http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/06/25/tyreke-evans-red-flag-a-cousins-murder-plea/ Tyreke Evans' Red Flag: A Cousin's Murder Plea Posted Jun 25, 2009 2:33PM By Tom Ziller On Tuesday, 18-year-old Pennsylvanian Jamar Evans was sentenced nine-to-20 years in prison for the drive-by shooting murder of 19-year-old Marcus Reason. Today, Evans' cousin -- Memphis stand-out Tyreke Evans -- will be made a lottery pick in the NBA Draft. As we know all too well, many professional athletes have relatives who commit heinous crimes. This almost always says nothing about the athletes. But there's a twist in this case, one which doesn't implicate Tyreke but pops your eyes wide open: when Jamar Evans shot and killed Reason, Tyreke Evans was his driver. The Delaware County Daily Times (via Canis Hoopus) reports that Tyreke Evans was never charged in connection with the murder. The prospect was expected to testify on behalf of his cousin, the Times reports, but never did before Jamar Evans pled guilty. A relative of Reason told the Times he felt Tyreke should have been charged with accessory to murder. Tyreke's whole connection to the incident was reported in 2007, when Evans was a stud high school player in Pennsylvania. But little mention of the murder has come up since, and it's not clear teams have been paying particular attention to Evans' pre-Memphis past. At the very least, teams desperately try to spin every little character or medical issue to deflate the stock of players they'd like to draft. It's shocking that this sentencing hasn't come up in a rumors column. Will Tyreke's connection to the Reason murder pop up tonight like Darrell Arthur's supposed heart condition did last June, at the absolute last minute? Will Evans slip because teams have done background checks and attached private red flags? It's worth watching. If nothing else, don't be surprised when this subject pops up on ESPN this evening.
Tyreke has been "my pick" throughout this whole draft process. I really hope this doesnt give him a red flag. Craziness.
You can't compare this to the Arthur thing. Teams found out about Arthur's heart problems during the workout. Teams knew about Evan's situation before the College season even started. Now I read a few stories on this incident and from an eye witness story he says that Tyreke Evans left the house to get the car so he could pull up and pick his cousins up in the front of the house. The witness then said that one of the cousins pulled up his shirt to flash his gun at the guy that was killed. I hope this was not a planned attack but we will never know.
Tyreke had nothing to do with it according to his story. His cousin was charged with 3rd degree murder. The story that Evans and his cousin told was that Marcus Reasons(the guy that got killed), ran towards the car with a gun, so they yelled telling Tyreke he has a gun. So Tyreke drove off but his little cousin Jamar Evans shot and killed Reasons. Tyreke looked over and saw Jamar put the handgun in his pocket.
Unrelated, I just want to mention that although he's allegedly a PG, he is only the 2nd best ball-hanlder in the family at the NBA level.
