It was almost a year ago when the foundation was laid for Wendell Carter Jr.’s breakout 2021-22 season.
The Orlando Magic made the franchise-altering decision to trade All-Star big man Nikola Vučević and Al-Farouq Aminu to the Chicago Bulls for Carter, Otto Porter Jr. and two first-round picks — one of which became Franz Wagner — ahead of the trade deadline on March 25, 2021.
A couple of days later, Carter met with then-Magic coach Steve Clifford and former Orlando/current Washington Wizards assistant Mike Batiste in Clifford’s office at Amway Center.
The purpose of the meeting was simple: Get to know Carter better, help him feel comfortable with the organization and establish a gameplan for the final 20-plus games of the 2020-21 season.
It also was about understanding what the coaches saw in Carter and what Carter wanted for himself. And helping instill confidence in him after an uneven start to his career.
“They were [asking] me, ‘What exactly do you want from his game?’” Carter recalled to the Orlando Sentinel. “I said, ‘I want to be an All-Star one day.’ That’s one of my milestones in the league. I told them my goals were to be a 20 [points]-10 [rebounds] guy. A guy who’s a main focal point on a playoff team.”
Those goals were exactly what Clifford wanted to hear, especially for “a guy with his ability level,” he said.
“The one thing that Cliff told Wendell is that he has All-Star caliber talent,” Batiste said. “He has a ceiling that he can be one of the best bigs in this league.”
While Carter has yet to be named an All-Star and isn’t averaging 20 and 10, he’s moved closer to his objectives in his first full season in Orlando.
He’s averaging career-highs in points (15), rebounds (10.4) and assists (2.7) and a true-shooting percentage (60.4%), which is a formula that incorporates free throws and higher-value 3-point shots, entering Saturday’s home game against the Sacramento Kings.
Carter’s taken multiple steps within the season.
He’s averaging team-highs of 17.7 points (62.4 TS%) and 10.8 rebounds since Jan. 1, including 20.1 points (66.5 TS%) and 11.6 rebounds in his 10 games since the All-Star break.
But even outside his box score numbers, Carter’s played more freely and resembled the player most thought he could be when the Bulls selected him seventh in the 2018 draft.
“I’m not where I want to be yet,” Carter said. “But it’s definitely paid off, just having that conversation.”
Identifying Carter
For the Magic, the process of identifying Carter started almost three years before they acquired him.
Orlando’s brass worked out Carter, who left after one year at Duke, and had dinner with him during the 2018 pre-draft process. Jeff Weltman, the Magic’s president of basketball operations since 2017, remembered being impressed by Carter while also describing the dinner as “uneventful” because of the player’s reserved nature.
“Wendell was close to the vest, but he had an intensity about him,” Weltman said. “He’s a very observant person and he’s taking in just as much as he’s putting out, which is probably a sign of intelligence and his ability to read the room.”
Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, who was an assistant with the Mavericks at the time, remembered being impressed with Carter during the pre-draft process when they met in Dallas.
“It was like he’s Al Horford because of the body type, the strength, mobility, the way he shot the ball,” Mosley recalled. “Very structured in everything he did and was a professional at that point.”
The Magic took Mo Bamba with the No. 6 pick instead, one spot ahead of Carter, but they continued to build intel on him.
When they decided to kick off a rebuild centered around younger talent by trading Vučević, Aaron Gordon and Evan Fournier last March, they were confident Carter was the right kind of younger player to target in a deal even though he had a bumpy start to his career.
“You always try to figure out, ‘What’s going on with this player, what’s going on with this team dynamic’ and it all kind of added up favorably for Wendell,” Weltman said. “We saw a talented guy who’s about the right things and felt like he had a lot of growth potential and he’d get to whatever heights he’s capable of.
“You bet on the person. He’s everything you want your team to be about.”
Struggles in Chicago
There are a number of reasons why Carter didn’t flourish with the Bulls. He struggled with injuries, only playing in 83 of 190 regular-season games. Carter missed the final 38 games of his rookie season after thumb surgery and missed a significant chunk of his second season because of a right ankle injury.
He also had three different head coaches (Fred Hoiberg, Jim Boylen and Billy Donovan), which can be challenging on a younger player trying to get used to the league, coach’s terminology and systems.
Donovan, who coached Carter during his third season with the Bulls, said in late January that he tried to get Carter to shoot more 3-pointers but he didn’t average more than 1 attempt per game or rank among the team’s top four in field-goal attempts in any of his seasons in Chicago.
“Mentally, I wasn’t there a lot,” Carter said of his time with the Bulls. “The coaching change was crazy. I couldn’t get used to anyone. I didn’t feel comfortable. It was an older team. A lot of guys were veterans. It was the business side of it, too, dudes trying to get paid. It was a little weird situation over there, but it definitely built character for me. I got an understanding of what the NBA really is.”
