Is Bub Carrington a Point Guard, or Just a Guard Who Brings the Ball Up?
There are five questions I cannot stop thinking about when it comes to the Washington Wizards this off-season. This is number 1.
This is a part of a five-piece series of five questions surrounding the Washington Wizards entering the 2025-26 season.
Question #1 - Is Bub Carrington a Point Guard, or Just a Guard Who Brings the Ball Up?
Question #2 - Should We Be Talking More About Bilal Coulibaly Being Thrown in a Trade Package?
Question #3 - Why Can't Washington Figure Out Alex Sarr?
Question #4 - Is Brian Keefe Building the Wizards’ Future or Just Passing Time?
Question #5 - What If Tre Johnson Is Better Than Advertised?
Bub Carrington has a pretty incredible feat: he was the only rookie last season to appear in all 82 games. Even more impressive: he is the first rookie since Collin Sexton1 in 2018-19 to appear in all 82 games while averaging 30 or more minutes a night.
Sometimes, the best ability at times truly is availability. His opening day start speaks to just that — earning the honors after Malcom Brogdon would be unavailable due to injury and Washington avoided utilizing Jordan Poole as their point guard. And he would end the season with a bang — a game winning floater (with Miami turning to their bench for the entirety of the fourth quarter).
However, availability alone doesn’t tell the full story of Bub Carrington’s rookie campaign. While his durability was commendable — and honestly, rare for a 19-year-old guard thrust into a starting role — the season itself was a mixed bag of learning curves, flashes of brilliance, some really crazy injury scares that somehow, he would miraculously recover from every single time, and the unavoidable growing pains that come with being a rookie point guard on a rebuilding team.
It does create an interesting conversation surrounding what a player can or is going to accomplish with their career— particularly when their first impression is defined less by explosive box scores and more by sheer consistency and presence. Carrington wasn’t the rookie who wowed with a viral highlight package or made a late-season leap that cracked national discourse. Instead, he was just there, every night, logging major minutes, absorbing possessions, and learning — sometimes the hard way — what it means to be an NBA guard.
That sort of foundation doesn’t scream “future star,” but it does scream “professional.” It’s how good players begin — not with flash, but with repetition. With reps. With mistakes that aren’t hidden, but stacked, learned from, and built upon. And for all the rawness Carrington showed — the turnovers, the questionable shot selection, the lack of polish defensively — the Wizards seemed content to let him play through it. That, in itself, is a form of long-term trust.
But does it mean you’re a good point guard?
When Carrington exited college, it came some with an incredibly large caveat that his time at Pittsburgh was primarily spent as a combo guard, sharing ball-handling responsibilities while also not necessarily being the sole trusted figure to lead the offensive on a consistent basis.
The recent trend of NBA players adopting this moniker has been both a blessing and a curse — especially for evaluators. “Combo guard” has become a catch-all for players who can score a bit, pass a bit, but don’t necessarily organize or direct an offense in a traditional sense. When Cade Cunningham executes an excellent set piece — he’s a combo guard. When he mistimes a pass into the post, leading to a turnover — its okay because he’s a combo guard.
It allows for coaches to experiment and in many facets, hide areas of weakness to a line-up. Washington, for example, relied heavily on a point guard-less system for the majority of their NBA season. It can also highlight some of the strategic and stylistic differences. For example, there is the clear statistical improvement with Malcom Brogdon on the floor — with the added flavor of the “tape” narrative that Washington’s half court did appear to be more in rhythm with him on the floor.
Is this all Bub Carrington’s fault? Of course not.
The adjustment rookies need to make to the NBA pace of play is often a point of conversation. But far less frequently do we talk about how steep that learning curve becomes when the infrastructure around a rookie guard simply doesn’t exist.
Carrington didn’t walk into a stable offensive environment. He walked into chaos — into a team where spacing was inconsistent, the pick-and-roll was barely weaponized to its fullest potential, and roles shifted week-to-week. Washington’s experiment with a motion-heavy, ball-sharing offense was admirable in theory but lacked the personnel to sustain it, often leaving Carrington stranded in possessions that called for improvisation without support.
