Projecting Michael Carter-Williams' NBA Future an Impossible Task Right Now
Michael Carter-Williams' bizarre situation with the Philadelphia 76ers makes it almost impossible to gauge his value today and, consequently, what he'll be worth in the future.
A year and change is usually enough time to get a sense of what a prospect might someday become. It's dangerous to get definitive in a player's second season, but there's typically enough info to figure out where he'll fit in the NBA hierarchy.
Rotation minutes? All-Star appearances? Something greater?
We usually have a clue by now.
Not so for MCW.
Carter-Williams' numbers look good—if you're a fantasy player or follow the NBA like it's 1985. The box score basics paint the second-year guard as productive; he averages 16.3 points, 7.1 rebounds and 7.4 assists per game. He stuffs the stat sheet.
Whether those stats actually mean anything is a separate question.
Carter-Williams is shooting just 38 percent from the field and 23.7 percent form long range this year, and he's turning the ball over 4.5 times per game. Those are stats, too. And in light of those less impressive figures, it's worth asking whether Carter-Williams should be getting the minutes that lead to his gaudy counting numbers.
The Sixers have to play him, though. Because they have no better options and because they need to determine if he's a cornerstone piece or trade bait. For what it's worth, he's been on fire lately, even as the Sixers have been without one of their other most productive players.
Philly is awful. It has the lowest net rating in the league, per NBA.com, has put together just two victories in its first 20 games and is also, by far, the franchise least interested in adding to its win total. Organizational strategies designed to build long-term success have stripped away almost all of the NBA-caliber talent on the roster.
There's another name for the practice employed by the Sixers, but it strikes a nerve with Carter-Williams, who wrote in The Player's Tribune: "You can question my shooting. You can question my ceiling. Just don't question if I'm giving my all every single night. Don't talk to me about tanking."
Fine. We don't have to use the T-word. But we can't discuss Carter-Williams' numbers, value and future without considering the context of his team.
And the fact that he's playing in a zero-consequence environment with completely upside-down organizational goals colors everything he does.
Even if we look past the deliberate losing, there are basic style-of-play issues that influence his statistics.
The Sixers operate at the third-fastest pace in the NBA, which means their big-minute players get an above-average number offensive possessions to boost their per-game numbers. Last year, Philadelphia played faster than anyone, which makes Carter-Williams' rookie production—16.7 points, 6.2 rebounds and 6.3 assists—less meaningful.
Still, he was just the third rookie to compile figures like that. A couple of guys named Oscar Robertson and Magic Johnson were the other two, per Basketball-Reference.com.
| Oscar Robertson | 1960-61 | 30.5 | 10.1 | 9.7 |
| Magic Johnson | 1979-80 | 18.0 | 7.7 | 7.3 |
| Michael Carter-Williams | 2013-14 | 16.7 | 6.2 | 6.3 |
That's an eye-opener, no doubt. But it brings us back to the same basic question we've been unsuccessfully trying to answer: How should we judge typical stats—historical or otherwise—when they're amassed in an atypical scenario?
No matter how putrid a club's performance, someone is always going to get numbers. Although it doesn't necessarily follow that putting up stats on a bad team means players are overrated, it sure makes it hard to properly rate them.
For example, the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats posted a 7-59 record, giving them the lowest single-season winning percentage in NBA history. The three leading scorers on that team were Gerald Henderson (15.1), Corey Maggette (15.0) and Kemba Walker (12.1).
Henderson has since become a viable rotation talent, Maggette never made a meaningful contribution to an NBA team again and Walker is now Charlotte's $48 million starting point guard. That's some serious range, and it wouldn't have been easy to predict where all three of those players would end up when watching them toil for the worst team in league history.
Carter-Williams' numbers are better than those of the Bobcat trio, which weighs in his favor. But that Charlotte team played at a pace nearly eight possessions per game slower than Philly does right now, and we should also consider that MCW actually has less support—which could mean he's been more productive by default.
One troubling sign for Carter-Williams: His efficiency has dipped as his usage has increased.
| 2013-14 | 25.7 | 15.5 | 48.0 | 30.2 | 16.9 |
| 2014-15 | 29.3 | 13.5 | 44.8 | 42.1 | 19.7 |
Perhaps MCW isn't cut out for a bigger role. At the same time, usage and efficiency are almost always negatively correlated. Fatigue, defensive attention and the lack of support necessitating Carter-Williams' larger responsibility have hurt his productivity in a number of ways, but almost anyone in his situation would be trending in the same direction.
Through it all, Carter-Williams has continued to play hard. And there are positive signs if you're willing to cherry pick the data and excuse tiny samples.
Broadly, MCW's effort level indicates he has the competitive fortitude to succeed when the games will someday count. It would be easy to go through the motions playing for a team like the Sixers, but to his credit, Carter-Williams has generally maintained his intensity.
And though the broader negative impact of engineered failure on the Sixers' developing culture could be problematic, it's still possible that all this losing is hardening MCW, perhaps building character and instilling an appreciation for the good times to come.
The truth is that Carter-Williams is a stat-stuffer on a bad team...who might also someday put up numbers that matter on a good one.
He'll have to improve his shooting, ball security and defensive awareness, which will be tough to do while he's fighting to keep his head above water in the ocean of failure that is the Sixers' current situation.
Almost anything's in play for Carter-Williams' future. He might be a frequent All-Star who just needs a decent situation to thrive, or he might fade into obscurity if his efficiency stays this low on a better team.
A best guess: Carter-Williams' size, length and energy will keep him in the league a long time, and he'll carve out a role (perhaps even a starring one) on a good team someday. Predicting anything more than that is just an exercise in speculation without enough good data.
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