Police have arrested a man on a murder charge in the November shooting death of a rising South Florida teen basketball prodigy.
Xavier Trueblood Braggs, 20, is facing a second-degree murder charge in the Nov. 12 shooting of 18-year-old Malcolm Nicholas III, according to an arrest report.
Nicholas was in the area of Northwest 5th Avenue and 17th Street in Overtown when he was shot and killed while walking to his grandmother's house from a nearby basketball court. The arrest report said Braggs was in the area at the time of the shooting and was later identified by a witness as the man who shot Nicholas.
Nicholas played at Miami High and Mater Academy in Miami, and was taking a postgraduate year in Tennessee to raise his profile with college recruiters. The promising 6-foot-5 guard was being pursued by numerous colleges.
Miami Heat captain Udonis Haslem considered himself a mentor to Nicholas and was distraught after his death.
"Some kids get in trouble and put themselves in bad situations, but this was a really good kid," Haslem said shortly after the shooting. "A really good kid. It's sad, man. It's sad. He was on his way out of here. He was going to go play ball. I think he was going to Eastern Michigan next year."
Police haven't said if Nicholas was the intended target of the shooting, and the arrest report didn't list a possible motive.
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"We all loved him, he loved everyone. He didn’t deserve this," mother Candice Dean said last month.
Braggs was being held without bond Monday, jail records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.
