Can DJ Carton get Minutes this Season?
Shortly before tip-off at the open practice at McGill, Carton snapped off a 360 dunk that sent a wave of awe and wonder through the crowd. At the end of the scrimmage (that Carton’s team won) he went through the legs to cap off the night for the fans, before throwing a fistful of t-shirts into the crowd.
All three of the guards competing for time at the backup slot are quick & twitchy. Carton is the only one who explodes upwards into the air to display acrobatics on occasion, though. He’s also, if you consider the G-League a decent level of play, the most accomplished shooter of the bunch (43-percent from downtown on 5 attempts a game for the Iowa Wolves). Bouncy point guards who shoot the leather off the ball are very popular in the NBA. At the G-League level, Carton scored about 50-percent of his buckets at the rim. He is rapid, can knife into the lane against G or NBA level defenders, and he can create events for the offense.
He only shot 35-percent from the field in the preseason (1-7 from downtown), and he did struggle to finish possessions off, but he still managed to get downhill frequently and touch two feet into the paint – it’s why he was the one shooting free throws at the end of two close games.
“Really, that’s just sharpening things everyday (improving the shooting). It’s getting in here early. That confidence comes from many reps day in and day out. That extra work has been able to show through my percentages improving over the years.” Carton told me. “But really, it’s about being confident and comfortable on the court. You can get all the jumpers you want up in the gym, but if you’re not going game speed in here and you’re not trying to make sure it translates to the game, then all this work isn’t gonna matter. It’s about continuing to sharpen what I know, and continuing to dabble in the areas that I know I’m weak in.”
When considering defense, and this is a huge consideration on this Raptors team, Carton is behind Mitchell, and if I have any chops at projecting Shead’s defense, behind Shead as well. That doesn’t mean he’s bad, though. Because again, Shead’s defense at Houston was borderline prodigious and Mitchell is one of the best in the league. Carton’s ball pressure defense was actually pretty damn good in preseason. He is at his best when it comes to ball pressure and at his worst when it comes to affecting change off the ball. Some of this can, of course, be chalked up to extended G-League play, where guards and bigs are constantly changing and scheme and buy-in are fluid. That’s a reason why the off-ball stuff could get better quickly, but it’s not a guarantee of anything.
The concern for Carton, is whether or not he’ll get caught in the awkward position that Javon Freeman-Liberty found himself in: scoring well enough to justify a leap to the NBA and a look from teams, but lagging behind a bit too far in playmaking and on defense.
I was of the opinion last year that Carton was a better prospect than Freeman-Liberty and I still think that’s the case, but the Raptors are looking for more adaptability from him, the same way they looked for that from Freeman-Liberty. If you’re an undersized guard — even if you can get downhill and score at an okay level — your route to success requires some unbelievable table-setting (think of Monte Morris), or you have to be an absolute burner from downtown (think Bryn Forbes). While Carton’s most recent stretch in the G-League was unbelievable — seriously, 43-percent from downtown and 73-percent true-shooting is absurd — it’s not a huge sample size. Appealing to my eye test, I think it’s likely that Carton is the best shooter of the Raptors backup guard group, but I’d be relatively surprised to see him approach 40-percent on a healthy volume.
As for the point guarding — and some of this can be chalked up to the clumsiness of camp and preseason — Carton looked like he was missing on some of the finer details. It’s hard for a two-way player to come in and command a bunch of NBA players, but Carton consistently had some miscues, timing problems during sets, and required some backseat driving from Coach Darko. With that said, this stuff is a lot easier to sort out if Carton eventually gets the nod as backup and gets buy-in from more of his teammates. If Carton can make more reads out of the pick n’ roll — find the roller more often, see both corners, identify help earlier — and shoot the leather off the ball, and continue giving a **** on defense, a lot of his struggles become something he gets to iron out over a real NBA career.
With all that said, Davion Mitchell & Jamal Shead both outplayed Carton in the preseason. While it seems like Carton is the best player among the two-way players (some might think it’s Jamison Battle), the Raptors, with Immanuel Quickley, Gradey Dick, Ja’Kobe Walter, Mitchell and Shead – well, it’s a tough route to minutes. We’ll see how this all shakes out, though.
Have a blessed day.
The post Can DJ Carton get Minutes this Season? first appeared on Raptors Republic.