Aquille Carr, a 5'6" guard, gets a six figure contract offer?

Aquille Carr is an incredibly entertaining basketball player to watch. The 17 year old rising junior out of Baltimore stands just 5'6", but he is insanely quick, he has And 1 mixtape handle, and his vertical is probably somewhere around 40".

I got a chance to see him play this past weekend down in Hampton, VA. Guarding him is like trying to catch a fly with your bare hands, and he is every bit as impressive as this mixtape shows (although, the reckless abandon with which Carr attacks to basket does result in a high volume of bad shots and turnovers):



The latest report on Carr is quite intriguing.

Apparently, the diminutive point guard received a $750,000 offer from Lottomatica Virtus Roma in Italy. If that name sounds familiar, it should; it is the same team that Brandon Jennings played for during his one year abroad.

The offer stems from a trip that Carr took to the Junior International Tournament in Italy during April. He led a United States team to a title while averaging more than 40 ppg, at one point reportedly being carried off the court by Italian fans.

That said, the offer does sound a bit too good to be true. Jennings, who was finished with high school and a top five player in his class, got a three-year, $1.2 million contract from Virtus Roma. Carr is six inches shorter than Jennings, two years younger, and is a borderline top 50 prospect. Jeremy Tyler got even less when he went to Israel, signing just a $140,000 contract after his junior season. I won't go as far as Jonathon Givony of Draft Express -- who questioned the intelligence in giving Carr $750,000, an amount made by a select few number of players in Europe, when he could be signed for much less and called "major BS" on the whole story -- but I remain skeptical about the whole situation.

This opens up the door for the debate about student-athletes being paid -- or at least capitalizing on their market value through sponsorships -- but I have neither the desire nor the energy to open that Pandora's Box this afternoon.

What I will say, however, is that Carr, assuming that this offer actually does exist, would be a fool not to accept it.

Carr is already old for his class. At 5'6", there is already concern that his size will prevent him from playing at the high-major level, let alone in the NBA. $750,000 is a lot of money. I value an education as much as anyone, but it is also true that Carr may never have this much value as a basketball player ever again. There is a reason that guys like Earl Boykins, Muggsy Bogues, and Spud Webb aren't the norm in the NBA. And there are ways to get a high school and college degree later on in life.

That $750,000 is not a life-changing amount of money. But it may be more than Carr will be able to make six years down the road when he is a college graduate.