Derik Queen, holding a basketball firmly between his fingertips, squared up the Hall of Famer in front of him, a legend from West Baltimore and unofficial king of New York who is considered one of the 75 best basketball players to graze this earth. That didn’t scare Queen.
“Melo, you got to get a hand up.”
Queen was in New York City visiting NBA trainer Chris Brickley’s high-rise gym along the Hudson River in Manhattan for a weekend. This was August 2021. Queen, not yet a high school upperclassman, showed some gall.
Carmelo Anthony, who was hosting Queen for the weekend, cocked his head. “You gon’ tell me how to play defense?”
The high schooler laughed, “You don’t play no defense.”
Before Queen blossomed into a consensus five-star recruit worthy of playing in the McDonald’s All American Game, before hitting a shot that will make him a fixture of NCAA Tournament highlight reels for eternity, before experts predicted he’d be a lottery pick during Wednesday night’s NBA draft, he was just a Baltimore kid oozing with unapologetic confidence.
“That’s just who DQ is,” Team Melo program director Sam Brand said. “He’s so confident.”
Baltimore has long known that side of Queen. He was head and shoulders better (and taller) than his middle school counterparts. That’s when chatter started about a 6-foot-7 kid from the Belair-Edison neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore being the city’s next big thing. Queen tore through local competition as a freshman at St. Frances. Mention that season, and most cite his 56-point outburst against Annapolis Area Christian School. Everyone thinks of him as a hometown hero, Queen’s mom, Lisa Anderson said. “He’s the city’s nephew.”
The rest of the country received a proper introduction in March, when hometown heroes become immortalized. A city’s nephew becomes a country’s darling. For Queen, that was during the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32, his fiery Maryland team against a motley Colorado State crew dripping with Cinderella potential.
The Terps were down one with 3.7 seconds left. Coach Kevin Willard called a timeout.
He asked the five guys in front of him — three upperclassmen, a third-year sophomore and a true freshman — who felt most confident taking the do-or-die shot? Who could meet the moment of a season on the brink? The kid with the least experience declared, “I want the MF ball.”
‘I will not let him fail’
The first basketball Queen called his own was a gift. Anderson had a hard time placing who it might have been from — a family friend, she guessed. Her son’s birthday is two days after Christmas, meaning it was either wrapped under the tree or packaged to celebrate his turning 5. But that slightly frayed outdoor ball was the starting marker of Queen’s journey.
He dribbled that thing from the living room to the kitchen to the driveway. So much so that Anderson joked she could hear thud, thud even when her son wasn’t home.
The park closest to their house was overrun by elementary-school-aged kids. Queen, an elementary schooler at the time, preferred to play at Goldilocks, another neighborhood court five blocks away. If he wasn’t home, Anderson always knew she’d find her son with his ball and his bike at Goldilocks, where the older kids hung out.
“What I will say about the older kids,” Anderson said, “I don’t think they were there for basketball. I’m almost certain they weren’t there for basketball.”
Queen’s life could have slipped down a much darker path. But a local coach nicknamed Taha noticed a gangly, tall-for-his-age 7-year-old and invited him to play for the AAU program Banneker Kings. Taha then introduced Queen to Woody Gunter and Donnell “Mookie” Dobbins, from Team Thrill. Gunter handled the AAU program’s younger age group before graduating Queen to work closely with Dobbins by seventh grade.
Even then, there was something unique about the way Queen played basketball.
Most middle schoolers want to push the tempo and speed past defenders. Part of any normal kid’s development is learning how and when to use the brake pedal. Queen was the inverse. He’d pull the ball off the rim and keep it clutched above his head. He was patient. “He’s always played slower,” Dobbins said, “but he always processed information fast, even at a young age.”
“They say when you get older, the game slows down for you,” Brand said. “It’s always been slow for him. It seems like he’s always had a great grasp of how to play.”
One season at St. Frances was enough evidence that Queen could leave home for the highest level of development that would point him toward the NBA. Leaving Baltimore for Florida wasn’t easy, but Queen knew it was the right thing for him. Dobbins felt the same way.
Mom, however, needed some convincing. So, Montverde Academy’s staff put on the full-court press.
“They bombarded my house,” Anderson said. “They did Zoom meetings. I visited the school. They were trying to convince me. But it was not convincing to send my 16-year-old son all the way to Florida.”
Queen begged and begged. They had a deadline to decide by. Anderson waited until the day before to sign the papers. Her son’s pleading helped sway her somewhat. She knew what it could mean for his basketball future. That didn’t make it any easier to send her baby 900 miles south.
One Montverde assistant coach called for one final plea. “I promise you,” he told Anderson, “that I will not let him fail. I promise you.”
Three years later, Queen helped guide Montverde to a 33-0 season capped by a national championship. College basketball’s top programs were blowing up his phone. But that team was loaded. Four of their starting five are projected top-20 picks in this year’s draft class, including the likely No. 1 overall selection, Cooper Flagg.
Part of Queen’s developmental success was a byproduct of sacrifice (he still averaged 16.7 points and 7.8 rebounds). Any college recruitment conversation started with a few pertinent questions: Can he showcase his ball skills? Showcase his passing? Showcase himself on a team with March Madness aspirations as a point-forward who can initiate offense with the ball in his hands?
