The ultra-competitive, hard-working Jevon Carter just couldn’t sit on his couch playing video games after the NBA shutdown.
On March 11, 2020, after Utah Jazz C Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19, NBA Commissioner, Adam Silver, made the call to suspend the season.
Playing in his second pro season, Carter had worked his way into a solid role with the Suns. He had been a bulldog coming off the bench. Head coach, Monty Williams, called on Carter to inject his intensity on the defensive end and to provide a boost on offense.
The Suns had just finished playing a game against the Portland Trailblazers when the NBA shut down.
Carter couldn’t believe it.
“It didn’t really hit me until they told me I couldn’t go into the gym anymore,” Carter said. “That’s when it hit me hard.”
So what does someone like Carter who finds himself suddenly cut off from the gym, his teammates, and coaches do?
He got on Google.
“I just went out and typed in different workouts,” Carter said. “I was going to outside parks and stuff, shooting on triple rims. It was super hard to hit on those rims. That was making me mad. I’m out there running all over the place, trying to get the ball.”
He did what he might have done had he still lived in Morgantown. He hiked. Hitting the trails and mountains around Phoenix to help keep in shape. He trained at home with his two roommates. Push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, crunches. Whatever he could do to stay in shape.
When not exercising or playing board games and cards, Carter exercised the mental part of his game. He watched film on the top guards in the league. Dissecting what made them the best, and figuring out how he could implement those traits and actions into his game.
When the NBA announced that they would resume the season–tentatively on July 31st–on a truncated schedule in a bubble in Orlando and that players could resume workouts on a limited basis, Carter leaped (probably literally) at the chance.
The Suns have a chance to make the Playoffs for the first time since 2010. Carter is ready.
“Let’s go shock the world,” Carter said.
With someone like Carter in the fold, they just might do that.
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