Caracter Study

By the time Derrick Caracter turned 13, basketball experts pronounced that he had "the whole package" and was destined for greatness. At 19, the experts worried that he'd gone from prodigy to problem child.

At 20, Caracter faced the prospect of losing his dream. Kicked off of the University of Louisville basketball team, facing academic suspension, he did what it seemed he'd always done when things got difficult — he transferred to a new school.

But then he did something he hadn't done in a long time. He worked hard — at school, at basketball, at getting fit, at his relationships.

And at 22, he stood up and cheered with 20,000 screaming fans in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, watching members of the Los Angeles Lakers accept their 2009-10 NBA Championship rings from commissioner David Stern.

Welcome to the league, rookie.

"Watching that, there were so many things were going through my head – where I was last year, where I am now," Caracter said. "I want it to be my ring next year."

Caracter's NBA debut was rarely in doubt, to most people. When he played for the Fanwood Flames as a six-foot-eight-inch 13-year-old, everyone had the same expectations for the Fanwood native. He made the game look easy, not just when he could physically overpower kids his own age, but when he could beat older kids in AAU or playground pick-up games.

And that was the trouble. Caracter didn't have to work tirelessly to be the best, he simply could rely on that "whole package" — size, skills, balance, soft hands and a delicate shooting touch. His weight ballooned, but it never seemed to hurt his game.

"He's got gifted athletic ability," Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak said in a telephone interview. "Quick feet, strength, feel for the game, explosiveness and he's a good ball handler."

Ben Shear, owner of on East Second Street in Scotch Plains and Caracter's trainer through high school, said it, repeatedly. "He's got the whole package."

But the key ingredient to athletes with these rare gifts is desire. Did Caracter want what everyone else did? Challenges at school threatened to overwhelm the acclaim he received for his athletic prowess. In high school, he struggled to maintain his GPA, shuttling from St. Patrick's High School in Elizabeth, to Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School, back to St. Patrick's, and finally to Notre Dame Prep in Massachusetts.

At Louisville, he earned a perpetual place in Coach Rick Pitino's doghouse. He was suspended for 16 games in his freshman season for being out of shape, missing curfew, not focusing on his schoolwork. After all, you can't help a highly ranked program if you can't get cleared to play. And coaches like Pitino have little use for kids who can't help the program stay in the top 10. Caracter had a decent sophomore season, helping the Cardinals get to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Championship.

Still, the relationship was rocky. In May 2008, he was declared academically ineligible. By the time coach Rick Pitino booted Caracter from the team, he had more detractors than supporters. Under headlines such as "Caracter's Character," it was alleged that the basketball prodigy fatally lacked the "discipline" and "focus" needed to make it to the NBA.

In an article on ESPN.com, Kevin Boyle, his former coach at St, Patrick's said, "He's a good kid, but kids like that, everyone thinks they automatically love basketball and will work hard at it. Coach Pitino is an outstanding coach, a Hall of Fame coach. But Derrick's personality, I think he would have done better with someone who is a little more tolerant, who understands guys who make some mistakes."

So he disappeared. He returned to New Jersey, where his mother, Winne Terry, and his grandmother still live. It was time to regroup, to plan his next step. They declined to comment for this story.

"It was just a really bad time," said Britt Shelton, Caracter's girlfriend of three years. "Me and Derrick came into each other's lives at probably at one of the lowest points in his life."

Caracter told Shelton and his family not to read the accounts in the press. "He would try to ignore it, but it was kind of disheartening," she said now. "It was there, everyone else read it, even though he didn't."

Shear, his former trainer, said Caracter was frustrated by the criticism. "I think Derrick's been misunderstood. Staying out of trouble with the law – I knew these kinds of problems weren't Derrick's problems," Shear said. "Derrick, he made immature decisions. I wouldn't want anyone judging me at 13, 14, 15 years old. If I were judged at 18 or 19, I'd probably have a worse reputation than Derrick. The perception of him, it has been unfair."

