Inside NYC hoops star’s fall from on-court hero to being accused of shoving cop onto subway tracks: ‘It just got dark’

A homeless maniac charged with shoving an off-duty NYPD cop onto Manhattan subway tracks was once a standout Big Apple high school hoopster — until his life went off the rails.

Aaron Walker, Jr., 28, was on his way to a promising basketball career at Cardozo High School and a freshman start at Manhattan College until he disappeared into the streets — and now has 18 busts on his rap sheet and an attempted murder charges in the cop-shoving incident, The Post has learned.

It’s a tragic fall for a young star once nicknamed “Skywalker” for his hardwood prowess.

“Aaron was known for getting in the lane and throwing down some crazy dunks, which gave the team and the gym crazy energy boosts,” former Cardozo teammate Rashond Salnave told The Post.

“We were one of the better teams in the city and whenever we played, for the most part, we put on shows,” Salnave said. “He came the following year after I won the city championship during a bit of a rebuilding time with the team, and [he] was definitely a key part in making that trip back.”

In a 2016 interview, Walker, a 6-foot-1 point guard, told The Post about his struggles to stay focused on his game following his mother’s death when he was just 9-years old.

“I started thinking, ‘What was I really doing this for,’” the Brooklyn hoopster said.

It was his mother’s memory and a photo with his mom that motivated him.

“This is it,” Walker said. “I made it the wallpaper on my phone. I pinned it on Twitter. Whenever I’m feeling down about anything, I look at the picture. It just keeps me going.

“I know she wouldn’t want me quitting on myself,” he said. “She believed in me.”

As a freshman standout at Manhattan College in the Bronx, Walker averaged 8.9 points per game — and turned it up during his final four games, averaging 15.8 points over that span.

But then things went horribly wrong, and he mysteriously disappeared before his sophomore year. He never played again.

“I believe that when he entered college he got hooked on drugs and alcohol,” his father, Aaron Walker, Sr., said Tuesday. “And that had the major impact on him. That was that 180.

“It’s tough,” he said. “I think he was fine in high school, but when he went to college, it just got dark.”

Walker already had four open assault and theft cases in Manhattan and Brooklyn when police said he attacked the 24-year-old cop at an East Village subway station on Sept. 23.

On Sept. 17, he was charged with stealing clothes from a Target store in Tribeca.

Police have also charged him with assault in the Sept. 13 alleged assault on a 22-year-old straphanger on a C train at the Fulton Street and Kingston Avenue station in Brooklyn on Sept. 13.

On Aug. 29, he was arrested for allegedly stealing merchandise from a Barnes & Noble outlet near Union Square, and was also picked up on charges that he stole $300 worth of vinyl records from another Barnes & Noble in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn on July 23.

Walker was convicted of grand larceny for stealing $5,000 worth of items from Saks Fifth Avenue in May 2024, and was charged with trespassing in Manhattan in December 2022, according to sources.

Now, following his East Village subway shove bust, he’s being held without bail at Rikers Island and is due back in Manhattan court on Oct. 15, records show.