{"id":819728,"date":"2024-10-14T13:44:43","date_gmt":"2024-10-14T17:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/?p=819728"},"modified":"2024-10-15T14:07:39","modified_gmt":"2024-10-15T18:07:39","slug":"bub-carrington-slam-252-feature-story-wizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/the-magazine\/bub-carrington-slam-252-feature-story-wizards\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Wizards Rookie Carlton \u201cBub\u201d Carrington Reflects on His Baltimore Roots and Playing Close to Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This story appears in SLAM 252. Get your copy now.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s nothing quite like being drafted into the NBA. A decade\u2019s worth of blood, sweat and tears has all led up to that surreal, life-affirming moment when one\u2019s name is called to the stage. But even in a place where one\u2019s wildest dreams come true, rarely do the stars align like they did for a then-18-year-old Carlton \u201cBub\u201d Carrington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mere minutes after being selected 14th overall by the Portland Trail Blazers, Carrington was informed that he\u2019d be traded to the Washington Wizards. He couldn\u2019t believe it. He recounts thinking, \u201cThere is no way \u2026 Wait, what is happening right now?\u201d Because, to Carrington, there\u2019s more to repping the Wizards than individual pride; he\u2019s repping his home state, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take a 40-minute drive northeast of Capital One Arena, and you\u2019ll arrive at Carrington\u2019s childhood roots in Baltimore, a city that exudes its own grimy, uber-competitive basketball culture. However, compared to the abundance of opportunities in cities like New York or Los Angeles, there are only so many spots to be filled in Baltimore. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to make that one team, you\u2019re trying to go to that one school, trying to be in that one area,\u201d Carrington says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Point-blank, if you want to make it in Baltimore, you have to earn it. Carrington is no exception to the rule, and it\u2019s not far-fetched to presume that\u2019s where the battle-tested guard developed his pedal-to-the-metal tenacity. Just ask the man himself. \u201cIn some way, shape or form, [you\u2019re] a product of your environment,\u201d Carrington says. \u201cOn the court, it\u2019s always been that one mode for me: you got to kill that person in front of you. Figuratively, of course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Carrington puts it, it doesn\u2019t matter if your opponent is someone you\u2019ve never played before or someone you\u2019ve been rivals with for as long as you can remember, every ball game is a battle. For Bub, some of his most formative memories came from those long-standing rivalries. Those battles became his statement to the city that he\u2019s got the drive and game to back up his merciless mode of playing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

One battle stands above the rest, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Bub first arrived at St. Francis Academy, one of the city’s most well-known prospects, Jahnathan Lamothe, was also there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe blew up big,\u201d Carrington says. And for the rest of high school, whether it was the final minutes of practice or the AAU circuit, an overlooked Bub made it a point of emphasis to earn his stripes through his battles with Lamothe. \u201cI wasn\u2019t, like, talked about, or anything … [so] he was on my list. He was on me and my dad\u2019s list, telling me you had to go at him every day. [My dad would say] wherever you see him, you got to go at him.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are words you don\u2019t take lightly. Bub\u2019s father, Carlton Carrington II, is a revered local AAU coach, and his insight into the sport allowed Bub to stay one step ahead of his contemporaries. \u201cYou see the game from a different perspective, from a coach\u2019s perspective. A lot of kids see from a coach\u2019s perspective for an hour, for however long you\u2019re in practice\u2026I see it every hour of the day,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That father-son, coach-player dynamic is unique. It\u2019s a high-wire balancing act for them both, and sometimes, when players are younger, those lines are blurred beyond comprehension. \u201cWhen I was younger, I used to think there was no switch,\u201d Carrington recalls. But once Bub matured, he began to see the fruits of his labor as his understanding of the people around him started to crystallize. \u201cI stopped trying to think I\u2019m smarter than him. He knows what he\u2019s doing…[and] it\u2019s always a good thing to have someone that knows what they\u2019re talking about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All this culminates in the player he is today: a 6-4 guard who\u2019s a magician pulling up from the mid-range and a smooth operator from the pick-and-roll; a player who, in an effort to be the best player he can be for his team, embraces the little things and the not-so-glamorous aspects of basketball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, with all of Baltimore\u2019s unrelenting competitive spirit, there is also a cherished sense of community. Ask any basketball player from Baltimore, and they\u2019ll tell you everyone is trying to be nothing less than the best in the city. But when that once-in-a-generation player reaches the top, and their sky-high aspirations carry into college and beyond, the whole city relishes in their success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That pride only intensified with Carrington playing so close to home, and to Bub, it\u2019s only right to give back to a community that shaped him into Washington\u2019s guard of the future. So, while the NBA eagerly waits for Carrington\u2019s first game, he hasn\u2019t wasted any time putting his charitable activism into effect. He\u2019s already taking part in local back-to-school and annual Thanksgiving food drives while also conceptualizing community-oriented projects with fellow teammates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m trying to be a voice. I\u2019m trying to actually be active in the community,\u201d Bub says. \u201cI like helping people. I help people because I was helped.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photos via Getty Images.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This story appears in SLAM 252. Get your copy now. There\u2019s nothing quite like being drafted into the NBA. A decade\u2019s worth of blood, sweat and tears has all led up to that surreal, life-affirming moment when one\u2019s name is called to the stage. But even in a place where one\u2019s wildest dreams come true, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":536,"featured_media":819734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65278,49435],"tags":[65289,62525,12990,65276,105],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-819728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-252-the-magazine","category-the-magazine","tag-bub-carrington","tag-feature-1","tag-nba","tag-slam-252","tag-washington-wizards"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/536"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=819728"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820008,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/819728\/revisions\/820008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/819734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=819728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=819728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=819728"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slamonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=819728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}