What’s the Sacramento Kings’ Plan For Guard Devin Carter

What’s the Sacramento Kings’ Plan For Guard Devin Carter

Let’s start with Devin Carter. Devin Carter for me during the summer league and we saw it kind of magnified a little bit in this in this game yesterday. Made it perfectly clear that he’s just not a point guard. Like that’s not who he is. He tried it. He did his best to work on being a point guard and work on on point guard skills and all this other stuff. and the mentality. He tried it. The Kings tried it. They wanted to see it. That’s what summer league and stuff like that is for. Let’s see what we got. Let’s see if he can how he can do in these situations. And it’s just not I I don’t believe right now that that’s who he is. He’s not a point guard. So now you got questions because I still think he’s an NBA player. I still look at him as an NBA player. I still think he’s a guy that can get minutes in this league. He’s not a starter, but you know, rotational minutes off the bench. Well, okay. What is he? He’s 6’2, man. He’s 6’2 and he doesn’t really have natural point guard skills. Mhm. He’s not able to beat people off the bounce. His shooting is hit or miss. He’s uh pretty good defender. Like, what we what are we doing here with with Carter? I that was my same feeling though because of just the at spurts and times it looks kind of wild and this is people say it often like just not sure what like that college style of play maybe he had been successful at that was him this doesn’t work out here I was talking go ahead I was talking to Damian about this last week now I can talk with you guys or whatever but like you just said it Casey like Deon’s not a point guard like we learned that or whatever he’s not the backup point guard for this team you look at the other guards on this team like Keon Malik that are ahead of him hell even Nick Clifford at this point like you’re probably going to play those guys ahead of him more at this point. What do you even do with Deon Carter? Like what do you like there’s doesn’t seem like there’s really minutes for him. Do you just stash the lottery pick that you drafted last year on the bench and kind of just we called it burning an asset last last week. Do you burn the asset there? Do you throw him in the G- League to get him run or I mean we saw it last year was averaging damn near 40 every game. It felt like like is that really helping him or like what do you do at this point with Devin? Like do you keep trying to develop him or like Yeah. What do you just do? All the above. Everything’s on the table. If you look at Devin Carter, you say like you just broke down, he’s not better than any of these guys that are on the on the This is year two for him, right? This is year two. He’s not better than any of these guys on the on the roster ahead of him. He might be the MPCD for 20 straight games. Damn. If you have those options, and we’ll talk to James Ham at three o’clock and maybe he could break this down a little bit what this look looks like. If you have those u those options and that ability to send them down to the G-League and let him play, let him get reps, let him still work on some stuff, that could be an option as well. If you absolutely just want to move on from him and you put him in a trade for Kaminga or I don’t know, I think you would hang on to him just because maybe there’s a bigger deal that maybe you can include him and you wouldn’t just give him away for a second rounder just to get him off the the the roster. You probably hold on to him. Yeah. So just in case an opportunity for a bigger deal comes up, you use him in that. But yeah, he might be one of those guys that Yeah, we’re just using him as trade bait. But is he trade bait? I don’t know. I I I don’t know. Oh, we’re throwing Deon Carter. Uh, okay. Yeah, I need something else. Like, what’s what’s the value in him right now? I don’t think he has much now. Now, look, I at this point, do you look at a is there even a team with a rookie that maybe they’re kind of soured on to or maybe you can swap? Yeah. Just, hey, this dude’s not working on your team. This guy’s not working on our team. Let’s see if we can fix him. You can fix him. I don’t even know if that team exists, but I figure maybe that’s an option. I guess I’d have to I’d have to look at the at these recent drafts and maybe maybe that is something that that is on the table. Um I don’t I’m not sure just yet if Devin Carter doesn’t have a place in this league or if he doesn’t have a place with the Kings. Well, I will say that because I would like to start with that because given his style of play or somebody’s willing to accept him being a two guard or offguard situation where he can try to he can shoot like in some of the shots last night I was just like but so they have to accept his let him play into a role where he’s comfortable. He wants to try to score. he he’s going to give you the effort on defense so you don’t have to worry about that. But in a team where okay, hey man, you you have opportunity to score and and be aggressive how you want to be. Is that out there for him? That’d be the great question. If so, then that would a team that we could trade with somebody. Okay. Well, like Jesse said, we’ll take your piece because you guys got we got a guy that wants to try to score at this size. We’re not able to do that. You can take him. We’ll take something else. Perfect. Because I still still think he deserves a shot, but the style of he is just not going to fit as far as what I believe what we’re doing here. And he’s just smaller. Yeah. And and and that’s the that’s the thing. That’s the that’s the issue. He is an NBA player. I do believe he’s a guy that can play in the NBA, but in this situation with the Kings, it doesn’t feel like it’s going to work out. And I’m willing to just not play him. Like I know we talk about