FanPost

Summer League wrap-up

Sorry for the delay in summarizing my 3-day excursion to Summer League, in which I will list things out by team, for easier reading. There's also my analysis of DJ Strawberry and Dominic McGuire (links are below in the Phoenix and Washington sections, respectively).

The main reason for the delay started on early Friday morning, when I checked out The Dark Knight on one of Vegas's two IMAX screens (another great tidbit about Sin City). If I may just go on a little tangent, let me just say I wouldn't be the only person to say this film is Oscar-worthy. Seriously, I saw No Country For Old Men and The Departed, and this film is better than both. Of course, there's no way a Batman movie will win the Oscar because of it being too big-budget, too hyped, and the fact that it would be the third straight crime story to win one.

Which brings me to the other thing that has caused this delay of my final Summer League installment: I saw the film again on Saturday (IMAX again, of course)! Let me tell you, when you see The Dark Knight a second time, you can truly appreciate the storyline, the acting, and the themes. Now, as a kid, I was introduced to Adam West's Batman on TV, then got a Detective Comics book as a birthday gift when I was about twelve, at which point I fell in love with the realism of Batman (rejecting the Adam West version) as opposed to the supernatural foundations of Superman or Spider-Man. I still like the original Tim Burton Batman movie just because it was the best rendition ever at the time, then progressively hated the sequels as they got more and more far-fetched, but now, we are talking a whole new level. And to make a story where Batman becomes more than a hero, wow. If I saw Christopher Nolan walking down the street, I would kneel down and kiss that man's hand. Thank you, Mr. Nolan.

Anyways, back to Summer League. For this piece, I will comment on the following:

  1. The unappreciated elements of Summer League
  2. More Warrior Summer League player observations
  3. Team-by-team observations

Reader beware, this is a long post because I am covering so many areas. I've also posted my thoughts on the NBA as a circus, and how the Knicks' Summer League team, perhaps not surprisingly, fits that bill perfectly.

THE UNAPPRECIATED ELEMENTS OF SUMMER LEAGUE

Even I have knocked the Summer League here and there, but I watch a lot of basketball in person, mostly recreational ball, and I can assure you that the quality of play here in Summer League is top-notch.

Guys will make open three-pointers a lot more often than not. The big men are truly huge human beings, who at any level other than these stratospheric ones (even most of D-1, I would think) would just use and abuse people down low, it would be unfair. As for the more gifted athletes, if you saw one of these guys playing pickup with your friends, you would nickname him "Jordan" in a heartbeat. The Summer League point guards could literally dribble through your team, and the team waiting for next, combined. And if you saw some of these guys shooting around in a gym, they'd be making 80% of their NBA-range three-pointers.

These boys of Summer League are damn good. Makes you appreciate how incredibly talented and basically super-human the NBA really is.

I've never seen an NBDL game, but assuming Kelenna Azubuike and CJ Watson are stars of the NBDL, with another benchmark of Rod Benson as an NBDL-leading rebounder, I would have to guess that NBA Summer League in Vegas is a notch above the NBDL. So even in the absence of teamwork and a playoff system, perhaps Summer League is in the next top three after the NBA and the Spanish league and whatever other European league is up there.

Sometimes I wonder how these teams are actually formed. I wouldn't be surprised if the NBA forced certain players on certain teams, or "politely asked" that teams made substitutions in some semblance of a real NBA game. Because if it were up to me, if I needed a big man like the Warriors do, I'd have like 5 big men just to see how they perform in a "real" game. Some guys I would play the whole game. Like I would play Anthony Randolph all 40 minutes, just to see how he handles it. Some lineups, I would play the whole half, especially if I've got four out of the five guys who will be on my NBA opening day roster as the Warriors do. In other words, I'd run it like a glorified scrimmage. But for some reason, this never happens.

There are a ton of rookies. I'd have to guess that most of the players in their primes are already playing overseas in contracts or have just fell off the radar. Which is too bad for us fans because we'll never see the talented, better-than-Summer-League American stars who are making a living in Europe and elsewhere play.

