Monday, February 10, 2003
Developing Caracter: The next LeBron?
By Michael Kruse
Special to ESPN.com
ELIZABETH, N.J. -- Derrick Caracter might be Next. But Kevin Boyle is more concerned with Now.
The veteran coach at St. Patrick High School knows how good his prized freshman is -- and he knows how good the kid could be -- but he also wants to maintain some semblance of normalcy.
So Boyle's keeping close tabs on the kid.
"With LeBron James being this mega-superstar high school kid, it's taken high school basketball to a whole different dimension," he said. "So you have everyone trying to find the next LeBron."
The folks who decide such things -- prep aficionados, recruiting analysts, event promoters -- are pointing to Caracter.
After LeBron, the 6-foot-9, 270-pound power forward is as well-known as any schoolboy in America right now -- and he doesn't turn 15 until May.
But unlike King James -- a kid from Akron, Ohio, remember, who three short years ago was still fairly anonymous outside of his local area -- Caracter is set to come of age in and around the nation's largest media market.
He plays his school ball for St. Pat's (already one of the most visible prep programs in the country) and travels the spring and summer circuits with Riverside Church (an AAU program that has produced more NBA players than any other).
The hype machinery, in other words, isn't going to have to work overtime to keep Caracter's name on the tips of tongues.
And facts are facts: The kid combines size and skill -- and youth -- in a way that's hard to believe.
He's as physically advanced as anybody in the sub-college ranks -- regardless of class -- and yet he's no brute. He passes well. He finishes well. His game is advanced.
"Derrick reminds me of Moses Malone," said Steve Keller, a scout for the Shrewsbury, N.J.-based Eastern Recruiting Report. "He's as efficient and as good as any freshman I've ever seen. And I've been watching ball for 35 years."
Keller watched last year as Caracter started to emerge as an eighth-grader.
Given his bulk, he was, believe it or not, a little bit heavier then than he is now. His middle-school games in Scotch Plains, N.J., were circus acts.
Regional buzz went national in the spring.
Caracter matched up favorably with then-sophomore Mississippi big man Al Jefferson at the Boo Williams Invitational in Hampton, Va., in early April.
"I didn't have a Class of 2006 list," TheInsidersHoops.com national expert Dave Telep said that afternoon. "But I do now. It'll begin with Derrick Caracter, and I'll file accordingly."
Three months later Andy Katz was profiling him. Caracter showed up on SportsCenter after an eye-opening performance at Nike All-America Camp.
Clark Francis of HoopScoopOnline.com even ranked him the No. 1 overall player for all of Nike week.
And Caracter started this season -- and his high school career -- with an MVP-caliber three-game run at the City of Palms Classic.
He had a so-so showing, though, at the Academy National Invitational in Houston, where he was late for a workout and ended up playing just six minutes in the Celtics' first game.
But local TV stations still wanted Caracter for comment -- not anybody else on the team -- and the Houston Chronicle ran a lengthy feature the following day.
"That's not the right message to be sending to a kid," Boyle said. "It makes you feel like you've accomplished something you haven't."
Caracter, after all, was asked in Houston whether or not all the attention was getting to be overwhelming.
"Not really," the kid said at the time. "It's like this everywhere I go. I'm used to it."
Perhaps a little too used to it.
And this is what so many people so often seem to forget: The man's body doesn't change that Caracter's still a boy. He's very much 14 years old.
His talent is practically preternatural, sure, but he's not always the hardest worker; he has a tendency to get a tad doughy here and there; and he's apparently somewhat flighty in the classroom.
"He's gotten more than his fair share of detentions," Boyle said
last week in his cluttered office -- and Caracter's currently two games into
a three-week-long suspension based on the school's academic guidelines.
No Hummers here. And not just because Caracter doesn't have a license yet.
So-called "can't-miss" kids? Well, some of them do miss -- always have, always will. Boyle's been around long enough to know that. And he's not the only one.
"For all we know," Keller said, "Derrick could be the No. 1 freshman, the No. 9 sophomore, the No. 25 junior and the No. 58 senior."
Not likely, though. And promoters in post-LeBron high school hoops sure don't see it that way. They see another Fantastic Scholastic Tour.
"People like to see the great ones, and they want to be able to say they saw him early," NJHoops.com guru Jay Gomes said. "If he continues to develop -- if he stays on the straight and narrow -- Derrick Caracter could be another LeBron James."
As long as Next doesn't come before Now.
Michael Kruse, who writes for the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, N.Y., is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.
