In Nurideen Lindsey's West Philadelphia neighborhood, he walked past the haunting reminders of violence every day. Teddy bears, candles and murals etched into sidewalks marked the sites of young lives lost. Lindsey was a basketball star at Overbrook High School, scoring at such a furious pace that he threatened Wilt Chamberlain's records. After scoring at will on the New York City phenom Lance Stephenson in a showcase game, Lindsey earned the nickname Too Easy. But Lindsey, 20, said laziness, academic apathy and homesickness derailed his career, as he bailed out of a Connecticut prep school in the fall of 2008 and appeared destined to become another inner-city cautionary tale. Then the death of his best friend, Kevin Leland, from cancer and the 2009 murder of his younger brother, Halim -- five years after his older brother was murdered -- forced Lindsey to leave Philadelphia and jump-start his life. After a two-year hiatus from organized basketball, Lindsey is here at Redlands Community College and has emerged as potentially a top St. John's recruit, as he calls the Red Storm 'definitely my top school.' But Lindsey acknowledged that it took great personal loss for him to channel his potential and outrace his past. 'I was cocky and arrogant about everything because I was averaging 38 points a game,' Lindsey said. 'And if I played my senior year, I probably would have averaged 50. Honestly, if I didn't go through what I went through, I don't think I would still have this opportunity.' A glance at the plains surrounding remote El Reno shows the backdrop of Lindsey's new life: teddy bears and candles have been replaced by water towers boasting of state titles and signs advertising fried pies. But Lindsey looks daily at two prominent reminders of his past. Tattooed over his right eyebrow are a small heart and Halim's name written in Arabic. Tattooed over his left eyebrow are a crown and the word Fes, the nickname for his older brother Jilani Schenck, who was murdered in 2004. 'If it was anything besides my two brothers' names, I wouldn't have got them there,' he said. 'When I wake up every morning and look in the mirror, I want to look at myself and see that my two brothers are right there with me.' After a pro-am game in April 2009, Lindsey checked his phone to see more than 70 missed calls, and 40 voice mails and 200 text messages. The first voice-mail message was left by an uncle, who said: 'Come to the hospital. Halim got shot.' Lindsey said, 'Hearing that, man, that messed me up.' As he spoke, he wept and wiped the tears away with tattooed fingers. 'Just hearing that voice mail, I didn't know what to do.' Halim Lindsey, who was 16 and had no criminal history, went to a friend's house to use the Internet and never made it inside. He was shot multiple times on the front porch. In a telephone interview, homicide Lt. Philip Riehl of the Philadelphia Police Department said Halim's death was a 'message murder.' Riehl said it was a warning to Lindsey's oldest brother, Jafar Abdul-Mumin, who had been shot weeks before as a passenger in a car whose driver was killed. Riehl said the police believed that Halim was killed in retaliation for robberies in which Abdul-Mumin was involved. Abdul-Mumin disagreed with that characterization. He said he was unfairly cast in a Philadelphia newspaper as having a 'lengthy criminal history,' and the police confirmed his contention. Abdul-Mumin said Halim's death was simply a case of his being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 'I wake up every day knowing I did nothing wrong,' Abdul-Mumin said. They9f.y left Philadelphia soon after Halim's murder. 'We're in a much more comfortable environment; we're not around the violence,' said the boys' mother, Gina Schenck, declining to say where she lived. 'We don't hear the cop cars and sirens.' The move gaver year. Leaving prep school meant that Lindsey, a point guard, would never play at La Salle, to which he gave an oral commitment as a junior, but La Salle coach John Giannini remains one of Lindsey's biggest supporters. On the court, Giannini said, Lindsey, who is 6 feet 3 and 185 pounds, has traces of Allen Iverson's game and mental makeup. 'If you were going to pick one player with toughness and tenacity whose emotions can get the best of him and who has supreme confidence and quickness and the ability to score, that's the best comparison,' Giannini said. As for Lindsey's character, Giannini said that if people looked past his tattoos, they would find someone with the intelligence of an Ivy League philosophy student. 'I just knew that he needed a new life,' Giannini said. 'The life he had was tragic. There was very real danger for him personally in this area. Talent and intelligence, you can tell from sitting down with him, are things he has in abundance. 'But the question was whether someone in that situation could start a new life.' Lindsey, his family and former coaches maintain that he was never in serious trouble. He said his biggest mistake was taking the free pass the teachers at Overbrook gave him because he was a basketball star. 'I wasn't a trouble kid,' he said. 'I don't get in trouble. I'm too cool to get in t?;??0?R?e.' Yet Lindsey moved two or three times a year as a child. His father was in and out of jail, and the family lived without running water at times. Those who know Lindsey marvel at his character and presence despite those drawbacks. 'In a different situation, this is a kid who could do anything in the world he wants,' said Rodney Wescott, Lindsey's youth coach and mentor. 'He could be an actor, writer, commentator or whatever. If you sit and have a conversation with him, it's obvious.' Although Lindsey is still afraid of tornados and has not become accustomed to the prevalence of people in cowboy boots, he has thrived at Redlands. He has a 3.0 average in the classroom and is on track to graduate next summer. He will have three years of athletic eligibility wherever he signs. Redlands coach Yaphett King said that Lindsey might spend too much time shooting baskets in the gym, and that after two years away from the game he needed to regain the intensity to play hard on every possession. 'As far as personality and character, he's rock solid,' King said. Tony Allen was the last junior-college player who went on to a Division I team and became a first-round NBA draft pick, in 2004. Some coaches say Lindsey has the potential to do the same, but King was quick to say, 'He hasn't shot a basketball in two years that counted.' When Lindsey takes the court for Redlands, he will wear No. 10, Halim's number in high school. Halim was a straight-A student who tutored at a local elementary school and had such an impact on the community that the Conestoga Recreation Center in West Philadelphia plans to name a street after him. Although Lindsey said he played for his brother every time he took the court, he also knows that it took the pain of his death to help him get to this point. 'This is something that I wanted to do -- see if I could be a successful person,' he said. 'At the end of the day if basketball doesn't work, and I go to school and I get my degree, I'll feel like I succeeded as a person.' 