You'd have to conclude that making the NBA is extremely cut-throat. If you don't make it within the first 3-4 years out of college, you will be disposed of. The economics just don't work. Think about it, if you didn't make an NBA team and were stuck making a few thousand bucks in D-League, it would be mighty hard to keep in shape and even improve to the level of a pro who makes playing basketball his livelihood. At some point you have to put food on the table. So you have to shine in D-1 and get into the NBA young.

Also, at the clip of about one guy for every two teams, I have no idea how certain guys made it to Summer League. It's either a big man who has slow footwork or a guard who is too skinny or can't knock it down with consistency from deep, with pressure. I'm thinking these guys must be the result of some favor that needed to be repaid from an executive to an agent. Or a last-minute pickup out of desperation. Or random blind luck. That's the other quirky part about Summer League.

Now here's the problem with Summer League teamwork. You are putting a bunch of guys together who have hardly played with each other. You also have talent levels that could range from future hall-of-famer on down. A Summer League executive does not pickup someone to be a role player on a Summer League team.

There's really a huge lack of chemistry. It's no wonder there's no playoffs or championship -- and I'm sure NBA ownership rules prohibit it as well -- because it's kind of a waste, since Summer League is like organized pickup play.

Most of the players are trying to make an NBA roster. The typical Summer League player has no real "friends" on the team and constantly has to weigh various issues at hand. Will passing to the open player, who I think is not as good as me, be better for me or should I take it myself? I'll bet most Summer League players are not even aware of such things going through their heads as they make decisions on the court. Suffice it to say, on-court decisions are not necessarily made with the team game in mind. Summer League is like a solo trip to play pickup ball at the local playground. Each five-man team is a crapshoot. It skews more towards every-man-for-himself than anything else.

Summer League is a showcase of individual skills and how individual skills can fit into the larger puzzle of the existing NBA roster, or perhaps a future roster. Teams would be wise to scout out other teams' players as well, as we might be seeing with the pickup of Jamont Gordon onto the GSW Rocky Mountain Revue roster. It is not a showcase of winning games or having expectations of playing as a team. Sure, you want your players to run set plays correctly, as if on a team, but everything's more on the level of learning, as opposed to winning.

Now, I've mentioned that Randolph and Marco Belinelli have "ballhogged" on certain sequences, but this is not the same as saying Jerryd Bayless "was a ballhog" (presumably all game long is what the commenter was saying). Granted, Bayless had the ball in his possession a lot, but if I'm running the Trailblazers' summer league, that's what I want. Maybe not all game long, but during the important parts of the game. I want to throw stuff at Bayless and see how he will do. Let's take this baby out for a spin. Summer League is a test drive.

Now do you expect Bayless to do that in the presence of Brandon Roy? Do you expect Randolph to do that in the presence of Stephen Jackson? C'mon, to think that would be an insult to Bayless's and Randolph's employment as a professional.

So please, don't criticize star Summer League players for being ballhogs. It's not translatable to the next level where they will ultimately wind up. In a test drive, you want to punch it from 0 to 60 a bunch of times, peel around the corners to test the G's. But after you've bought the car, you're gonna think of gas mileage, engine wear-and-tear, and when to use the old minivan instead.

MORE WARRIORS SUMMER LEAGUE ROSTER NOTES

I forgot to mention in all the Randy/Marco hype that I saw someone in the stands interviewing Chris Mullin with a microphone. Then the microphone disappeared and they talked for a long while, about a quarter-and-a-half. There was no doubt the talk had to be about Randy. Turns out, the interviewer was JA Adande of ESPN.com. His article is called "Warriors future on display in Vegas".

Here are some brief comments going down the Warriors' Vegas Summer League roster. Keep in mind, these notes are for 2 out of the 5 games (games 3 & 4, to be exact). I skipped Belinelli, Randolph, Watson, and Brandan Wright (although I will say that B-Wright has a slow learning curve -- not something you would say of old-school Tarheels) because there's really nothing new to add besides what you saw in the NBA 2007-08 regular season and my other posts about Mully-ball and Randy/Marco. If there's nothing really to write home about, I'll just simply say "a dime a dozen", which is to say, there are plenty of other similar players available on other Summer League rosters...

