‘Chris died in my arms’: NBA star Carlos Boozer on the murder that shaped his life

In an extract from his memoir, the 13-year NBA veteran reveals the childhood tragedy he has kept secret for more than 30 years

I've never told anyone this before, but my best friend died in my arms - and it was all because of basketball. It's a day I've kept tucked away in a corner of my mind for over 30 years, like the carefully folded contents of a weathered trunk, buried behind cobwebs and cardboard boxes in the farthest corner of an attic. Until I started writing this book, I hadn't spoken about what happened to anyone, including my parents and siblings. It's a guarded memory I've only revisited in moments of solitude on my road to the NBA, and I debated dredging up the past when my family has always been about moving forward. Still, what happened changed the course of my life, as well as theirs, and I can't possibly tell my story without it.

When it happened, Chris was seven and I was six. We were two inseparable bundles of energy who lived in neighboring tenement buildings in the crime-ridden Washington DC, projects in the late 1980s. We'd met in kindergarten and our families had become familiar enough to know that where they found one of us, the other was most assuredly there, as well. We walked to school together in the morning and left together each afternoon for the corner bodega, where we shared a $2 turkey, cheese, and mayo hero in thick white deli paper we'd unwrapped barely out of the door. Then, it was off to one of the half dozen courts sprinkled within walking distance of our complex, where we played basketball until dusk warned us to get home.