Charlotte Bobcats: Seth Curry Could Fill A Need As A 3-Point Shooter

The idea might seem odd: A player declaring his desire to play for the Charlotte Bobcats, a team that has bumbled to a 28-120 record the last two seasons, has made the playoffs just once in its nine seasons in the NBA and whose next postseason win will be its first.

But Seth Curry, a Charlotte native and the son of Dell Curry, who delighted Charlotte crowds a generation ago with his sharp shooting for the Charlotte Hornets from 1988-98, told the Sporting News earlier this month that there is nothing he would like more than to play for his hometown squad.

“It’s my home,” Curry said. “This is where I grew up. I would love to come back here and play.”

Curry, the younger brother of Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry, will work out for the Bobcats later this month after going undrafted out of Duke. He missed pre-draft workouts because of a stress fracture in his right shin that needed surgery and opted not to play for the Bobcats’ entry in the Las Vegas Summer League to focus on recovery.

Curry has also received invitations to training camp from the Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves and San Antonio Spurs.

He first drew the attention of scouts after a terrific freshman season at Liberty and played his three seasons for the Blue Devils after sitting out the 2009-10 season as a transfer. As a senior, he averaged 17.5 points per game and shot 43.8 percent from the 3-point line.

He’s not the prospect his brother was, because he is seen as strictly a spot-up shooter and a defensive question mark because of his average physical tools.

Here is Curry’s interview during the draft combine.

On the other hand, Curry is a player who is a lights-out shooter, knows how to score and has solid intangibles as a player with an excellent work ethic and a demonstrated willingness to play whatever role Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski asked him to, whether it was as a point guard or a shooting guard.

He is undersized a bit at 6’3” and just 179 pounds, but older brother Stephen isn’t exactly an overwhelming physical specimen, either.

Charlotte shot just 33.5 percent from 3 last season and Ben Gordon was the only player in the rotation to eclipse the 35 percent mark, converting 38.7 percent last year.

Count big brother among his supporters.

“Whether he gets drafted or not, a team will be making a great decision by bringing him into camp,” Stephen Curry said. “The same questions that were brought up about my game and how it transitions to the NBA, he’s going through that same criticism. But I think the way he shoots the ball and the way he can score will be a high value for a team.”

Particularly for a team that has struggled to find ways to score. In 2012-13, the Bobcats ranked 28th in offensive efficiency at just 98.3 points per 100 possessions and their 46 percent effective field-goal percentage and 50.7 true shooting percentage were dead last in the NBA.