NEW YORK — In middle school, Michael Carter-Williams was handed an evaluation at a basketball camp that labeled him with “Division III potential.” He hung the evaluation on his bedroom wall and looked at it every morning when he woke up for workouts before school.

Carter-Williams kept the evaluation hung even when he arrived at Syracuse, where he met his fiancé, developed the mantra for his basketball life and saw his career trajectory begin to take shape.

As a sophomore at SU, his family home in Hamilton, Massachusetts, burned down in March 2013. With it, the paper on his wall vanished in the flames. But he found a new way to remind himself of his progression since middle school and the people who have questioned him and his abilities. On each of his wrists, he wears a white bracelet that reads, “Made to Last.”

Lately, the message carries greater meaning. Carter-Williams, 27, has played only sparingly for the Houston Rockets so far this season and hasn’t been a consistent force in the NBA since his Rookie of the Year campaign for the Philadelphia 76ers four and a half years ago. He’s taken an unusual route from NBA star to the end of the rotation: His minutes have declined each of the past five seasons.

“His first year at Syracuse prepared him for this,” said his mother, Amanda Carter-Zegarowski. “I said to him the other day: ‘Just go back to what you were doing at Cuse. You worked longer and harder hours when you weren’t playing. Late at night, two-a-days.’ He took out some of that frustration by working harder.”

His limited playing time with the Rockets, who were a game short of the 2018 NBA Finals, has forced him to assess himself and look back to a familiar period in his life: his freshman year at Syracuse.

“In games like these, when I don’t play a lot, it challenges you,” Carter-Williams said Nov. 2, after the Rockets beat the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center, where he played five minutes. “It’s tough. I have to keep working and see how I can grow.”

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Carter-Williams said that, lately, he is constantly reinventing himself. Getting to the NBA is one thing — it was a dream fulfilled in itself — but staying there presents another challenge. He’s on his fifth different team, where he’s averaging 13.9 minutes per game this season. But that isn’t quite the full picture: NBA free agency, roster moves and a series of injuries haven’t aided in Carter-Williams’ development since his breakout rookie campaign.

He was recruited heavily by Mike Hopkins since the start of high school. The SU brass spotted him at a Syracuse camp and locked in on him as a target. But the former ESPN five-star recruit played only sparingly during Big East play that season behind Brandon Triche, a four-year starter at point guard. Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim said he knows Carter-Williams was impatient on the bench that season. For a brief period, Carter-Williams considered transferring.

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Yet, he stayed on and became the Orange’s best player on a balanced 2012-13 team that made the Final Four. Before he was a long-armed, integral member at the top of the 2-3 zone his sophomore season, he had been playing limited minutes.

Carter-Williams doesn’t want his life to be defined by what he does on the basketball court. As a Syracuse freshman, Carter-Williams met the woman who would soon become his girlfriend, Tia Shah, at Harry’s Bar on South Crouse Avenue. He said they started dating in September 2012, at the start of his sophomore year, and they remain together six years later. He proposed to her this year — she said yes — and they will get married next summer in Santa Barbara, California.

Carter-Williams’ iPhone background screen is a picture of their daughter, Charleigh, who was born on July 28.

“The NBA life can feel unsettling,” Carter-Zegarowski said. “Living on your own, not really being a part of the community, it’s been tough. He’s a family guy. People watch the NBA but don’t understand that it can be lonely because you don’t know anyone.”

“With Tia and the baby now there with him in Houston, it gives him a sense of security that you’re coming home to a family,” Carter-Zegarowski added. “It’s a bit of distraction, a break, from basketball.”

Carter-Williams isn’t worried about his next job. An hour before tip-off Nov. 2, Carter-Williams sat by his locker at the Barclays Center scrolling through text messages. A few lockers down, Carmelo Anthony prepared to get medical treatment by a team trainer. Both went to Syracuse, where they starred and became top NBA draft picks. Then and now, Carter-Williams reflected on who he needs to become.

He looked down at the bracelets on each of his wrists. He rubbed them.

“At Syracuse I had one of the most important years of my life, facing adversity and not playing,” he said. “What I needed then is what I need now: some patience.”

Published on November 11, 2018 at 10:08 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21