Carter Bryant is a Winning Player; Don't Overthink It
Carter Bryant has had a minimal role with Arizona all season, but that doesn't detract from the fact that he's one of the most intriguing wings in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Playing winning basketball as a freshman in a minimal role can be extremely difficult, but that is exactly what Carter Bryant has done for Arizona all season. Bryant’s role and involvement have fluctuated all season, but that’s never deterred him from doing the little things that make everyone else around him better. Whether it’s taking the toughest defensive matchup, knocking down shots off the catch, crashing the boards, or making quick decisions, Bryant consistently makes winning plays. Bryant may not have as high of a ceiling as other prospects in the 2025 NBA Draft have, but his consistency, fundamentals, and athletic tools give him an incredibly high floor with plenty of room to grow.
Bryant is a tricky evaluation for a lot of people because his game doesn’t necessarily pop off the screen when you watch him. He’s one of those players that you really have to focus on because of all the little things he does that impact that game. The fact that Bryant is already such a catalyst to winning basketball is incredibly encouraging for his career outlook.
When Bryant was on the floor for Arizona, they had an offensive rating of 128.4 (5th) and a defensive rating of 94.1 (15th). Without Bryant on the floor, those ratings were 122.1 (18th) and 97.3 (35th) respectively. Those aren’t detrimental drop-offs, but the difference is staggering when you consider that Bryant only started five out of 36 games and ranks seventh on the team in minutes per game. Even when we look at Bryant’s individual advanced numbers, they are staggering for someone who had his minutes so aggressively restricted all season. Bryant’s BPM of 7.8 ranked second on the team (just behind Henri Veesaar), eighth among all freshmen (behind Cooper Flagg, VJ Edgecombe, Jase Richardson, Kon Knueppel, Asa Newell, Khaman Maluach, and Dylan Harper), and his defensive BPM of 4.6 ranked fourth among all freshmen (behind Flagg, Flory Bidunga, and Luke Bamgboye), per BartTorvik. So how did a freshman who had a minute share of just 47.5 (Flagg was 71.3 for reference) and averaged 6.5 points make such an impact on winning?
The obvious place to start is on the defensive end. When we look at this freshman class, there aren’t many prospects who have the same combination of footwork, awareness, strength, and explosiveness that Bryant has. Bryant is an incredibly unselfish defender as he constantly has his head on a swivel; he is a highly effective weak-side rim protector, and he doesn’t hesitate to scramble on defense. Bryant’s reliability and consistency as a help defender are extremely rare for his age and a driving reason behind why he posted a block rate of 6.0 and a steal rate of 2.7.
Along with his impressive off-ball defense, Bryant has also proven that he’s one of the most effective and versatile on-ball defenders in this draft class. From a fundamental standpoint, Bryant is about as polished as you could expect a freshman to be. He moves his feet incredibly well, sits down in a stance, and can defend nearly any position on the court. He’ll occasionally get a little too handsy or beat by the extremely quick guards, but he is almost never out of the play. By constantly sliding his feet and staying on balance, Bryant is a nightmare to try and beat to the rim. He rarely allows ball handlers to turn the corner because of his footwork, and his strength allows him to wall up drives and switch on bigger opponents. Additionally, his balance, footwork, and explosiveness make him elite at contesting jumpers. Bryant is disciplined with his block attempts, is quick off the ground, and has great instincts.
There are a lot of players who are either elite on-ball or as team defenders. The really special ones are those who consistently combine both facets from possession to possession. That’s the group that Bryant falls into. The way that he can switch nearly everything, act as a defensive playmaker, bail his teammates out with rotations, and shut down isolation possessions is incredibly valuable. When we look at the elite defenders in the 2025 NBA Draft class, Bryant is up there with the best of them. When we look at the elite wing defenders in this class, there is a pretty steep drop-off and not a ton of names up there after Flagg, Edgecombe, Nique Clifford, and Bryant. There isn’t much of anything that Bryant can’t do on the defensive end, and that alone makes him one of the more intriguing prospects in this class—and that’s without factoring in the offense.
The reason that Bryant doesn’t consistently get mentioned with the top wings in this class is because of his offense. By no means is he bad at that end of the court, but he does have an incredibly simple role. One on hand, this gives us a pretty clear template of how he can impact a game as a 3-and-D guy. Unfortunately, it also leaves a lot to the imagination about how much more he has to give.