Initially, Caracter left school and declared himself for the NBA draft.  When it was clear that teams weren't clamoring for a gifted but out-of-shape teenager who hadn't made it through two full college seasons, Caracter decided that it was up to him to take responsibility for his career. He withdrew from the draft and enrolled at the University of Texas El Paso. Basketball experts couldn't believe he'd leave the major conferences for the relative obscurity of western Texas. But Shelton transferred with him and, as he sat out the mandatory year that athletes must wait to play for their new school, Caracter took school seriously.

Shelton has been a good influence on Caracter and may have been his motivation for reclaiming his life, on his terms. "I didn't want anything to do with him [at Louisville]," she said, "but he was very persistent."

That was a quality that Caracter hadn't exhibited much use for in the past, but when he finally took the court for his junior year in 2009, he was determined to show off his talent and determination to succeed – to prove his critics wrong. "I just put my head down and competed," he said.

In the 2009-2010 season, Caracter averaged 14.1 points, 8.1 rebounds and 0.9 blocks per game. He was named a second team All-Conference USA player and a first team All-District pick by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

The scouts started noticing too, especially the Lakers. 

"He'd been a familiar name to us for five, almost six years," Kupchak said. "We don't recruit in high school, but we try to track players from a distance. He's a player we had watched over the years."

When the school year ended, Caracter enrolled in the IMG Academy in Florida, dropped 30 pounds of fat and emerged at 285 pounds. As the draft approached that spring, the Lakers invited Caracter for an interview. "You get a feel, you get your main questions answered," Kupchak said. The organization's main questions, in this case, were about his transfer to UTEP.

"He had to get through the negative connotations that come with leaving a program like Louisville," Kupchak said. "We found nothing to deter us from taking him. Our understanding is that there are times – that sometimes, the timing's not right for a coach or player to be together at the same time, and that's what happened at Louisville."

Shear agreed. "Sometimes I think the NCAA's just not the right place for everybody," he said. "It doesn't mean Derrick doesn't have the talent to play. These are two different things."

Or as Shelton put it, "When all of that stuff that went in the media between him and Rick Pitino – like, he was 19-years-old when that happened."

The big day finally came Thursday, June 24. Caracter and about 40 friends and family, including Shelton, had gathered in a private room on the second floor of the restaurant in Fanwood to watch the 2010 NBA Draft.

"He was just, like, in a little corner by himself," Shelton said. "He just wanted to be by himself, thinking and waiting."

Finally, late into the afternoon, commissioner Stern read Caracter's name from the podium. He was drafted 28th in the second round, 58th overall.

"The place erupted," Caracter said. "Everybody was going crazy. I pretty much just sat there, taking it all in." 

"Everyone just jumped out of their chairs and started screaming and clapping," Shelton said. "It was one of those few moments, 'Oh my gosh, he really did it.' I cried like a little baby."

Kupchak said the risk has paid off. In the NBA's Summer League, a preseason for young players and rookies, Caracter averaged 15.4 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, and shot nearly 60 percent from the field.

"Being drafted was like him accepting this challenge to prove everybody wrong," Shelton said.

In August, Caracter signed a two-year deal at about the league minimum, amounting to a $1.1 million deal, the Los Angeles Times reported. His contract contains weight clauses, and if he was down to 275 pound by Sept. 10, the entirety of his first year – $473,604 – would be guaranteed. Caracter ultimately made weight.

"He's a kid that didn't get that three- or four-year guarantee that some kids get in the first round," Kupchak said. "He's a kid that knows that what he's going to get, he's going to have to earn. He's going to have to perform. He understands that."

And Caracter is embracing the responsibility that he once rejected. "I just have to keep proving to myself, my family, my coaches, the doubters. I have to keep pushing, keep believing in myself," he said.

Caracter's dream — not anyone else's — was coming true. Shortly after the Lakers celebrated their most recent championship, Caracter came off the bench to replace All-Star forward Lamar Odom. And Shelton was at the Staples Center to see it.

