What NBA scouts are saying about Magic center Wendell Carter Jr.s future -

The Orlando Magic front office has created an opportunity for itself that is all too rare in life. Decision-makers have a chance for a do-over of sorts if they want it. Three years after they chose center Mo Bamba sixth overall in the 2018 NBA Draft over center Wendell Carter Jr. and a group of other prospects, the Magic are now faced with a similar choice.

Which big man should the Magic commit to for the long term, Bamba or Carter? Or maybe someone else?

In a blockbuster trade last season, Orlando acquired Carter, forward Otto Porter Jr. and two protected first-round picks from Chicago for All-Star center Nikola Vucevic and forward Al-Farouq Aminu. From the Magic’s perspective, Carter’s inclusion was a secondary, or even tertiary, consideration. The deal launched a fresh rebuilding project for the Magic, and the incoming first-round picks were the most attractive incoming pieces in the deal.

But having Carter on the roster is not without its benefits. Carter is a bona fide prospect in his own right, a former seventh overall pick who is only 22 years old.

“Wendell is solid,” a scout who works for another NBA team told The Athletic. “(He) was a good piece in the Vucevic trade. He’s a cerebral player. He’s got a high IQ.”

Over the next 12 months, the Magic will have to make choices about the future of their center position. Since Bamba and Carter were drafted in the first round of the same year, both players are entering the final season of their rookie-scale contracts. Orlando can attempt to reach contract extensions with one or both players before the 2021-22 season. Without extensions, the players would be on track to become free agents next summer — most likely restricted free agents, which would allow the Magic to match any offers either player receives from another team.

Most NBA insiders agree it is unlikely that the Magic will make long-term commitments to both players. The reasoning is sound: It would be problematic to tie up a significant portion of the team’s cap space in a pair of players who play the same position.

As the second installment in The Athletic’s multi-part series about the Magic’s young players made clear, NBA scouts tend to view Bamba’s long-term NBA future with skepticism. Generally speaking, they think Bamba’s on-court energy issues and questionable feel for the game currently outweigh his outstanding positional length and deft long-range shooting stroke.

Carter’s pluses, minuses and overall career projection probably are a bit less clear to Magic fans than Bamba’s traits. While Bamba has spent three full seasons with the Magic, Carter joined the team in late March, leaving him with a truncated body of work with Orlando. He appeared in only 22 games, and it was difficult to draw many firm conclusions. He often played alongside inexperienced teammates and, in some cases, alongside late-season signees. As the season wound down, the team wasn’t doing all it could to win games.

It is difficult to evaluate a player under those circumstances, so I spoke with four scouts who are well-versed in Carter’s entire pro career. The scouts were granted anonymity because they were not authorized by their teams to discuss players publicly. Beginning with the scout quoted earlier, those scouts are identified as Scout A, Scout B, Scout C and Scout D.

Carter’s strengths

The scouts often employed the word “solid” to describe Carter.

“A solid pro,” Scout B said. “He’s really just solid. I don’t think there’s anything he does at a high, high level. But I think he’s a guy who rebounds well. He can protect the rim at times. He’s got a nice jump shot. He’s got a decent post game.”

Indeed, rebounding is the area of Carter’s game that shows up most clearly on stat sheets and in advanced analytics.

Over the last two seasons, he collected between 21.3 percent and 21.9 percent of all available defensive rebounds off missed field-goal attempts, according to Cleaning the Glass, a website that tracks statistics compiled in non-garbage time minutes. In each of those seasons, Carter ranked in the mid-to-upper-70s percentile among all NBA bigs in defensive-rebounding percentage. While not elite, that figure is very good.

Carter’s also adept as an offensive rebounder (again, off missed field-goal attempts, not missed free throws). In offensive-rebounding percentage, he ranked in the 61st percentile among NBA bigs during his time with the Bulls last season and in the 66th percentile with the Magic, according to Cleaning the Glass.

The picture that emerges is one of a clever player who also brings an element of scrappiness and fight.

“I think he’s got some toughness,” Scout C said. “I think if Wendell’s healthy, he’s going to help the Magic. He can go alongside Jonathan Isaac pretty well because he’s tough, he’s physical. I think he needed a break out of Chicago. I think Orlando is a good spot for him because he has some skill.”

Rebounding is one of Wendell Carter Jr.’s best strengths. (Mike Watters / USA Today)

During his formal media availabilities last season, then-Magic coach Steve Clifford often said Carter was able to seamlessly carry out any in-game adjustments in defensive coverages.

For the most part, scouts offered similar assessments.

“He’s a guy who you trust defensively,” Scout B said. “He’s smart. He knows where to be. He’s physical. He’s strong.”

Carter also drew a near-elite number of fouls on his shot attempts during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons in Chicago. The corresponding negative is that his free-throw shooting has dipped since his rookie season. Last season, he made 73.2 percent of his foul shots; that’s not to the point where he’s a liability on the offensive end late in games — as, say, Andre Drummond often has been — but Carter is a relatively average free-throw shooter for an NBA big.

Carter measures 6 foot 10 in sneakers and is listed at 270 pounds — good, but not ideal size for an NBA center. It would not be an issue at all if Carter were a great athlete who could compensate against larger opponents with outstanding leaping ability, but he’s not thought of as a particularly gifted athlete.