Per Synergy, the three most common play types for Bryant are spot up at 36.1%, transition at 17%, and cuts at 14.9%. That’s 68% of his possessions as being just a play finisher while only 9.8% consist of him operating the pick-and-roll along with zero isolation possessions. This usage distribution is only an issue if you’re trying to find a wing creator. If you’re scouting Bryant for what he is while also developing ancillary traits to explore his upside, though, you’re going to be really happy with the efficient off-ball scorer that he is.
Bryant’s most common play type is spotting up, where he scored 1.043 points per possession (PPP) (71st percentile). Additionally, 82.2% of his shots came shooting off the catch. In these situations, Bryant scored 1.09 PPP (66th percentile). What’s more encouraging is that Bryant didn’t exclusively rely on wide-open looks. In fact, 75.7% of his shots off the catch came when guarded (97th percentile), and he ranked in the 61st percentile in PPP. When unguarded, Bryant ranked in the 77th percentile in shooting off the catch. What that tells us is that Bryant is confident shooting off the catch, isn’t deterred by a defender’s presence, and was thrown a lot of last-second grenades. All of these factors suggest positive growth for him as a shooter going forward.
Bryant has improved substantially as a shooter, but like nearly all freshmen, he still has some work to do. The foundation of his shot is really encouraging, but the main improvement is simply speeding up his release. That should come naturally with reps and time, but it is also a reason why so many of his shots ended up as guarded. Additionally, Bryant needs to continue getting comfortable with movement threes. On the season, he only attempted two three-point shots when running off screens. He doesn’t need to turn into prime JJ Redick, but he does need to get more comfortable taking shots in non-standstill situations.
As a scorer, though, Bryant isn’t exclusively limited to being a standstill shooter. We saw him knock down plenty of relocation threes, but he’s also a very good mover without the ball. His timely cuts, activity, and athleticism make him a great outlet for ball handlers. It also allows him to get easy hoops at the rim on cuts and offensive rebounds. This season, Bryant ranked in the 97th percentile in at-rim scoring and shot 78.9% at the rim in the halfcourt. The volume wasn’t astronomical, given his role, but his size, strength, and explosiveness make him a big-time threat.
The more theoretical aspects of Bryant’s offense are his pull-up shooting and playmaking. Since he spent the bulk of his minutes as a spot-up shooter, it’s tough to gauge Bryant’s realistic effectiveness as an on-ball shooter. During the regular season, Bryant attempted just 15 dribble jumpers but did rank in the 88th percentile in PPP. It’s an encouraging sign not enough to firmly stand on. What lends more optimism is that his film shows consistent mechanics to his shot off the catch, a high, fluid release, and encouraging scoring touch. I wouldn’t plan on Bryant rapidly growing into a dynamic pull-up shooter, but I believe there is a ton of room for him to grow as a second-side creator.
The other area of fascination with Bryant’s potential is his passing. If you only look at the numbers, you’re going to think I’m crazy. An assist rate of 8.6, a turnover rate of 18.9, and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.0 don’t exactly scream PASSER. I get it. At the same time, though, those numbers feel like they align far more with his role than his capabilities. As we can see below, Bryant has really good vision and accuracy. He keeps his head up, hits teammates in stride, and is willing to make some difficult passes. His eagerness also led to plenty of air-mailed passes, but the flashes are incredibly enticing.
When I get excited about Bryant’s upside as a passer, it’s in a tertiary offensive role. You never want to put a cap on how a player will develop, but I’d be pretty surprised if he grows into an offensive hub. His handle needs a lot of work, and we’ve never really seen him in that role, but that doesn’t mean he’s inept at creating on offense. Where I get really excited is imagining him as a team’s third offensive option. Most of his possessions will come spotting up and cutting, but he’ll also be able to attack closeouts, run off handoffs, get to the middle of the floor, and find open teammates out of those situations. It may take a minute for him to be empowered to explore those situations, but by no means should Bryant be viewed as someone who will only stand in the corner on offense.
Through no fault of his own, Carter Bryant has pretty consistently been the forgotten name when the 2025 NBA Draft gets discussed. All he’s done throughout the season is play winning basketball. On offense, he’s a highly efficient play-finisher with tantalizing passing upside. On defense, he does just about everything at a high level. Bryant may not have the upside that guys in the Top 5 have, but that’s why he doesn’t get mentioned in that range. What he does have, though, is an incredible baseline as a 3-and-D wing who looks like he could play a decade-plus in the league. At a minimum, that archetype deserves to go much higher than he tends to get mentioned. As he continues to explore his ancillary skills, too, who’s to say how much room for growth he still has left? Carter Bryant is a winning basketball player; don’t overthink it.