Column: For Carr, next opportunity now at hand

This is the next moment Tony Carr has been awaiting.

Having announced his intention to forego his final two seasons of eligibility at Penn State in April, the first-team All-Big Ten point guard’s dream of an NBA career took another step Friday. Pulling in an invitation to the NBA Combine in Chicago this month, held May 16-20, Carr has accepted the opportunity to perform in front of NBA front office personnel, scouts, and coaches.

“Playing in the NBA has been my dream and I’m completely focused on that goal,” said Carr via press release. “I’m grateful for the opportunities at the NBA Combine and the feedback I’ll receive following the workouts and other sessions.”

Carr will be among approximately 60 other invited participants at the combine, where he can take team interviews, perform drills, and test out athletically.

This is where the past month of progress will be important for Carr.

Not the most explosive or gifted athletically, Carr will have had six weeks between his April announcement to focus intently on the brute aspects of the professional leagues’ scouting processes; namely, getting stronger, running faster, and jumping higher.

Reductive as it may appear, these are the elements that allow a franchise to differentiate similar players that otherwise might have indistinguishable film or on-court performances. The sport might be different, but ask DaeSean Hamilton or Troy Apke what outstanding combine performances can mean for a player’s draft stock.

And really, that improvement is hardly something foreign to Carr’s career.

Coming off a rollercoaster true freshman season with the Nittany Lions in 2016-17, one in which he led Penn State in scoring at 13.2 points per game but hit just 37.7 percent of his shots from the floor and 32.0 from beyond-the-arc, Carr went to work in the weight room. His listed 6-foot-3, 198 pounds as a true freshman became a listed 6-5, 204 in the media guide last season, but the definition and physical improvement were visually obvious before the Nittany Lions tipped the season against Campbell in November.

Asked at his press conference announcing his NBA intentions what made him believe he was ready for the jump, Carr immediately pointed to that progression.

“I made some great improvements,” said Carr. “Just starting with this summer, I gained 25 pounds of muscle, which we all know. And I put in great work this offseason with Coach Urgo and Coach Griffin on my shot. I made some strides in that. I felt like my game just took the next step this year, so I feel like it is time for me to take the next step in my life and with my basketball career. “

On the hardwood, those efforts were undeniable.

For the season, Carr knocked down 40.8 percent of his shots from the floor (245-of-600) and a vastly improved 43.3 percent clip from deep (88-of-203). With 19.6 points and 5.0 assists per game, Carr finished 52nd nationally in scoring, No. 72 in assists, and would have finished tied with Shep Garner at No. 19 in 3-point shooting percentage had he hit the minimum 2.5 made per game (he finished at 2.37).

Carr only got better down the stretch through Penn State’s NIT championship, too. Aside from an uncharacteristically unproductive performance against Temple in the first round of the NIT, Carr averaged 24.5 points and 7.2 assists in the Lions’ six other postseason games including the Big Ten Tournament and NIT.

“This is the next step for Tony in his pursuit of his dream,” said Penn State head coach Patrick Chambers. “We know he is prepared for this opportunity and we are excited to see what the future holds for him.”

Chambers, the program, and its fans, all should be.

NBADraft.net’s latest mock, updated May 2, has Carr headed to the Atlanta Hawks with the third pick in the second round, No. 33 overall.

Should Carr earn a draft selection, he would become just the second Nittany Lion ever to go in the modern, two-round NBA Draft, joining Calvin Booth’s second-round selection in 1999. In the program’s entire existence, Carr would also be just the 12th to play in the NBA, of whom only three have played in the past 20 years.