Carter was momentarily rattled post-trade.
“I’m human,” he said. “So it was like ‘Dang, I guess they didn’t want me no more.’ I felt like I was unwanted. Then I had to think about it again like, ‘OK, they didn’t want me, but this place wants me.’ I understood it’s about just moving on. I saw it as a new opportunity for me.”
Because of his previous lack of stability, Batiste realized the most important thing he could do for Carter was help him understand they believed in him. As Batiste put it, “Confidence is the biggest crutch of making or breaking a player.
“When I got a chance to work with Wendell, I wanted him to feel comfortable, I wanted him to feel like he was trusted. And I wanted his trust. To get something that was stable, that’s what he really wanted. And now you can see that he grabs on to that situation. And it has manifested and evolved in a very good way for him.”
That same message was carried by Mosley and his coaching staff — especially player development coaches Altavious Carter and Randy Gregory, the coaches he works with the most — when Clifford was replaced last July.
“Their biggest thing was playing carefree,” Carter said. “They realized one thing I always struggled with was getting down on myself when I didn’t make a good play or I messed up.”
Improvements in Orlando
Carter’s improved production offensively can be tied to four different factors: He’s more involved in the offense, being used differently, more assertive and has gotten better at the simple things.
His 60.7 touches, including 36.5 in the frontcourt, and 20.4% usage rate are career-highs after not averaging more than 49 touches in his previous three seasons.
He’s being used more as an offensive hub — creating for his teammates with his passing or creating shots for himself on isolations — more than before, with his .74 assist to usage ratio ranking in the 79th percentile among big men, according to Cleaning The Glass.
Carter makes good passing reads to shooters and cutters in multiple situations — when posted up on the block, in short-roll situations when he ballscreens and surveying the floor from the elbow or above the break.
Even though Carter’s become more efficient on post ups throughout his career, he’s doing it fewer times (career-low 1.6 post-ups) than he has in previous seasons and is excelling in other areas.
He’s become elite at putbacks (1.58 points per possession) after struggling with them earlier in his career and has been more efficient in transition (1.21 points per possession) while getting up the floor in transition more often (career-high 12.3% frequency).
“He can dominate the simple,” Mosley said. “It’s the simple thing that helps him excel.”
Carter, who admitted he was “always a guy who never cared about scoring,” has been more willing to shoot from beyond the arc, taking 3.4 3-point attempts per game and making 33%. He’s letting it fly on spots ups more — career-high 17.9% frequency and 2.3 field-goal attempts.
Although he isn’t hitting 3s at an high clip, it’s helped open up the rest of his game. The threat of him taking 3s is forcing defenders to guard him tighter and bite on his pump fakes. Carter’s scoring 0.97 points per isolation (71st percentile according to NBA.com) and is driving to the rim (2.8 per game), more than four-times as frequently as he did with the Bulls.
Defensively, Carter’s switching onto guards more frequently while also protecting the rim when needed.
“It’s a mindset,” Mosley said. “The mindset to be aggressive. The mindset to believe you are one of the best players on the floor. That’s the one thing we keep trying to instill in ‘Dell: When you hit the floor, you’re a presence. He’s been doing that since a little bit before the break, being able to have that presence and dominant mentality. It all starts with your mindset.”
Carter signed a 4-year, $50 million extension with the Magic that starts next season, which put him at ease.
“It definitely helps when you can play carefree knowing you’ve got guaranteed money coming in,” he added. “That’s always a good feeling. At the same time, I’m not satisfied. It keeps me hungry but it also keeps me playing carefree.
“I got a little bit of respect around the league now, but I want to turn it up a little bit more.”
The Magic’s rebuild didn’t start with Carter. They’d pegged other young players, too.
They already had Bamba, Cole Anthony, Markelle Fultz, Jonathan Isaac and Chuma Okeke. R.J. Hampton came aboard via another trade the same day as Carter. But Carter’s acquisition and Vučević’s departure signified the Magic’s new direction.
While the Bulls are projected to make the playoffs for the first time in six seasons with Vučević, a two-time All-Star, the Magic acquiring Carter, Wagner and Chicago’s 2023 first-round pick helped set them up for a rebuild.
They’re optimistic about where things are heading.
“From a team-building standpoint, that was the most important day the organization’s had in my time here,” Weltman said. “We changed direction on that day and came about building a fresh, young team that could grow into a sustainable winning team. We looked at Wendell as being an important part of that. He’s just starting.”
This article first appeared on OrlandoSentinel.com. Email Khobi Price at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter at @khobi_price.
()