Miami Heat: 3 huge questions surrounding NBA draft prospect Vernon Carey Jr.

Vernon Carey Jr. #1 of the Duke Blue Devils (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
Vernon Carey Jr. #1 of the Duke Blue Devils (Photo by Jacob Kupferman/Getty Images)
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Miami Heat
Vernon Carey Jr. #1 of the Duke Blue Devils dunks against the North Carolina Tar Heels (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

Can He Handle Being A Pro At Home?

It’s an all too familiar tale that once people get rich and famous, the last place they need to be is home, with the people that knew them before they were rich and famous. Oftentimes, this is because that tends to lead to them participating in things that they did prior to gaining all of the notoriety.

That can go one of two ways. Either it could be some of the same exact stupid things they did prior to becoming who they are at that time, which at that time can get them into a ton of unnecessary trouble because of who they are. The other way is that they could do the same stupid type of thing, just now at a more “rich and famous” type level or magnitude, which inevitably also gets them in trouble.

With Carey Jr. being a young pup still in life, you have to ask yourself this question. Can he handle being a rich and famous professional athlete in his home town of Miami, of all places?

Is he more valuable than Chris Silva?

This is a dual-layered question. Value is not only in the value that you bring, your play on the court in basketball terms, but also in how much did it cost for the new owner to obtain said valuable entity.

The Miami Heat have a guy on their bench in first-year pro Chris Silva who is eerily similar to Vernon Carey Jr. in a lot of aspects. Silva is uber-athletic, extremely active, nifty, crafty, tough, has a nose for the ball, and will box out his own mama (Shoutout to Mama Silva!) to get a rebound.

Does Carey Jr. bring all that to the table and is it worth using a first-round pick to find out? That is the second question you must ask yourself before taking Carey Jr. if you’re the Miami Heat.