Jevon Carter’s defensive tenacity is scaring away other players at draft workouts, per his college coach

I was aware of four-year point guard Jevon Carter’s reputation for being a dynamite defender as a 6-foot-1 bulldog at West Virginia. His defensive prowess is a large reason why Carter is widely predicted to be chosen in the 2018 NBA Draft in less than three weeks’ time.

As many of you know, lots of frequent visitors to DBB are fans of Carter and most would have no issue whatsoever if the Pistons selected him in the second round at pick number 42. I’ve never had a very strong opinion on Carter one way or another, but this caught my eye from Carter’s college coach Bob Huggins just a few days ago:

The NBA Draft is in 20 days, and now-former West Virginia guard Jevon Carter’s name is out there. He was a revelation at the draft combine last month, when the conversation seemed to shift from if he’d be picked to when he’d be picked. He’s worked out for the Los Angeles Lakers, and today he’ll work out for the Utah Jazz.

The fact a player of Carter’s caliber is doing workouts shouldn’t be news. And yet it is.

”Guys have cancelled because of him,” Huggins said. “They’ve had their agents call and cancel when they found out J.C. was going to the workout.”

If true, that’s both a stunning feather in the cap for Carter and also a stunning indictment on some potential 2018 draft picks.

Bob Huggins, an accomplished college coach who coached Jevon for all four years at West Virgina, has said that Jevon Carter is the hardest working guy he thinks he’s ever had, so perhaps he’s just helping the guy out. Huggins can easily say this and no one can really prove its legitimacy either way. It very well could be just a true statement that props Carter up and doesn’t specifically throw any players under the bus, which seems like the right way to go about it.

Having watched Carter more than a few times during the last couple seasons of his college career, reading Huggins statement made perfect sense to me. There’s not a lot of players like Carter who take defense as seriously as he does.

With all of the uncertainty surrounding the franchise and lack of leadership in place, this is at least something of a positive that came out of the NBA Draft Combine from a couple of weeks ago:

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Simply put, the Pistons could do a lot worse than drafting Jevon Carter with their second round pick this NBA draft. A deeper look into Jevon Carter’s game will be coming shortly.