Long shooter — Former USU star trying to prove he belongs on NBA team

Scoring 22 points against the Utah Jazz, delighting a partisan crowd and getting highlight-reel chest bumps from teammates aside, Jaycee Carroll knows he's a long shot when it comes to making an NBA roster.

But if there's one thing Utah State's all-time leader in scoring and 3-point shooting knows a little bit about, it's long shots.

Long — as in getting discovered in Evanston, Wyo., by the Utah State coaching staff and earning a scholarship when few other schools bothered to pay him any attention.

Long — as in earning a starting position with the Aggies shortly after returning from his LDS mission to Chile and never losing it.

Long — as in the likelihood the New Jersey Nets — which already have a league-max 15 players under contract now that they acquired veteran combo-guard Keyon Dooling — will be able to make room for him on their roster. "There's more to me as a basketball player than what I've been stereotyped as," Carroll said while at the Rocky Mountain Revue. "I can handle the ball. In college, I just wasn't asked to run the team. Now, that's what they want me to do and I understand why. I just have to show people I can do that."

Carroll said all he wants is a shot — a long one is fine with him — to prove he is more than capable of being an NBA point guard, even though he hasn't played the point much at all.

With the Nets, Carroll is hoping to join a backcourt loaded with Devin Harris and Dooling as the potential third point guard. Former first-round draft pick Marcus Williams was traded to Golden State the day after the Nets acquired Dooling, giving Carroll a slightly better chance of earning a roster spot.

"I think that is something that is going to be a continual adjustment for him," Nets assistant coach Brian Hill said after Tuesday's game against Utah. "That's one of the hardest things to do, is converting from being an off-guard to a point guard. He has done a good job offensively of running the team.

"Sometimes he still has that scorer-first mentality but he has done a good job of running the team ... and getting better with it and more comfortable with it in each game."

Still, finding a home in the NBA is something the former Aggie may not realize this season. He's prepared for something like that and has received advice from people who have been in his shoes.

"There's plenty of doubters," Spencer Nelson — also a former USU great who has been invited to a few summer league teams and tried to make the adjustment from one position to another. "In everyone's mind there's a lot of reason he can't make it. He's too short, he's too old, he's too slow. Whatever. He can't change those things."

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