They weren’t telling Maryland how to play. Rather, making sure the Terps’ staff felt comfortable allowing Queen to facilitate even if there were guards on the floor, or allow him to switch defensively to prove he can keep up with crafty guards.
“The ability for him to be who he truly is,” Dobbins said, “that was important for him.”
He’s from Baltimore
The year before Queen arrived on campus, Maryland slogged through a 16-17 campaign. Schools such as Indiana, Houston and Kansas had more money to offer and a more concrete promise of one-and-done success. Maryland’s sales pitch focused on Queen’s loyalty, Willard’s restructured recruiting approach rooted in postseason aspirations and a canvas for which Queen’s talents could paint himself an NBA-ready prospect.
On a day that otherwise felt innocuous to Anderson, she got a text from her son. Queen put Dobbins and his mom in a group chat together. “I’m going to Maryland,” he wrote.
“If you rockin’, I’m rollin’,” Anderson texted back, giggling through the retelling.
What followed was uncommon favor for a high school senior’s college decision. This homecoming wasn’t a waft of excitement for what the industry terms a “good get.” This was a powerful gust of wind that lifted the fan base.
Queen was going to be Maryland’s savior. It’s not so easy to clear that bar.
Willard didn’t do anything to quell the fan base’s excitement. At the team’s media day, days before the start of the season, he stood at the podium in a two-piece suit like a worthy politician touting his newest addition, “the best young player in the country in Derik Queen.”
Before the start of last season, The Baltimore Sun asked associate coach David Cox how the staff speaks with Queen about managing lofty forecasts. In so many words, Cox said he’d be fine because he’s from Baltimore. “This is nothing,” Cox said. “This is just an opportunity. He sees it differently.”
Queen walked into his freshman season confidently, comfortable in his own skin, as he’s always been, thrashing Manhattan for 22 points and 20 rebounds. That made him the first Division I player to post a 20-20 game in his freshman debut since 2007. He lived up to the hype from there. As ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt put it by season’s end, “it was bananas.” Queen, one-fifth of the aptly nicknamed “Crab Five,” averaged 16.5 points while shooting 52.6% from the floor with 9.0 rebounds. He was named the Big Ten Freshman of the Year.
When a moment presented itself on the largest stage, a chance at returning Maryland to the Sweet 16 for the first time in nine years, Queen was ready. He wanted the ball.
The clock read 3.7 seconds. Queen caught the inbounds pass at the top of the key and spun to the left. He dribbled twice and planted his right foot, rising into a leaner that kissed off the glass worthy of a byline in the history books.
Anderson was sitting behind the bench. Not close enough to hear her son’s expletive-laden confidence, but with a clean view of the shot. “My mouth dropped and I was like, ‘That’s my son!’” Dobbins leapt from his seat, too. That was a situation he’d drilled with Queen over and over. “It definitely wasn’t foreign to him,” Dobbins said. It’s a move fellow trainer Jamaal Haywood tends to rep with guards — or bigs like Queen, “if they’re agile enough.”
When the ball fell through the net, Queen let out a full-throated roar. The mouthguard between his lips hung on for dear life. It was a moment of vindication. For him, but maybe more so for his city.
Sideline reporter Andy Katz grabbed Queen for a postgame interview. How does a freshman, Katz wondered, have the confidence to demand the ball and make it count? Queen smiled and said, “I’m from Baltimore.”
Lottery balls
Through the first half of Maryland’s season, Brand received more than a few unwelcome texts. He’s in a group chat with coaches around the country who were questioning how Queen translates to the next level. They’d compare him with Drew Timme, who had an excellent four-year college career at Gonzaga then went undrafted and has played nine NBA games in two seasons.
Brand refrained from typing his way into a sparring match. Instead, he sent pictures of lottery balls, a reference to Queen’s projected draft positioning.
How experts think Derik Queen’s ‘unique’ game will translate to the NBA
There are certainly question marks about his game. Queen is no sure thing. Concerns about his defensive capabilities and athleticism have some experts wary. Talk to local basketball luminaries, and it’s evident in the way they go to bat for the city’s nephew. They’ll argue that the right developmental team will get him over the hump; he already has all the intangibles of a nifty forward comfortable with the ball in his hands because of A-plus footwork. That’s why some call him “Black Baby Jokic.”
Sean Brunson, founder of the Brunson League summer Pro-Am, first watched Queen play as a high schooler and thought, this kid can barely jump over a piece of paper but “he controls every aspect of the game. He can do what he wants and you can’t stop him when he’s locked in.”
The same kid who threw barbs at a Hall of Famer twice his age, bet on himself to leave home for three years of high school, came home, demanded the ball in the biggest moment of the Terps’ season, then proceeded to hit the shot, is now on the front porch of the NBA. Whether he shoves that screen door open remains to be seen. No matter how this next phase of his career unfurls, he’ll still strut out there unapologetically confident.
That’s ’cause he’s from Baltimore.
Have a news tip? Contact Sam Cohn at scohn@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/samdcohn.
