Brief Biography of NBA Legend Austin Carr and His Career

Austin Carr was born on March 10, 1948 in Washington, D.C. After a successful high school sports career at Holy Redeemer School and Mackin Catholic High School in which he scored over 2000 points for the basketball team, Carr took his basketball skills to the big time college level and decided to play at Notre Dame University. At the time, Notre Dame was known primarily for their football program, but Carr would put their basketball program on the map as well.

Carr would go on to average 41.3 points per game in his NCAA tournament games and set the record for most points in a NCAA tournament game when he exploded for 61 against Ohio State in 1970. He would play three years at Notre Dame for the Irishmen.

Austin Carr was the number one pick in the 1971 NBA Draft and signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was also selected that same year in the ABA Draft by the Virginia Squires but still chose to play in the NBA. Carr would have immediate success at the NBA level with the Cavaliers and would average over 20 points per game for the first three years of his career. This included the 1973-1974 season in which he averaged 21.9 points per game. In the 1974-1975 season Carr would only appear in 41 games and from that point on would endure injury problems. His case was not helped by the fact that he was playing with a Cavaliers team that did not have much talent. Carr would be selected as an NBA All-Star in 1974 but would have to wait until 1976 to play in a playoff game. Carr would stay with the Cavaliers through the 1980 season and then would make the move to the newly formed Dallas Mavericks. Carr played minimal time with the Mavericks and was traded during his first season with the team to the Washington Bullets where he would finish out the season before retiring.

Austin Carr was known for being a crafty guard who scored most of his points on spot up jump shots and fast break layups. He had the green light to shoot throughout his entire time with the Cleveland Cavaliers and took advantage of it. Carr's number 34 has been retired by the Cavaliers.

Carr is currently working for his long time team, the Cavaliers as the Director of Community Relations and also works on the broadcast team for Cav's games.