Curry muddles through 'mistake' one day at a time

STILLWATER, Okla. -- Arguably the best high school player in the country sold dope.

There it is again, stripped of all the niceties. No one has quite put it that way about JamesOn Curry lately, have they? Deal with it. Absorb the shock and embarrassment that Curry carries around with him like a lead ball. Not that anyone should be surprised. Curry's riches-to-rags-to-Stillwater story has been told so often it's almost background music for the college basketball season.

Eddie Sutton is known for giving players second chances. (Getty Images)

But let's stop the gushing for a second. His isn't a success story. Not yet. Years must pass before the Oklahoma State freshman proves what he did a year ago truly was -- as almost everyone says -- "a mistake."

"What do you want five years from now?" said Curry's high school coach John Moon. "I might say, a young man who grew up, got a college education and becomes a positive role model after a difficult period in his life."

"There's always going to be skeptics. There's always going to be someone to bring it up."

There is talk of redemption, contrition and second chances for the charismatic kid. Coach Eddie Sutton seems to be the right mentor. He has made a career of bringing troubled kids into his home-for-wayward-boys program.

Sutton, having conquered his own personal and professional problems, has made a career of reshaping shattered lives into productive careers.

And there is celebration over Curry's first five games as a starter at Oklahoma State. He is playing 30 minutes per game in that stretch, averaging 14.2 points and shooting 57 percent.

But there is a thin line between a mistake and a disaster. Curry made one and avoided the other.

If basketball was his currency, it's not unfair to say the kid's talent bought his way out of a wrecked life.

A year ago this month, Curry, North Carolina's all-time high school scorer, was among 60 students arrested in a drug sting that covered six high schools. The Carolina schoolboy basketball savant who was being compared to Michael Jordan pled guilty to six felony counts of selling marijuana to an undercover cop.

Six counts. The cop paid him $45 and $50 in separate buys three weeks apart.

Mistake? Try mistakes.