“It sounds strange, but I really enjoyed the ups and downs during my time here. The less good times taught me a lot,” said Hapoel Jerusalem’s new acquisition, Kadin Carrington, Upon graduation from college. When he said this he did not imagine how fickle his path as a basketball player would be until he was just 26 years old.
At the start of the 2018/19 season, just four years ago, the guard born in Trinidad and Tobago arrived in Europe after four successful years at Seton Hall University. After four years and no less than six different countries in which he played, he arrives in Jerusalem with quite a few expectations. So before we dive into the professional part, let’s briefly understand the interesting path he went through until he got to the capital.
In his first season in Europe he played in Montenegro and especially in Belgium, where he provided great ability and moved to German Ludwigsburg. A great season in Germany, during which he averaged 17.2 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists and 41.5% for three in the league gave him the ticket to the Euroleague team – Basconia. Unfortunately, problems with the issuance of a special work visa that had to be issued in order to play in Spain led to the cancellation of the two-year contract, which he agreed with the Spaniards.
He eventually opened the 2020/21 season in Monaco, which was then in the EuroCup (and also won the factory at the end of the season), but the bad luck continued and in a big way – after only six games in the league and EuroCup he tore the crossbar and finished the season. After a long recovery, Carrington managed to open the last season in the Spanish Betis and from the first moment it was possible to understand that he must return to fitness. Betis did not like it and after only 10 games he finished his way in the team and moved to the French Dijon.
In contrast to the faltering start to the season, from the moment he arrived in France he became one of the big stars of the team and managed to lead it to fourth place in the league, until it was relegated against champions Villarban in the playoffs as well as the top 16 of the Champions League. He finished the season at Dijon with averages of 13.5 points, 3.3 assists and 2.4 rebounds per game in all settings.
After a brief acquaintance with Carrington, it’s time to figure out what Jerusalem is expected to get from the left Combo Guard, which rises to a height of 1.93. When looking at last season’s bad season for the Reds from the capital, a number of positive points can be noted, and if you ask the team’s fans, it is likely that many of them will say that the greatest of them all was in the character of Jaylen Adams. With his departure, the question arose as to who the player would fill this slot and it could very well be that Carrington is the man – or at least that is how they hope in Jerusalem.
Like Adams, the new acquisition is a hopeless scorer, who is not ashamed to bomb and shell from anywhere at any time. Note the following statistic: Last season Carrington averaged 2.1 threes per game out of 5.8 attempts (36%). And Adams? Scored an average of 2.1 threes per game out of 5.6 attempts (37.5%). In general, there’s nothing the new Jerusalem guard likes to do on the basketball court like throw from a distance.
His most common move on offense is pick-and-roll (in 28% of cases, also very similar to Adams), with no less than 63% of those moves that come to Puente ending with a stop for a jump shot, during which he averages 1.06 points per position. The fact that he goes up for a shot immediately after the block of the high next to him, and hits it in a not bad way, causes the defense to come out to him aggressively and thus he takes advantage of this from time to time to deliver balls to the high.
The Guard’s next most common move is catch and throw, in which he uses 20.7% of the time (and this is a significantly higher number than Adams) and scores an average of 1.11 points per position. If Speedy Smith and Noam Dover (and maybe another guard to come) manage to produce well, and the tall ones to come will draw attention inside the point, a player like Carrington could be a great weapon when it comes to game spacing.
Isolation moves are not so common in his game, but he has certainly proved in his good seasons at Ludwigsburg and Dijon that he is able to take his guards even to the ring with impressive agility. As we have said before, stopping for a shot is his top priority, and even when he is already in the paint he likes to stop in the center and go up for a shot or finish with a plow with his strong hand.
On the defensive side, this is a solid guard. His agility on his feet allows him to put on guards and deal well with penetrations of players his size. Despite the player’s toughness, he sometimes has a hard time against guards who are physically bigger than him and also his recovery in defending pick and roll against highs that block well sometimes is slow.
In the end, as in the beginning of most of the last seasons of the Jerusalemites, the season also begins with many question marks regarding the staff and the coach. However, when it comes to Carrington’s signing it should be remembered that this is a player who without bureaucratic problems could have already finished a second season at the strongest factory on the continent. As he himself said, the declines in life have great significance, and at least according to the first season after the last serious injury, it can certainly be said that this is a player who is on the rise and could be Djikovic’s red ace.
