Raptors draft option at 9th overall: Carter Bryant
The following is part of Raptors Republic’s series of pieces previewing the 2025 NBA draft. You can find all the pieces in the series here.
Carter Bryant has been all the rage lately as his highlights have enamored fans across the league. He’s been rising up draft boards, and might well be in play for a lottery team, maybe even for the Raptors. It sounds scary for them to use their 9th overall pick, an extremely important pick, on a player who played 19 minutes per game and scored 6.5 points per game in his freshman year of college. However, it’s a possibility.
So, the quick numbers to scare everyone off, before I try and sell you on this young man:
6.5pts / 4rbs / 1ast / 1stl / 1blk / 46/37/69 shooting splits / 59% TS
Measurements: 6’6.5 w/o shoes / 6’11.75 wingspan / 215 lbs / 8’10 standing reach / 30.5 no step vertical / 39.5 max vert
As a point of reference, Scottie Barnes was averaging 10ppg to go along with 4 assists, and was considered an extremely limited offensive player, and graded out much better on defense than what we’ve seen from Bryant in college. Bryant is about as low volume as anyone can be while being considered a potential lottery selection.
The first thing I want to talk about with Bryant, is his shooting. I do not have an M.D. in shooting, I’m no shot doctor, but I love Bryant’s jumper. The numbers are in a fine place, as he shot 37-percent from downtown, 36-percent on his C&S 3’s, and nearly 46-percent on his unguarded looks at Arizona. However, I think his mechanics and size are what will end up turning him into one of the best shooters from this draft class after a few years in the NBA.
His mechanics aren’t loud with weird hitches. He has a very direct, and simple route to the top of his jumper. The pick up point is in a good spot. The release is high. His feet are good, as he jumps into his base with his shot prep. His lower and upper half are connected a lot of the time. Sometimes the feet can get a little wild with motion, but he is largely, a big, athletic shooter who gets lift on his jumper with a high release and clearly has the touch for it. He hasn’t shot under 34-percent from three over a stretch of games even going back to 17U EYBL hoops.
He can shoot it. I think with his size, lift, high release, and an NBA workout regimen, he’ll become a sniper. And to reference the size once again – it’s going to be much harder to run him off the line, especially if you don’t have a big stepping out to contest.
The rest of his offensive game is a bit of a question mark. He is unquestionably a very strong athlete (both vertically, horizontally, and strength wise) and so much of how he can reward those traits is based off of his movement and ability to cut off ball. A guy like Aaron Gordon (a bigger, more explosive Arizona athlete) never fully developed his on ball repertoire, but makes a killing as a bruiser who knows where to be on the court. Bryant is a passenger very often. He does cut, and a decent amount, but the timing isn’t always there and can sometimes be listless. To me, this is the biggest possible swing in his career, whether it goes well or not.
17/17 on dunks in his freshman season. 17/30 on layups.
It’s true that Arizona wasn’t super concerned with how they utilized him, but Bryant bears some of the responsibility for passivity. The Raptors will have the opportunity to get him in for interviews and workouts to put him in small-sided games to see how he reads the floor, and how he wants to be used going forward. However, his motion as a very athletic, power wing – it’s a huge deal, and it’s not certain.
His handle is pretty far away, to my eye, and it limited his ability to drive the basketball despite being a passable finisher and a quick downhill threat. He wasn’t able to turn many closeouts into driving opportunities, and he’s limited as a creator because he isn’t comfortable dribbling in traffic. That’s why the jumper (and the pull up where he shot 43% overall) is so important for him. Although, the handle is kind of a bag work, summer work, get in the gym kind of thing. Other scouts I’ve talked to, who have covered him since high school, say he has great work ethic.
Big man stuff like screening/slipping – it’s not been in play for Bryant. A big body should be able to do that stuff, but I haven’t seen anything like that on tape. Would have to develop it at the NBA level. Mikal Bridges became a fairly elite wing screener as an NBA player, for example. In addition to all of this, I think Bryant has put a few good passes/an ability to see process reads on tape, but it’s not enough volume to really focus in on.
