Miami Heat Draft: Is Vernon Carey Jr potentially coming back home?
By Max Marshall
The Miami Heat have a chance to take a Miami product with the 20th overall pick. Here are his strengths.
Strengths:
Carey Jr is strong in the post and has good positioning getting to the low block, which is just a basic basketball term to use but with the lack of today’s players who actually know where/how to post up, it fits.
Carey Jr on post-ups shot 53.2 percent, that is definitely a skill that can be used. Carey Jr’s most underrated part of his game is his ability in setting screens.
Carey Jr sets hard picks that create space for his guards. Especially in today’s NBA, with so much screen and roll, you need your bigs to create space for your ball-handler and enough room for your big to role or fade.
Carey Jr off the roll is very aggressive as well, as he is a great roll man. There is more upside with Carey Jr’s offensive game as he showed the ability to execute a face-up game too.
He needs to work on his one-dribble moves but at times showed that he has the talent to do so. Obviously, with a face-up game you need a jump shot to go with that.
Carey Jr has good form and base on his jump shot, so there are things to like with is shot. It’s a small sample size, but on catch and shoot shots, he was 10/29 and 8/21 shooting the three.
It’s not the best case to say he can shoot but by looking at Carey Jr’s jumper, he has the skills to be a better shooter. Other things to like in Carey Jr’s game that don’t show up on the stat sheet can include the fact that he is good at boxing out.
It is such an easy thing to do but we all have seen players just not boxing out and after they don’t get the rebound, throw their hands up looking around blaming others. This is not the case for Carey Jr, as he finds a body at all times.
Also, Carey Jr is a lob threat in half-court and on the break. Speaking of fast breaks, Carey Jr has beautiful straight-line speed in transition.
Don’t get in Carey Jr’s way when he is running the lane. You’ll find yourself flattened.