um or I should say not play him over these guys that are on the roster in front of him whether it’s Malik, Keon, Nick like because he would be like the eighth, ninth off the bench maybe. Yeah. Off the bench. I mean you’re looking at just the wings and the guards. You’re looking at Malik Monk, Keon Ellis, and Nick Clifford. He’s at least ninth right now. Yeah. Yeah. Like that that and that’s just the guards. not saying um hey Maxine Renol is going to play or um or uh Eubanks is going to play or anything like that like guys at other positions that might come off the bench all this other stuff and Jones gonna make it tough for somebody I believe well there’s only so many minutes too for the ninth and the tenth guy right right like even with all the like we’re talking about guys that could sub in D Rozan and Lavine and Shruder they’re going to probably played 30 plus minutes a night. Like there’s just not enough minutes in a game for him to play. And if it got down to a situation where, you know, he he’s getting these DMPS, so be it. Like I’m not going I’m not going to just play him just cuz it’s like, oh, we have to play him because he was a high draft pick and all this other stuff. I’m not I’m not doing that. Not at this point either. I would agree too. You got to you got to lay a better foundation. He got caught in the last dra draft kind of situation wise. So the fit you can it’s not a it’s not a great fit off the rip like you said. You see Nick coming in you’re like okay yeah I see him fitting. You see M okay I see him fitting. Carter like oh just even Isaac Jones like man again stretch floor the floor floor out shoot the ball rebound defend okay. You just don’t I mean Carter is that one that question mark like but does he help or does he hurt you? Go ahead. Well how much of it with Deon is just maybe we just need to accept who he is the guy. that, but also the guy who drafted him. Like it just like it just was never going to work. The second he was drafted last year, me and Casey looked at each other like, “Okay, like that’s not necessarily what you need or whatever.” Like the second he was drafted, it was clear this doesn’t make any sense. This doesn’t work. And we’ve been talking about it since then and we have no answer. How much of it is just all right, yeah, this is it’s literally just Yeah. just didn’t work out. Yeah. Maybe you got to move on and attach something to him. Like I don’t know if there’s a happy ending here. And and here’s the thing, and I’m I’m just we’re just talking about it, bringing up old stuff, all this other stuff. You ask about where he could go and what he could do. I’m of the belief, like I think we all are here, he’s an NBA player. He’s a guy that in a right situation, he can help out a team and be in the rotation. If you have that alleged or however you want to say it original deal with Kaminga and the Warriors and them getting Devin Carter, Devin Carter can be like a GP2 in this league. He can be a guy that you bring off the bench that plays hellacious defense that in certain matchups with um with with Pods or Steph or whoever is the lead guard out there, you say, “Devin, go out there, spot up, play your role, play defense, play give me give me, you know, seven minutes of of of hustle, hard-nosed basketball.” He can do that. I think that’s his I think that’s his destiny in this league and that’s vital. Like teams need that. like he can be what we look at. Keon shoots it a little better and he handles it a little better as well, but he can be like a Keon Ellis type player uh for Golden State or other teams like that. I just don’t know if it’s going to happen here outside of energy. Yeah, man. Injuries. Somebody in the chat was talking about just right. Um but if his style he wants to score like any team if he Golden State I mean yeah we talked about GP three but it’s like uh like you know a lot of people a lot of people say that about about Devin. I won’t necessarily put that type of label on Devin after this summer league because that was his role to score. like the the the Kings in summer league weren’t gonna win if he was just distributing the ball around like he needed and they’re trying they’re trying a little uber aggressive or he has opportunity to get more shots up so he took them. Yeah, absolutely. And and that’s what they need. They were trying to win games like the the actual team. I’m not saying the organization really cared about winning games, but the team was trying to win games out there in summer league. So to do that, he had to put up shots and I think that’s where some of the offensive aggression came from from him. you get him in a situation with the Kings or any other team where he’s just Well, no, your role isn’t to score. Your role is to defend, knock down open shots when you get him and all this other stuff. I’m not going to say and I’m not saying you were saying this, but I’m not going to say he won’t be accepting of that, right? And he’s only looking to score like he he might be accepting of this this situation this summer called for him to be more aggressive on the offensive end. He’s about 63. He’s 6’2. Okay. I was being generous. I saw him in person last summer. He came by the gym too and I was like, man, this guy’s So, but I think that’s probably the biggest issue. He’s not super athletic at 6’2. If he was 6’4 playing this that style, yeah, he’d be on the floor. And that’s that’s what I said. I don’t I think that’s the biggest thing. He’s just if he was if he was about 6’4 6’5 doing defensively, rebounding and attacking the rim like that 6’4 cuz those those finishings are different then. He he’ll dunk it right now if he gets open, but I mean if he’s 6’4 65 doing that, it looks totally different. Absolutely. Then you’re like, “Okay.” Yeah. Now we’re like, “Oh, put him on the

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