This would be a challenge for any veteran point guard. Brian Keefe was asking a rookie combo guard to figure it out.
It is worth mentioning now that he would finish the season averaging 9.8 points, 4.4 assists and 4.2 rebounds a night. His 2.58 assist-to-turnover ratio ranked 25th best out of 58 qualifying guards2 . However, not all assists are created equally.
A statistic that does not get referenced enough when it comes to point guards is points per assist. It is a fairly simple statistic, calculated simply by looking at the assists points created and divided by their assists per game. Among that same qualifying guard size, he is twelfth, with his assists leading to 2.63 points on average. TJ McConnell tops the NBA — 2.70. Breaking the 2.5 line would indicate that a player is is seeing a majority of their assists come off of the three ball. It isn’t necessarily a surprise — Washington heavily favored the three point ball. It does, however, become a very pivotal talking point when combined with additional habits.
Carrington did not complete drives to the baskets. It could even be argued he had hesitancy towards it. There is a play in December that comes to mind — Washington’s old reliable, the double high screen into a perimeter look. Carrington peels off of the two screens, Jalen Brunson is stuck against Alex Sarr. And in an odd sequence, Carrington freezes.
It allows for New York to pinch and eventually opens up the perimeter look for Bilal Coulibaly who drills it on the wing. But why didn’t he put the ball to the floor when he had the window?
Among that population referenced earlier, Carrington recorded the third fewest drives per game — beaten out by Chris Paul and Josh Hart. He has the size, the handle, and even the creativity to get downhill — but didn’t often act like it. Whether it was due to confidence, physicality, or just youth, Carrington frequently opted to play outside the paint, functioning more as a connector than an initiator. For a team desperate for rim pressure and dribble penetration, that passivity became glaring.
One of the most confusing instances of this last season was his decision to pass out of a wipe open drive against Philadelphia. Working the two-man game with Corey Kispert, he beats the defender by more than a step. However, instead of continuing to the basket, he questionable pulls-up early, instead turning to pass it to Kispert — who isn’t necessarily wide open for an immediate opportunity. Kispert makes the play work but you couldn’t overlook Carrington’s decision.
He would record a 9.8% turnover rate on drives last season — top of the NBA among guards averaging 30-minutes a night. And he would record the second fewest points percentage among guards the same population — 41%. He would only record 1 free throw attempt a game, maxing out at five attempts in a single contest three times and would have 45 games last season where he would not appear at the foul line.
That’s not good — and not just in the raw numbers sense, but in what it implies about his role and his instincts. Guards who don’t touch the paint don’t stress defenses. Guards who don’t draw fouls don’t bend schemes. And when your lead guard isn’t creating any vertical pressure, the ripple effect down the roster is real: defenses stay home on shooters, help rotations don’t have to collapse, and possessions stall.
Carrington, at least in year one, rarely forced defenses into uncomfortable decisions — and that’s the baseline for functional point guard play in the modern NBA. You don’t have to be De’Aaron Fox or Tyrese Haliburton, but you do have to tilt the floor. When you don’t, everything becomes static.
And this gets to the heart of the question: Are we sure Bub Carrington is going to be an NBA point guard? Because right now, he doesn’t play like one.
He plays like a two-guard who happens to bring the ball up. Like someone who can execute an action, but rarely dictates it. Like someone more reactive than proactive — a player who responds to the defense rather than manipulates it. There’s value in being low-mistake and system-compliant, especially on a team still figuring itself out. It is something that we saw heavily last season — with forwards Bilal Coulibaly and Kyshawn George operating as such. But being a starting NBA point guard — not a placeholder, not a role-filler — requires more than that.
Now, to be fair, very few rookie point guards do. The position has one of the steepest learning curves in the league. Even lottery picks with high usage often flail early. But the ones who ultimately stick usually show something — a stretch of games with pressure, a month with pick-and-roll dominance, a signature performance where they take over. Not just competence, but assertion.
