Doug Moe, who used to shoot into a peach basket, told George Karl that Anthony Carter is the “worst good player he’s ever seen.”
Moe has seen generations of players, but there’s just something about the Nuggets’ reserve point guard, who turned the ball over at an astonishing rate last season and turned 34 last summer but remains an influential intangible on this team.
“(Carter) sometimes isn’t pretty, and statistically he doesn’t deliver, but when you coach him, you have all the confidence in the world you’re going to win the game,” said Denver’s coach Karl, who considers the old coach Moe a consigliere. “He brings a toughness to the game and a winningness that usually comes with great players. With A.C., it comes with his belief. He just believes he’s going to beat the other guy, and it rubs off on everyone else.”
To the average fan watching basketball, the primary way of gauging who’s good is by statistics. Yes, there are guys like Dahntay Jones last season, who played because of his defensive hunger, not his offensive numbers. But for the most part, you want the most points, boards and assists on the floor. So why does Karl adore Carter, who seldom scores and was ninth in the NBA last year in turnovers per 48 minutes?
“With skills and all these statistical formulas — all he does is win games,” Karl said. “I don’t think he’s ever looked like he’s going to beat you with his jump shot, beat you with his one-on-one skills or beat you with his assist-to-turnover ratio. But he has a knack for making a play or creating momentum that dominates the minute he’s on the court.”
Last season, folks yakked about the impact that point guard Chauncey Billups made on the first unit. But I remember Linas Kleiza one day quietly pointing out that Carter had a similar impact on the second unit.
And if we’re talking intangibles, one must account for Carter’s personality. He’s just a heck of a dude. He is likable but not loquacious, wise but not a wise-(backside). Sometimes when he’s interviewed, he slips into cliches, but when he talks about the minutes he’ll play this season — and the minutes he’ll share with rookie Ty Lawson — Carter is refreshingly truthful: “It’s not even about minutes with me. Whatever my role is going to be, I’m embracing it, whether it’s 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes. I just want to make a difference when I’m out there.”
“A.C.,” Karl said, “is one of the best backup point guards in the NBA.”
