Los Angeles Lakers: Former forward Derrick Caracter is still ballin’

Former Los Angeles Lakers forward Derrick Caracter is still ballin’. He’s been ballin’ all over the world, but today, he is ballin’ in the USA looking for a spot on an NBA Roster.

Derrick Caracter, a New Jersey product, got his start on the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010 and was with the organization through 2012 and played for both Phil Jackson and Mike Brown. And just as Caracter’s 2nd year NBA career began, so did the NBA Lockout.

The Lakers drafted Caracter in the second round of the draft at No. 58 and signed him to a multi-year deal. Caracter had just played a solid year for the UTEP Minor’s averaging 14.1 points and 8.1 rebounds.

During the 2011 season, Caracter was assigned to the Bakersfield Jam (D-League team) a couple of times while playing for the Lakers.

His second year with the Lakers was spent playing in the D-League for a while following an injury in the beginning of a shorter NBA lockout season. Caracter set out for Israel to play for Bnei Herzliya. Next, he traveled to Poland, then Lithuania, then Brazil’s where he helped the Brazilian team Flamengo win the 2014 FIBA Intercontinental Cup. His next stop was Taiwan then Uruguay at the beginning of 2015. After that, he signed with GlobalPort Batang Pier of the Philippine Basketball Association.

Los Angeles Lakers

Whew! I am tired just thinking about all the culture changes and different coaches. He learned a lot from all of those experiences, but he wasn’t done.

In 2015 Caracter was acquired by the Erie BayHawks of the NBA Development League and played for them for a stint, then back to Israel to play for Hapoel Ramat Gan Givatayim then club A.S. Ramat Hasharon of the Liga Leumi. Most recently signed with Atletico Echague Parana of the Liga Nacional de Básquet in Argentina.

Talking with Derrick, he loved Israel most. The food, the people, the fans, everything. While in Israel he took time out to study the Torah (old testament) and he felt at times he was living through some of the Bible stories while living in the ancient city. But his heart beats for Argentina where he had a very passionate coach.

The landscape of professional basketball has changed over the years. A player can play in the NBA, leagues like Venice Basketball and The Drew league, they can play overseas, or also in the NBA G-League (formerly the D-League). To play in the NBA, one has to play like every game is their last game. Attitude is a huge part of what a scout looks for as well as effort, coachability, and team play.

Today Caracter honed his skills in front of G-League scouts and coaches for the Lakers, Clippers, China and the Philippines at the Xposure Los Angeles clinic/camp. Xposure just celebrated the call-up and signing of one of their athletes, Lakers forward David Nwaba.

The camp started with coaches and scouts tips and speeches, then Coach Mae from The Drew League and Nike Basketball took the players through stretching and drills, it was going to be a very long day. After drills, the camp organizers of XLA17 grouped the players into teams for a tournament. Players came from all over the USA.

I spent the day with Caracter, and it was incredibly insightful. I found out how deep and caring he is, how he wants to give back to the community, his plans for after basketball, and his love for the game he does not want to give up on playing.

Caracter showed off his defensive skills and made sure instead of slamming a dunk and missing it; he laid the ball up effortlessly into the basket. A true mark of a veteran who wants to make sure he scores, and that shows he understands to win ball games isn’t just all about the 360 Dunks. His team made it to the championship game, and when Caracter wasn’t playing, the score became lopsided with his coach yelling, “Don’t forget the defense!”

Caracter is currently playing in The Drew League, so you can go watch him play at King Drew High School each weekend.

Here is his post-camp interview:

Derrick stays humble, although he exudes a strong confidence, he doesn’t like to be brash, “I have a provado, it’s a word I made up.” A professional with bravado, I love it!

Through his five-year professional world tour through 15 countries, he has met a lot of interesting people from all walks of life. “Look, in one place I have friends in New Jersey who don’t have wi-fi,” said Caracter, “And the next minute I talk to a friend in Silicon Valley who is looking into ways to have a stronger wi-fi signal on his yacht.”

Caracter has friends in high places and low places. Some of his high school ex-teammates with limited opportunities turned their lives to crime and have died in the streets and some of his friends own multi-million dollar businesses.

He doesn’t treat anyone differently. Derrick is authentic enough, if his friends are on a high point in their life or not, he gives them his respect and his undivided attention at the right place and time.

“I was supposed to go straight from high school to the NBA, I was that highly touted, but the rules changed,” Derrick Caracter

And that’s just the way Derrick is, being from the east coast, he isn’t hiding anything, he is upfront and honest, and it is totally refreshing. Wise beyond his years, he understands that the timing of when he came out of high school hindered his career.

With the rules changing coming out of high school, it was especially difficult, “I was supposed to go straight from high school to the NBA, I was that highly touted, but the rules changed,” he explained, “After the rule change, I had to choose a college to commit too quickly.”

Caracter had offers from Louisville to Stanford, and he picked Rick Pitino and Louisville because of people who were guiding him at the time. But he really wanted to go to Stanford, and probably should have followed his gut feeling.

He may have stayed in school to get a degree if he had chosen the Cardinal. “Louisville wasn’t the right fit for me, so I transferred to UTEP. By this time my NBA Draft stock had dropped, and I was chosen by the Lakers late in the second round.”

Caracter feels that if the rules hadn’t changed when they did, his career would have turned out much differently thus far.

As he tells it, he, at times, felt better prepared for the NBA and he learned a whole lot from the veterans including Kobe Bryant, Lamar Odam, Derek Fisher, Theo Ratliff and Metta World Peace. On a side note, he recently worked out with Metta and his son Ron Artest III and had a great time.

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From what I saw today, Caracter played on a high level, especially on defense, and his coach relied on him a bunch. We hope scouts liked what they saw, in the meantime, Derrick will continue to work on his game and will visualize himself back in an NBA jersey. Until then, you can find him playing in The Drew League in the gym at King Drew Magnet High School each weekend. King Drew High School is located at 1601 East 120th Street Los Angeles.