Cameron Carr: 'I gotta be a lot better defensively'

Incoming Los Angeles Lakers rookie Cameron Carr continues to impress people during summer league play. During the team’s first game of the main NBA summer league on Friday, he scored 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting, and he also hustled enough to record two blocks and one steal in a 96-84 win.

As good as Carr looks offensively so far, defense is one question mark with him. He can make plays on the ball well, especially as a help defender, but how good his man-to-man defense becomes could determine how much playing time he gets early in his NBA career.

After Friday’s contest, the 6-foot-5 guard admitted that he still has lots of room for improvement on that end of the floor.

“I gotta be better. I gotta be a lot better defensively,” Carr said. “I can get as many deflections as I want, but if you give up a straight line drive, you still can’t help anybody. So I gotta be a lot better defensively, be more aware, talk and don’t be a lapse. Don’t be an area that people can go at.”

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“I gotta be better. I gotta be a lot better defensively,” Carr said. “I can get as many deflections as I want, but if you give up a straight line drive, you still can’t help anybody. So I gotta be a lot better defensively, be more aware, talk and don’t be a lapse. Don’t be an area that people can go at.”

The Lakers badly need 3-and-D and two-way players, especially those who have athleticism, and Carr has plenty of athleticism. His 42-inch vertical leap and 7-foot-1 wingspan should greatly help him develop as a defender, as well as make his jumper very difficult to block.

This past season, Los Angeles finished 20th in defensive rating. It could already be better defensively just by trading for shot-blocking center Walker Kessler, but if it is to get into the top 10 in defensive rating, it will need men such as Carr to develop into strong positional defenders while giving it something of value on offense.

This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Cameron Carr: ‘I gotta be a lot better defensively’