Texas Basketball: Why Marcus Carr could fight and claw his way to NBA

Texas basketball will be losing a number of its top upperclassmen following the conclusion of the 2023 postseason since they will be running out of eligibility. One of the key players for Texas and interim head coach Rodney Terry that has their eligibility running out after this season is super senior guard Marcus Carr.

The 6-foot-2 and 175-pound guard is currently in his second season at Texas and his fifth in his collegiate career in total. And given that Carr’s fifth season of his collegiate career is his best, he’ll likely try to capitalize on the momentum he’s built up in the last five or six months while taking his talents to the next level.

So far this season, Carr is averaging around 16 points per game, three rebounds, four assists, and two steals while shooting around 43 percent from the field, 36 percent from beyond the arc, and 77 percent from the free-throw line. Carr is averaging a career-high in steals per game, assist-to-turnover ratio, and field goal percentage this season.

Carr was really able to take his game to another level for the Longhorns this season, leading the team in scoring, assist-to-turnover ratio, assists, steals, field goals, and three-pointers.

What was so impressive about the way that Carr was able to pick up his game this season in his second year at Texas was how efficient he proved to be while scoring at a higher volume and being asked to do more on the defensive end.

The advanced metrics that Carr posted so far this season do a nice job of painting a broader picture in terms of his overall impact on this team and the Longhorns’ heightened success in the win column. Carr not only posted career-best numbers in terms of win shares (5.2), but he also led the team in this category by a pretty significant margin. The next-best on the team in terms of win shares this season is senior shooting guard/wing Sir’Jabari Rice (4.0).

Carr’s 5.2 win shares on the season also places him second in the Big 12, only behind the conference’s player of the year and Kansas Jayhawks forward Jalen Wilson.

Yet, win shares isn’t the only advanced metric that proved how much of a positive impact Carr had on this team. Carr also registered a career-best 8.6 box plus/minus, which ranked in the top five in the Big 12 and was second on the team only to Rice (who eeked past Carr with an 8.7 box plus/minus).

Carr clearly proved this season that he was able to play his best while taking this team to new heights as a two-seed in the NCAA Tournament. He was also able to help lead the Longhorns to the team’s first Big 12 Tournament crown since 2021.

What is the 2023 NBA Draft outlook for senior Texas basketball G Marcus Carr?

Is that enough for the 23-year-old guard to be considered among the pool of realistic 2023 NBA Draft picks at his position?

At the moment, probably not.

Carr finds himself in the midst of a historically deep NBA Draft class

Carr’s chances to actually get drafted into the NBA in 2023, unfortunately, are pretty low. And some of the circumstances that could impact his chances to be selected in the 2023 NBA Draft are out of his control for the most part.

A piece from NBA Draft Room last fall described this class of prospects in 2023 with the statement that “it’s not hyperbole to say it’ll be regarded as one of the best in this generation”. And it’s not hard to see why given that there are elite talents such as big man Victor Wembayanna (who can sink threes effortlessly while boasting a solid back-to-the-basket game and protecting the rim) and lengthy guard Scoot Henderson.

But it’s not just the top of this draft class that makes it so special. There is depth across the board and a good mix of younger prospects/one-and-done college players along with upperclassmen from the college ranks.

Of the top 60 2023 NBA Draft prospects from CBS Sports, more than a dozen are college guards that are at least sophomores. That is going to be a lot of competition for Carr to face throughout the NBA Draft scouting process for him to climb his way up big boards in the span of just a few months.

There is still hope and a path forward for Carr at the next level

While it is clear that Carr finds himself in a tough situation in terms of his draft outlook given the insane talent and depth in the 2023 class, there is a multitude of reasons why I still believe he could have a shot at making an NBA roster.

First off, Carr still has a very viable skill set that could be valuable to provide depth deeper down on an NBA bench. Carr is an above-average perimeter defender in this draft class, an improving shooter, and a very efficient facilitator/playmaker. He also brings a certain tough-shot-making element to the table that is a rare quality to find in an efficient two-way guard.

In fact, Carr ranks second in the Big 12 in points per game on guarded catch-and-shoot attempts this season (3.3) and fourth in the Big 12 points per possession on contested jump shots (1.14). He shot an impressive 38.5 percent from deep this season on contested spot-up three-point attempts.

It’s also worth mentioning that Carr is a good athlete capable of keeping up with some of the quicker guards in the NBA. He possesses good lateral quickness and surprising length when he measured in with a wingspan around 6-foot-7 at the 2021 G-League Elite camp.

The fact that Carr is able to create his own offense in a variety of different ways while being able to effectively facilitate the settled half-court offense with his improved decision-making and court vision makes him a pretty special talent. Throw in his ability to run in transition as the primary ball-handler along with his disruptive perimeter defense and you get a pretty well-rounded player that still has a skill set capable of providing value deeper down an NBA bench.

Carr is used to this type of grind

Maybe the most invaluable attribute Carr has in his back pocket that keeps me optimistic about his chances to eventually make an NBA roster is his ability to scrap and grind to find his role. Carr had to fight and claw every step of the way to get where he is now.

He spent four years between his time at Pitt and Minnesota in his collegiate career before he was even able to make an appearance in the NCAA Tournament last season with the Longhorns. And he only continued to improve his game and lift up his teammates around him this season as he earned First-Team All-Big 12 honors for the first time.

It will just be another day at the office for Carr to have to compete with a plethora of other talented guards in this NBA Draft class to be able to find his way onto an NBA roster.

If you think about it, Carr really is one solid run in the NBA Summer League away from at least earning a two-way contract at the next level. And once he’s hypothetically able to get a two-way contract at the next level, that’s all he’ll need to start entrenching himself in an NBA backcourt unit.

Think of someone like the former Texas and Wichita State two-guard/wing Maurice Evans, who went undrafted in the 2001 NBA Draft class. There are actually a lot of striking similarities between the collegiate background of Carr and Evans in terms of the path that each took.

Evans was a transfer that had quite a few twists and turns in his four-year collegiate career. He spent two years at Wichita State before transferring to Texas and playing one season for the Longhorns during the 2000-01 campaign. Evans would wind up averaging nearly 16 points per game, earning the first all-conference honors of his career for his efforts in 2001.

An impressive senior campaign at Texas and a shot in the NBA as an undrafted free agent signee with the Minnesota Timberwolves was all that Evans needed to begin carving out a path that would see him become a versatile reserve wing in the league for the better part of a decade.

Evans’ path that he took to carve out a pretty lengthy NBA career that all started out as an undrafted free agent can serve as a lesson for Carr to find his own way at the next level.

But before Carr can turn his attention to preparing for the NBA Draft, he has one more postseason run with the Longhorns to round out this season. Carr and the Longhorns are a two-seed in the Midwest Region, set to square off against the 15-seed Colgate Raiders in the Round of 64 on March 16.