Former NBA big man Vernon Carey Jr. has signed with Pinar Karşıyaka, also known as Karşıyaka Basket, the Turkish team announced (via Twitter).
Carey, 22, spent one college season at Duke prior to being selected with the No. 32 overall pick in 2020. Shortly after being drafted, he signed a multiyear standard contract with the Hornets.
Charlotte traded Carey to the Wizards at the 2022 deadline. Over three NBA seasons, he appeared in just 37 games with Charlotte and Washington, averaging a modest 5.1 MPG.
Carey was waived by the Wizards at the beginning of March and signed a multiyear deal with the Jazz during the 2022/23 season’s final weekend. His minimum-salary contract for ’23/24 was non-guaranteed, and Utah wound up releasing him last month, making him an unrestricted free agent.
While Carey didn’t get much playing time at the NBA level, he did have a solid G League stint with the Capital City Go-Go, Washington’s affiliate, this past season. He put up 22.5 PPG, 9.6 RPG, 1.8 APG and 1.3 BPG on .588/.385/.708 shooting during last fall’s Showcase Cup (14 games, 28.1 MPG), then followed that up with 20.7 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 1.9 APG, 0.9 SPG and 0.9 BPG on .619/.364/.676 shooting during the NBAGL regular season (14 games, 27.6 MPG).
Karşıyaka Basket competes in the Turkish Super League and the Basketball Champions League. Last season, the team finished fourth in the TSL regular season, but made the final during the playoffs after scoring an upset over No. 1 seed Turk Telekom, ultimately losing its best-of-five series versus Anadolu Efes 3-0.
He’s an old school 4 to me. Looked like a 20 and 10 guy to me. Needed to get leaner though. Unfortunately they don’t really use old school 4s anymore. Kind of like RBs in NFL. If you’re not top 3. Then you are replaceable.
I guess it’s only me. But I see a low post scorer. As a benefit to the offense. That uses more shooters today. And shooters give more single coverage to low post scorers. Seems like a win win ……. Inside -outside offense should be thriving today. Yet it seems no one wants to work the low post today.
He was always listed as a C. I agree he should be playing PF. He just needs minutes somewhere to develop a little. It’s to bad the SBA doesn’t like C or PF anymore