It’s a bit too early in his career to make any real pronouncements, but the question burning on my mind right now is this: will Jarrett Culver ever be as good as Jarrett Jack was?
Jack’s main claim to fame was just being a steady backup for a long time. He was almost sixth man of the year once when he was on the Warriors. He wasn’t the most efficient scorer around, and nobody in their right mind would have ever attempted to make him a central piece to build around (he played for nine teams in thirteen years, indicating that he was often a stopgap PG solution), but he was reliable. He was like the D.J. Augustin of his time.
Can Culver reach those heights of consummate role-playerdom? His passing and scoring are behind where Jack was at when he came into the league, but Jack benefited from staying in college longer. And if we assume that where you were picked has anything to do with anything, Culver was picked 6th while Jack was picked 22nd. Culver has “upside” which may or not be maximized. Jack probably maximized his upside.
Culver is showing improvement though. Through six games in January he’s shooting 45% from the field, a big improvement over the 37% he was shooting before that. His January percentages are more in line with what Jack’s career averages were. So it’s not unreasonable to think that Culver will soon be as good as Jarrett Jack. Then we can think about whether or not he will SURPASS Jarrett Jack. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.