Jevon Carter’s feverish offseason work put him into Milwaukee Bucks starting lineup

Jevon Carter pulled his Milwaukee Bucks hoodie tight over his head and stared intently out over the court at Wells Fargo Center. He keeps a serious public-facing countenance, rarely breaking his focus on a distant point. He wastes little time, or effort, with his words.

But he did crack a smile and laughed when relayed a quote from his head coach.

“He’s one of those guys that competitiveness, his temperature on that, it runs high,” Mike Budenholzer said of his guard.

Carter appreciated that.

And that competitiveness through the offseason and training camp put him in position to start on opening night for the Bucks in Philadelphia. It was an increased role Budenholzer said the 27-year-old earned after a well-rounded preseason saw Carter establish himself as more of an offensive threat.

“That was on my mind all summer, to come in and prove that I’m more than what I’m looked as,” Carter said. “Just seeing it pay off is a hell of a feeling. I can’t even really describe it. I had a goal and I exceeded those goals, you know what I’m saying? It’s just a credit to the work that I put in.”

Carter returned to Milwaukee on a one-year deal after spending the final 20 regular-season games and postseason with the team, a stretch that saw him shoot a career-high 50.6% from the field and 55.8% from behind the three-point line.

He was not a poor three-point shooter in his previous stops in Memphis, Phoenix and Brooklyn – making anywhere from 33 to 42% of his attempts – but he really opened eyes with his performance a year ago.

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“I do go back and watch all the film,” Carter said. “Honestly, I think it’s just the kind of shots that I get here, know what I’m saying? Giannis (Antetokounmpo), Jrue (Holiday), Khris (Middleton) they draw a lot of attention so when we get the ball you really got all day to line it up. That’s just target practice for real. I think that got a lot do it with it.”

It also helped entice Carter to come back, who said the front office, coaches and his teammates wanted him to return. But it was just 20 games. Entering his fifth season, he has already been on four teams. Carter set out to use the summer to prove he was more than just a defensive stopper and that those 20 games weren’t an anomaly.

“Give yourself a new goal, new challenge,” he said. “This my fifth year going into the league, I still haven’t done what I want to do, what’s comfortable for Jevon Carter until I get to that point, which I don’t think I ever will, I’m going to keep fighting and grinding.”

Part of that grind in the offseason was to improve his ball handling, decision-making and his ability to finish at the basket.

This is when that temperature ran very hot for Carter.

“In the offseason there is no ‘I need to relax,’” he said. “I don’t get that until the season starts, yeah. Offseason, I’m going until I feel like I had enough.”

Part of that included getting in the gym this offseason with Robert Shaw.

Shaw played collegiately at Chicago State University before playing briefly in The Basketball League with the Albany Patroons in February of 2020 before the global coronavirus pandemic shut the league down. A 6-foot point guard, he hooked up with Carter in West Virginia for a workout. Then, Shaw came to Milwaukee where they spent time in the gym, and the film room.

“It was no doubt in my mind we were gonna work – I’m talking couple times a day, every day, watching film, really taking that time to study practice film, old game film, old movements,” Shaw said. “Anything we could look at, we looked at and broke that down and took that and implemented it on the court during workouts. Then we watched our workouts and then broke down the workouts. It was really a process.

"We didn’t have that much time together, but we had enough time to where you can see the changes, you can see OK, he’s getting better, he’s understanding these different situations, he’s getting more confident in his ability to do these things and to make ‘em happen. There was a hope but we kind of knew yeah, this is what’s going to happen.

"He was definitely prepared from the work that we put in. We really put them hours in. It’s not gonna stop – this is just the start.”

Those hours included a focus not just on ball handling, but on playing faster and more aggressively on offense, as well as being able to get the team organized when asked to bring the ball up. With that work – and an increased comfort and confidence level with returning to the Bucks – Carter believes he’s a wholly different player than he was when the Bucks were eliminated from the playoffs in May.

“He’s a competitor,” Bobby Portis said of Carter. “He gives himself up and he works extremely hard. He worked on his game a lot over the summertime. That midrange pullup on the elbow – that’s like money. Every time he shoots it I think that’s going in. And obviously if he’s open from three in the corner, man, that’s probably a knock-down too, if you really think about it dating back to last year when he came to our team.

"Highly competitive guy, gives himself up, selfless and just a bonafide winner.”

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How Jevon Carter earned a starting role with the Milwaukee Bucks