DEFENSE
Bryant is a pretty exciting prospect on defense. Not only did Arizona use him in a wide array of roles — on ball stopper, low man sweeper, off ball chaser — but he has a lot of defensive tape against high level prospects like Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Kon Knueppel etc.
A block and a steal per game aren’t usually huge numbers, but it’s a lot of defensive playmaking in just 19 minutes per outing. Bryant had enough pop to roam the backline at the college level, and I reckon he’ll be able to provide a bit of that punch in the NBA. As far as the steals, a lot of them come from one pass away digs on drivers – which is a very valuable form of defense, and it pairs really well with his ability to recover out to his man.
Above the break, in isolation, on an island, Bryant is really strong. He’s a very strong, quick mover who can slide with a wide array of players and he exhibits a lot of control in containing and not fouling. Chops those feet and covers ground. Plays with his hands up.
Bryant was also a very effective closeout defender. He’s very quick to the shooter, and as a result did a great job of suppressing 3-point shots. He guarded threes well by the numbers — players shot 27% on C&S threes that he ‘guarded’ and 10% on pull up threes he ‘guarded’ — but sometimes guys just make or miss shots. I watched every shot that went up and while I do think he throws a lot of length and vertical pop into his contests, I can’t say with confidence that he’ll crater three-point percentage at the next level.
I am looking for him to exhibit more control into his closeouts once he hits the NBA level. Part of Bryant’s effectiveness as a contest artist is his big, leaping contests, but I truthfully would like to see him keep his feet far more often, because watching him absorb drives where the offensive player would usually find advantages – that’s where I think Bryant looks incredible. I think he has the athleticism to strike a healthy balance of aggression and control, and I also like his ability to veer back switch.
He also has a fairly strong bias as a defender towards the paint, which I like. He’s very present as a tag man or as a helper. It kind of depends on how the team that drafts him chooses to utilize him, but he did basically everything at Arizona and put a bunch of good stuff on tape in virtually every role he occupied. With the mix of lead ball handler, full court press, low man, chaser, everything stuff, you can actually try to think of Scottie Barnes’ role with the Raptors this past year, and I think Bryant’s role was somewhat similar. He’s very talented, although still young and mistake prone. It’s to be expected.
The pitch, mostly, is that I really believe that Bryant will at the very least shoot the ball and defend it. Those two things are really important at the NBA level. In addition to that, I think he can provide plus rebounding to his team fairly easily. That, to me, is definitely an NBA player, and a good one. It might be the case that you want to aim higher than that with the 9th pick, and maybe you don’t believe in the handle or the floor mapping to come along at all – but I think at least one will.
I avoided spamming dunk highlights, since I know everyone can go look at those easy enough and the clips where he’s absorbing drives or tagging properly are less likely to get aggregated, but – he can get up:
It’s not easy to project teenagers or the future, but I think Bryant is worth taking a shot on.
Every once in awhile, teams do something called pre-drafting. Or, at least that’s what some people call it. There is an idea that even if a player is drafted as a teenager, they’re at least somewhat ready for the NBA and you can have an okay idea of what type of player they might be. Pre-drafting is attempting to jump on a player much earlier than the NBA at large is willing to — perhaps your promise to draft them could even get them to enter the draft — and trusting in your NBA teams development infrastructure to capitalize on all of the prospects known and latent abilities while developing new ones.
NIL deals have made pre-drafting more interesting in that college players now have more leverage to negotiate 2nd rounder deals and interest/investment from teams. I’ll also add that pre-drafting isn’t typically seen in the lottery, where the more known and exciting prospects are. Ulrich Chomche represents this a little bit.
With all that said, I think Bryant represents a bit of an opportunity for this, in regards to developing the weaker parts of his game.
If you want to hear myself and Tre talk about Bryant, click here:
Read Brendan’s piece on Derik Queen here.
Have a blessed day.
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