Analyzing Devin Carter's Fit with the Charlotte Hornets

Matt Alquiza | Jun 25, 2024

Much like Dalton Knecht, Devin Carter had a winding road to college superstardom. Carter was a four-star prospect according to 24/7 Sports, and he committed to the University of South Carolina out of high school. Carter headed north to Columbia, South Carolina from Miami, where his dad, former NBA player Anthony Carter, was on the Heat’s coaching staff. 

The younger Carter averaged nine points and three boards in his one season as a Gamecock before transferring to Providence College. His first season at Providence was nothing special, but he took off like a rocket in his second term as a Friar. 

He averaged a shade under 20 points, nine rebounds, four assists, and two steals per game on his way to winning Big East Player of the Year. 

Carter’s game screams Big East. The conference was built on elite big men, and tough, hard-nosed, do-it-all guards, which describes Carter to a tee. On the conference’s biggest stage, the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden, Carter shined. He averaged 22.6 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and two steals per game in three tournament contests. When the lights shined bright, Carter stepped up. The Big East tournament was his last chance to wow scouts in competitive basketball games, but Carter’s stock has continued to rise in the pre-draft process.

Scouts have hailed Carters’s competitiveness in workouts. Every podcast, article, or TV hit that has discussed Devin Carter has spoken about how he’s destroying everybody he has worked out against. The pre-draft buzz for Carter is as good as I can remember for a prospect in some time. His personality screams “I recite the names of every player drafted before me during pre-game warmups to remind myself that people doubted me,” and that’s a player worth gambling on in my opinion. Let’s take a look at Carter’s game and how it matches his personality.

Offensive Strengths:

Carter can do a little bit of everything on the offensive end. With the ball in his hands, he’s a solid playmaker. When attacking the rim, Carter shows great patience. In Providence's Big East Tournament quarterfinal win against Creighton, Carter was never in a hurry. Whether it was attacking off a live dribble, receiving the ball off a screen, or flying through a dribble hand-off, Carter touched the paint over-and-over again against the Blue Jays.

Creighton planted Ryan Kalkbrenner in the paint, one of the country's most fearsome rim-protectors. Most guards with Carter's build would struggle attacking a center of Kalkbrenner's size, but the Providence guard had no problems. He'd throw a pass fake, bait a defender, and find an open teammate for a layup. He'd pump fake his defender and finish through contact. He's barrell into Kalkbrenner with a head of steam and finish around him. When Carter touches the paint, good things happen. He's the perfect mix of patient and decisive with the ball in his hands; the kind of player teammates love to have on the floor.

His floor game makes him a solid prospect, but if he continues to improve as a shooter, he'll quickly become a long-term starter. It's a bit of a blip compared to his past shooting splits, but Carter shot 37.7% from deep as a junior. He flashed the ability to shoot equally well on pull-ups jumpers, and catch-and-shoot jumpers in his junior season. There are questions about his form (more on that below), but overall, his jumper is a plus as it stands.

The overall theme for Carter's game and personality is tougness. He'll do whatever it takes to win basketball games, and he's malleable enough to fit on any NBA offense. He's a strong cutter, solid finisher, above-average playmaker, and good-enough shooter as it stands. A true jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none kind of prospect.

Known as one of the most versatile and impactful defenders in college basketball, Devin Carter made significant offensive improvement this season. He became a prolific 3-point shooter while shouldering significant shot-creation duties for Providence, emerging as an All-American. https://t.co/18KeuMQJin pic.twitter.com/uB0GAPuktj

— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) April 3, 2024

Offensive Weaknesses:

There aren't many, but they come down to age and shooting form.

Carter will be 22-years-old when his rookie season tips off. He's not ancient by any means, but if Dalton Knecht's age is a red flag, Carter's needs to be brought up as well. Any time a prospect breaks out in college as a 21-year-old, it bears questioning. Are they winning in college because they're a good basketball prospect, or beacuse they're three years more mature than some of their peers?

It was stated earlier, but Carter's three-point shooting drastically improved in his junior season. However, his form leaves much to be desired. Carter's release is low and slow. Three good words when you're talking about smoking a rack of ribs, but not when you're talking about a prospect's jumper. He doesn't boast elite size (Carter stands at 6'3"), and that combined with his poor shooting form make him susceptible to contests from longer wing defenders.

Defense:

Like I did with Dalton Knecht, I'm going to take a holistic look at Carter's defense. Unlike Knecht, it's mostly because Carter's defense is solid across the board and weaknesses are hard to come by.

As an on-ball defender, Carter is going to get in the shorts of opposing ball handlers. He has a strong defensive stance, elite lateral agility, and a basketball IQ that borders on telepathic when mirroring opposing creators. His near 6'9" wingspan allows him to guard offensive players across multiple positions. His potential when it comes to point of attack defense is through the roof.

Off the ball, Carter uses his high basketball IQ to both jump passing lanes and protect the rim on the weak side. He gives off true Derrick White vibes with his turnover-forcing and rim-protecting ability at his size. White blew up the Dallas Mavericks offense on multiple occasions with his length at the rim. In transition and in half-court sets, Carter can mimic that and impact offensive possessions even when his man mark doesn't have the ball.

The most impressive part of Carter's game is his defensive rebounding skill. He has a nose for the ball (again, that basketball IQ showing up) and a desire to pull down every board. Josh Hart's impact as a rebounding guard carried the Knicks on the glass for stretches, and Carter will have the ability to do the same.

Fit with the Hornets:

If it were up to me, Devin Carter would be the Hornets' selection at number six. Everything he does would fit in well ancillary piece with LaMelo Ball, Brandon Miller, and Mark Williams. He doesn't need the ball in his hands to be effective, he defends well, and he projects to be a culture-changer with his work-ethic and on-court doggedness.

I am a huge fan of Carter and all that he brings to an NBA team, age be damned. Charles Lee saw first hand the impact a solid, defense-first, true, do-it-all guard can bring to a team first hand. The top-end projection for Devin Carter is somewhere between Jrue Holiday and Derrick White, the starting back court of the NBA champion Boston Celtics, Lee's former team.

Maybe more importantly that anything that has to do with his on-court skill, is that his dad played in the league. Yahoo's Tom Haberstroh recently penned an article naming the son's of NBA players "nepo-ballers," and it turns out that second generation NBA players have a leg up on their peers. Check out the table below from Haberstroh's article.

Carter has the goods, the desire, and the genes to become a good, if not great, NBA player. His profile is one worth betting on, and if I were Charlotte, I'd go all-in on Devin Carter.