eats its young. The photo shoot is just the exclamation point.

In the Dime story Jamel Thomas says he doesn't think the hype about Telfair is overdone, since his half-brother is "an extraordinary talent. He's on a different level than all of the kids in his class." We'll see if he continues to be.

But here's one question, regardless of how good Sebastian Telfair turns out to be.

How can a high school history class compare to this?

Bill Reynolds is a sports columnist for The Providence Journal.