Miami Heat Draft: Is Vernon Carey Jr potentially coming back home?
By Max Marshall
The Miami Heat could bring Vernon Carey Jr into the fold. Here are some things that may hinder that possibility though.
Struggles:
Carey Jr, like most lefties, is left-hand dominant and doesn’t finish with his right hand well. That’s something that can be fixed in the gym and you would think over this long break, Carey Jr has worked on it.
One thing that concerns me is this. He’s not a good passer nor does he look to pass from the post.
Even though Carey Jr has a solid post game, the next step for him is to see the open man when he is in the post. Watching his tape, it reminds me of Heat Legend( kidding) Hasson Whiteside, just not looking to pass out of the post.
On the tape, it looked like a lot of his turnovers were due to not reading open teammates and at times putting his head down. Not that it can’t be fixed but I think it just gave me Whiteside flashbacks.
From the post/face-up game, he tends to spin too much from the post, as he has other moves but likes the spin moves a little too much. Because of liking the spin move so much, he drew a lot of charges.
One thing that surprised me was Carey Jr struggling from the free-throw line. In the first half of the year, he shot 67 percent from the line but in the second half of the year, he was 78.8 percent from the line.
He might just be naturally inconsistent from the line but also has shown the ability to improve, as I stated before. Carey Jr has good form so it’s something to keep an eye on.
Personally, Carey Jr’s biggest struggle is defensive. He can’t guard in space and has a hard time reacting when put in pick and roll.
I don’t know if it was Duke’s scheme but it looked like Carey Jr was guessing whether or not to blitz the screen or play drop coverage. Carey Jr is a good help-side defender so there is something to work with.