Carrington’s rookie year had steadiness. But it didn’t have assertion.
His best offensive games tended to come when shots were falling from deep — not when he was bending defenses or dictating tempo. He recorded two ten or more assists nights, but they weren’t elevated creation performances. He didn’t create a consistent two-man game with Sarr or Coulibaly. He didn’t play with an edge. He played within himself — which is fine. But also telling.
And so, again: what is he?
If the answer is a low-usage, connector-style guard who shoots off the catch and keeps the offense moving without being its engine, there’s a real NBA role there — but it’s not a point guard. Not in today’s league. It’s more Aaron Holiday than Tyus Jones. More "off-ball helper" than “floor general.”
Which is why year two will demand something different.
The tools aren’t the question. Carrington is long, has a smooth handle, and flashes vision when the game slows down for him. But can he be decisive? Can he pressure defenses with intent, not just movement? Can he embrace contact and stop avoiding the rim like it’s optional? Because that’s what separates the guards who run teams from those who simply play on them.
He has the reps. He has the minutes. He has the trust of a rebuilding team willing to let him fail forward.
Before we end, I want to touch on the “age” point that people often incorrectly reference. Many continue to harbor this philosophy that with age, a player will mature or grow into something completely different. We’ve grown accustomed to this idea that a player’s performance at eighteen, nineteen or even twenty-three isn’t all that indicative of a player’s true potential.
I’m not sure I quite believe that sentiment. Not entirety, at least.
Because while it’s true that player development is nonlinear — and yes, guards often take longer to bloom — there are also certain instincts, tendencies, and mentalities that tend to reveal themselves early. Especially at point guard. The best young ones may not have the control yet, may not have the body or the jumper or the reads fully formed — but you can usually feel their intent. You can see the wiring.
With Bub Carrington, the wiring feels incomplete.
We saw these habits again in this past Summer League — reliant on pacing versus dissecting defenses that quite frankly shouldn’t have been able to defend him as well as they did it. He would struggle to break the perimeter with is dribble, even missing routine passes.
That doesn’t mean it can’t be finished or fixed. But what makes his case so complicated is how much of his year one performance feels less like a beta version of something future-facing and more like a placeholder. He was competent, calm, and composed. He learned how to survive. But point guards don’t just survive.
If Carrington’s path is going to veer toward that end, it has to start next season — not necessarily with box score explosions, but with purpose. With pressure, with paint touches, with ownership of the offense — even if it’s messy. Because being a starting point guard isn’t about never making mistakes. It’s about having the command to try things, to break things, to fix them again.
That’s not to say there weren’t glimmers. He had quarters where the pace clicked. He had possessions where he manipulated defenders into opening a corner three. He even had a handful of transition sequences where you could see what the vision might be: a tall, smooth-operator who can see over the top, deliver cross-court passes on time, and run when the game flows downhill.
But they were flashes, not footprints.
And the concern — or at least the question — is whether Carrington is the kind of player who needs to be pushed to take the next step, or whether that step exists naturally within his game. That’s what year two needs to answer. Because the Wizards, for all their flaws, can’t afford to spend another full season finding out whether they have a point guard on their hands — especially when their newly drafted future of their franchise slots in the shooting guard role. At some point, the evaluation has to be real. Not based on youth, not on hypothetical upside, but on what’s actually happening on the floor.
Carrington’s first season was quietly historic in its steadiness — 82 games, major minutes, minimal drama. There is value in that. But if year one was about showing up, year two has to be about showing something.
Because being in the building is not the same as running it.
And if Carrington doesn’t want to just be the guy who was there every night, but the guy who mattered every night — the guy who organized the room, who controlled the pace, who pointed and dictated and bent and tilted and made life easier for everyone else — then the leap won’t come from age. It’ll come from intention.
The Collin Sexton similarities are incredibly noticeable now that I’m thinking about it.
Guards must have played more than 50 games and averaged 4 assists or better.