  • Louis Amundson - 6'9" 225-lb white guy beast formerly of UNLV (he has 2 years pro). He has a pony-tail too. He's very muscular and athletic. You know, he could play Thor of Marvel Comics fame. He will not make it to the NBA unless he develops a consistent jumpshot. He didn't really even take any jumpshots in the games I saw, not with the players he was surrounded by. With CJ, Marco, Randy, and B-Wright on the floor, he was actually the "big man" on the team! He can run the floor.
  • Richard Hendrix - A big boy at 6'9", 255 lbs, from Alabama, rookie. He had a really nice "beastly" game down low in B-Wright's absence, but he's not fast or quick enough to make it to the NBA. He doesn't really have any special skills either. I guess there wasn't much to choose from at #49, but I've said that the undrafted Wilson Chandler of the Knicks' or Hilton Armstrong of the Hornets' Summer League teams would've been better prospects.
  • Dion Dowell - G/F 6'7" 205 Houston, rookie. A dime a dozen ("ADAD").
  • Robert Kurz - F 6'9" 232 Notre Dame, rookie. ADAD. Kinda resembles Troy Murphy, but not even close in terms of skill. Yeah, I know, that's basically an insult.
  • Reggie Larry - F 6'6" 225 Boise State, rookie. Did not play.
  • Jamaal Moore - G/F 6'6" 195 Rice, rookie. Did not play.
  • Anthony Morrow - G 6'5" 210 Georgia Tech, rookie. ADAD.
  • DeMarcus Nelson - PG 6'4" 200 Duke, rookie. Nelson has the strength to take it to the rack. He can finish too. The only problem is, his shot is absolutely terrible. The rotation sucks. I can name at least 20 guys in my rec league who would beat him in a three-point contest. For that reason, which on the one hand is a correctable thing, but on the other hand is really too bad, I do not think he will make an NBA roster. I will say that he seems to be a smart player, although you'd expect as much from a Coach-K-trained Dukie. On the opening tip, I think it was Amundson who tipped the ball back too far, where Nelson had to backtrack and chase it. He could have dived and saved the ball, but instead, he ate it out of bounds. Basketball purists will know that you never save the ball under your own basket, so DeMarcus did the right thing. Most Summer League players would have tried to save it.
  • Mykal Riley - F 6'6" 185 Alabama, rookie. ADAD.
  • Tamar Slay - G/F 6'8" 215 Marshall, 3 yrs pro. Did not play.
  • Ian Young - G 6'3" 200 Auburn, rookie. Did not play.

Check the Philadelphia 76ers comments on Jamont Gordon, who was picked up by the Warriors for the upcoming Rocky Mountain Revue.

CHARLOTTE BOBCATS: DJ Augustin (overall #9 pick) did not play in either of the two Bobcats games I saw. Nothing else to write home about. If the NBA is a circus, and I've been told that by Adidas grassroots power player Darren "Mats" Matsubara, the Bobcats have no one that gets to perform under the big tent... I do not like Phil Ford's coaching style. Sure, if you look him up on Wikipedia, he's got good credentials, but he's always yelling at refs. How about developing players? On one play really early in the game, he barked at a ref that didn't call an offensive 3 seconds on their opponent, saying, "He could have had a cup of coffee down there!" Uh, good point, I guess, Phil. Also, this was all directed at the little Korean ref. Ford discussed the matter further during the free throw and all I could hear was some Korean-accented response... The older guy getting autographs as mentioned in the comments of the Randy/Marco post was getting autographs that day at Cox apparently for his son, on some Summer League-supplied postcards. I'm guessing he got one from Augustin because it said "DJ". I mean, that's all the autograph was. "D" over here and "J" over there. Any dude off the street could have signed that. Maybe Augustin doesn't want to have anyone forging his signature at the bank?

CLEVELAND CAVALIERS: J.J. Hickson (#19) is a 6'9" 242-lb big-bodied forward, but he doesn't have remarkable speed or skills. Not a good pick that high. Former Kansas players Wayne Simien and Billy Thomas did not play. Robert "Tractor" Traylor made an appearance, but didn't do anything special. He's listed as a 7-year pro. Last year, the 7-year pro in the Summer League was Lamond Murray, also on the Cavaliers. What is that franchise doing?!

