2008年雅思口語新話題解析：A Famous Person

　　Describe a famous person you would like to meet.

　　You should say:

　　who this person is

　　how you first learned about him or her

　　how/why this person is famous

　　and explain what you would say to this person.

　　If you wanna talk about playground legends, the conversation begins right there. Demetrius "Hook" Mitchell is the legend. You can hear all the stories in the world, but you'll never believe it until you see it. He's done inhuman stuff, unreal stuff.

　　Hook was by far the best player to come out of Oakland. Demetrius Hook Mitchell is the Bay's most notorious legend. Every cat with at least minimal knowledge of playground ball has a Hook Mitchell story. The tales of his leaping ability are common place. Jumping over cars, bikes and people wasn't no thing to Hook. Before his descent into narcotics hell, Hook was nothing but heavenly. If he'd just kept his head straight, he'd be in the league right now, dominating.

　　Unfortunately, Hook lives in a prison cell now and in other folks' memories.

　　Several NBA stars who also grew up in Oakland, including Gary Payton, Jason Kidd, Antonio Davis, Drew Gooden, and Brian Shaw, all of whom played with Mitchell on the streets, and were astonished by his skills, but were unable to help him avoid his sorry fate. They describe his unstable home life and the longing for community that drove him to the streets. Mitchell himself is shown playing prison league games, and is surprisingly still able to play above the rim.

　　His story, like others, was written on courts between the West and East Bay.