Saturday, October 17, 2015

The Crimestopper Breaks into Houston

According to Aquille Carr’s twitter and other sources reporting the like, the 5’6 guard has signed with the Houston Rockets and will compete on their preseason roster. For those basketball fans out there that have never heard of Carr (aka “The Crimestopper”), you are in for a treat. Carr is listed at 5’6, 150 pounds (that’s nearly 3 inches shorter than Nate Robinson for comparison) but doesn’t lack the talent. The ball skills of Jason Williams combined with the scoring ability of a young Steve Francis, on the court, Carr is most known for his dazzling handles and his ability to score with some emphasis - 50 points in a game was not out of the ordinary for Carr at Patterson High school in Baltimore, Maryland.
He quickly became a YouTube sensation making his high school counterparts look as if they were playing on skates. After showing out in a tournament playing for Team USA in Milan, Virtus Roma (a professional team in Italy) offered the then high school sophomore $750,000 to drop out of high school and come play for them (the same team Brandon Jennings played for before turning pro). Carr would pass on the offer and return to finish high school at Princeton Day Academy. In 2012, he verbally committed to play collegiately at Seton Hall University, but would never step on campus and instead play overseas in China for a brief time, perhaps to support his newborn daughter.
Carr was drafted to the Delaware 87ers (affiliate of the 76ers) in the 3rd round of 2013 NBA D-League draft but was subsequently released a few months later. He was eligible for the 2014 NBA draft but went undrafted and signed to play with the Saint John Mill Rats of the Canadian National Basketball League. His time in Canada didn’t last as he was released 9 games into the Mill Rats season after two suspensions during his tenure. He was officially released on December 13, 2014 and it looked like the 21 year-old’s basketball career was on the decline and certainly the aspirations of an NBA career were an afterthought.


On October 14, 2015, Carr tweeted this:


As a basketball fan you have to be happy for this kid. He didn’t come from much in Baltimore, which is perhaps an understatement, and despite his stat line was often overlooked. I’ll definitely be tuning into a few Rockets preseason games to hopefully watch this kid continue to ball.





I could keep going but I'll leave it to 3.