"When I saw him in the Lakers uniform – you think back to when you first met, how amazing this journey has been, from where it started to where he got," she said. "He achieved his dream, and it's very cool to be able to witness it."

Caracter didn't score and played only two minutes that game. "I was so mad," he said. "These guys just got their rings. I wasn't focused on the here and now." But in the games that followed, Caracter started to produce.

He's played in 17 games, averaging about 3 points and 2 rebounds per game while shooting 49 percent from the field. His most productive effort came last Friday against the Sacramento Kings, when coach Phil Jackson gave him a vote of confidence, playing Caracter 21 minutes; he responded by scoring 10 points and hauling in four rebounds.

"Knowing I can go out there and compete and be productive is a dream come true," Caracter said. "I'm just going to keep making the most out of my minutes and keep grinding."

Grinding. Another new word for Caracter, whose new resolve could be attributed to some East Coast-tough Lakers teammates Kobe Bryant, Ron Artest and Odom, who can show him what it takes to be an NBA player. But he perhaps most relates to Andrew Bynum; Bynum, who has played in the NBA for five years, became the youngest NBA player after going pro straight from St. Joseph's High School in Metuchen.

"I asked him, 'How weird is it for you and Andrew?'" Shear said. "Derrick just said, 'We just look at each other and smile.'"

Kupchak said the Lakers present a good fit for Caracter and his fellow rookie teammate, Devin Ebanks. "Caracter and Ebanks, they have the opportunity to be on a team now with a bunch of veterans, to be on a team with less pressure," he said. "I guess one downside is that on a bad team, they would play him more. But I'm not sure that's the best thing for a young player."

Caracter strongly agrees. "It's the perfect place for me, playing under the brightest lights every night," he said. "It's a feeling that you have, a feeling that's right. The attention – some people shy away from that. But they're a different type of people. For me, the Staples Center feels right."

He said that playing on the Lakers, one of the most storied franchises in all of sports, is like "being in a rock band." For his interview, he called from Phoenix, where the team was staying at the swank Ritz-Carlton Hotel. But when it comes to actually practicing with and competing against the superstars, Caracter said, those other elements fade away.

"At every level, whether it's high school, college, or the pros, it's all about confidence," he said. "The game doesn't change. You got to score that basket, you got to stop your man. At the end of the day, it's still basketball. There's more distractions as a pro. But at the end of the day, you step on the court and you play basketball."

Caracter and Kupchak added that the Lakers also have a department that helps ease rookies' transitions to the pros.

"We meet with them periodically, we have a player-development position to help them," Kupchak said. "There's a lot that goes along with a kid that's been on a scholarship and lived in a dorm, to living more than 3,000 miles from home in a city like Los Angeles. We do our best to bring them down to earth, educate them, surround them with good people and hope they make good decisions."

Caracter said that most of those discussions have focused on "how to be a professional. What to do, what not to do, understanding about the length of the season…. How to manage yourself, on the court and off the court – especially off the court."

He added, "Me, I'm trying to take it one day at a time, and keep my feet standing on the ground."

Team traditions and some of the veterans also help. Caracter said that he and Ebanks are responsible for collecting and passing out laundry, distributing towels and picking up takeout grub from famous West Coast staple In-and-Out Burger.

"Surrounded by all these superstars, their swagger's definitely bigger than mine now," he said with a laugh. But it's not too bad. "One day, I'll have some rookies."

For now, Caracter said he is simply focused on continuing to deliver on the court.

"People have always talked about me since I was 13-years-old. I'm 22 now," he said. "You listen, but there's certain things now, you just don't pay attention to it. I listen to my music: Maroon 5, Jay-Z, Lil' Wayne, Tupac."

As he later adds, "I'm a Laker now. I'm a part of a tradition. In a few months, when we go for the third championship, myself and the other rookie are prepared to accept that and be ready. There's no more school. It's strictly basketball."

And after all the fits and starts, Derrick Caracter really wants to play basketball. And it shows.