One of the scouts said Carter’s frame reminds him of former Indiana Pacers standouts Antonio Davis and Dale Davis.

Carter’s weaknesses

Bamba, on the other hand, has better positional length than Carter. Bamba measured just under 7 foot 1 in sneakers at the 2018 NBA Draft Combine and posted a 7-foot-10 wingspan, which was then a record for the event.

Carter’s wingspan was measured at 7 foot 4 1/2.

It should be of little surprise, then, that Bamba records far better block numbers than Carter. While Bamba has an elite block percentage — blocking 3.7 percent of opponents’ shot attempts last season (and higher in previous years), according to Cleaning the Glass — Carter is below-average in that area. Carter blocked only 1.5 percent of opponents’ attempts last season.

To be sure, rim protection does not come down solely to shot blocking, or even to the threat of shot blocking. Indeed, a lot of rim protection revolves around a big’s feel for the game and ability to captain a defense, the areas where Carter shines.

When asked to describe Carter’s defense, Scout A responded, “ ‘Solid’ is a good word for it, because he’s not super-athletic and his feet aren’t the best. But back to the point about him being smart: He kind of just knows where to be and communicates and gets the team in the right spots, as well as himself.”

The most common concern among scouts was Carter’s durability, with all four scouts bringing up the issue. He missed 38 games as a rookie following thumb surgery, 22 games in his second season because of a sprained ankle and 16 games last season, though it should be emphasized that the Magic were extra-cautious with him late in the season as they tanked down the stretch.

Wendell Carter Jr.'s injury history

Season	Games played	Games missed	Injuries
2018-19	44	38	Left thumb ligament surgery
2019-20	43	22	Right ankle sprain
2020-21	54	16	Right quadriceps contusion, right ankle soreness, left eye abrasion

“The biggest question with him is: Can he stay on the floor?” Scout B said. “He’s had a lot of injuries in Chicago and Orlando. To really kind of justify where he was drafted and trading Vucevic for him, I think he’s got to stay healthy. He’s got to become a guy you can rely on.”

Of the four scouts approached for this article, Scout D was the most pessimistic. In Scout D’s opinion, not only has Carter not made gains since his rookie season but actually has regressed in some areas. Some of the issues may be related to health, the scout acknowledged.

Still, Scout D expected Carter’s shooting to improve through the normal course of player development, but that prediction has not come to pass so far. Indeed, Carter’s 73.2 percent mark on free throws last season was the lowest of his career. And while Carter made a career-best 29.4 percent of his 3-point tries last season, it’s still nowhere near good enough to space the floor effectively for teammates.

Carter has said improving his shooting was going to be a focus this offseason. To be fair, Brook Lopez and Vucevic are examples of big men who added a 3-point game to their offensive arsenals later in their careers. Indeed, time is on Carter’s side: He’ll only turn 23 years old in April 2022.

Big picture

Perhaps Carter’s biggest weakness is that he has no demonstrably elite strength. Yes, he’s tough. Yes, he rebounds well. And yes, he’s very smart, allowing a team to execute its plans on both ends of the floor. But what, exactly, is he great at? He has a high floor, but he may also have a low ceiling.

Bamba, despite the concerns about his motor, at least has the frame that will allow him to block shots and disrupt shots at an elite level and has shown he has the potential to become an elite 3-point shooter for a big man.

Again, perhaps the best way to describe Carter is “solid.” And is that promising enough to merit a long-term contract extension at this specific point in his career? For now, that’s a valid rhetorical question.

The scouts have their doubts about whether Carter will one day be good enough to be a starter on an upper-level playoff team.

“He’s just going to have to shed the injury-bug rep that he has, and he can’t run from it because he’s been hurt in all three years,” Scout A said. “But down the line, he looks like he could be a solid starter. Will he ever be a top-10 starter? I don’t know. He has good size, he’s a good guy and has a good head on his shoulders. Then if he can stretch that jumper out to the 3-point line, that’s a bonus. But at least you can run offense with him because of how smart he is.”

Scout C put it more bluntly: “Is he a starter on a playoff team? I’m not sure about that. But I do think that was an overall good move (for Orlando): getting him.”

Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman has had a recent history of extending promising young players’ contracts a year before they reached free agency. Despite a serious knee injury, Isaac last December received a four-year extension worth $17.4 million per season in base salary. Markelle Fultz last December received a three-year extension worth a guaranteed $16.5 million in 2021-22, a guaranteed $16.5 million in 2022-23 and a partially guaranteed $17 million in 2023-24.

But if the Magic and Carter cannot agree on an extension, the upcoming season figures to be a defining year of Carter’s career — certainly a defining year for his Magic future. He will have every opportunity to prove himself in the season ahead, and it would behoove him to prove his ceiling is higher than it’s thought to be.

True, the Magic have the opportunity for a do-over of sorts regarding the 2018 NBA Draft. The franchise once again can pick between Bamba and Carter. But the third possibility — to go with a different big entirely for the long-term, perhaps by picking someone in the 2022 NBA Draft — is still open to Orlando.

It’s on Carter (and Bamba) to give the Magic front office and the new coaching staff reasons for a long-term commitment.

Carter’s strengths

Carter’s weaknesses

Big picture

Related reading