DALLAS MAVERICKS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. I'm on the fence about draft pick Shan Foster.

DENVER NUGGETS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. I kind of lost a little respect for this organization.

DETROIT PISTONS: Check my scathing report on the Arron Afflalo post and my notes on this team on the Day 7 post.

HOUSTON ROCKETS: I barely got to see this team play. I noticed nothing special about #28 Donte Greene, as he probably played his best games previously, or #33 Joey Dorsey. I don't even remember seeing #54 Marty Leunen. Gustavo Barrera had one flash in the pan all game long. He's a 6'5" guard from Uruguay, which piqued my interest since, well, ya know, the NBA is a circus.

LA CLIPPERS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. I cannot recall anything extraordinary about their players.

LA LAKERS: I barely got to see this team play. Coby Karl played tough again like last year. He's really solid and I'd like to see him in the NBA. No sign of Yi Li, Chinese 6'9" forward. 58th pick Joe Crawford didn't do anything special. Had I known ex-Cal star Sean Lampley (Go Bears!) was on the roster, I might have checked this team out more.

MEMPHIS GRIZZLIES: Unfortunately, I did not get to see OJ Mayo play.

MILWAUKEE BUCKS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. Joe Alexander (lottery pick) showed nothing special.

MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES: There's a few notes in the comments section of the Jerryd Bayless post... I know you're curious about Kevin Love. There's nothing he does that's ultra-spectacular, except for the oft-noted fullcourt chest pass, which I did not witness, but he should have a long NBA career if not for the fact that he is a pretty mobile big guy. And I mean not only big, but heavy. He just has these powerful strides. He's very intense, but lots of times he was pissed at himself for not making a basket or something. I can envision him refining his skills more and more. Right now, he's kind of like a physical tree. Whomever guards him just knows he has to withstand some lumber from Love. The key is, can Love make his defender worry about his skills, too?

NEW ORLEANS HORNETS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. I had some good things to say about Hilton Armstrong... Almost forgot, point guard Bobby Brown did play well, but he's only 6'2" 175 lbs, so I'm not sure how his body will hold up. I just think he's too small to be effective in the NBA.

NEW YORK KNICKS: Check my NBA circus post about the Knicks.

PHILADELPHIA 76ERS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post. I had some good things to say about Thaddeus Young.

PHOENIX SUNS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post and the report on DJ Strawberry... 7'0" 250-lb Serbian center Vladimir Golubovic was caught on a high screen and yelled in his European accent, "Sweeetch!!!". He also did not seem to understand the NBA defensive three-second rule... Robin Lopez had a strong move to the hole that resulted in a dunk, to which his former aforementioned AAU coach Darren "Mats" Matsubara gave a high-five to a friend sitting with him courtside. Afterwards, through Mats, I met Lopez's mom. She said Robin looked very tired and, despite her warnings, has been staying out late, being in Sin City and all. I sure hope he's been spending the last two games out late, because I didn't see anything terribly special in two games except that dunk. He has a nice hook which doesn't necessarily go in all the time. But the bottom line is, he is huge. And he has long strides going north and south. I have not seen his brother Brook Lopez play, but I'm assuming Brook is a better version, which could be considered scary... I also mention Marcus Vinicius in my post about the Knicks and the NBA circus.

PORTLAND TRAILBLAZERS: Check my notes on the Jerryd Bayless post.

SACRAMENTO KINGS: Another Token Asian Guy found! Coaching staff of the Kings. Looks like he's a statguy or something... I don't see anything special out of Jason Thompson (#12). Could Kawakami be right? Did the Warriors rumor mill of Thompson coax the Kings into taking Thompson and give the Warriors a shot at Randolph at #14?

SAN ANTONIO SPURS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post.

TORONTO RAPTORS: Check my notes on this team on the Day 7 post.

WASHINGTON WIZARDS: Check the post about my man-crush on Dominic McGuire... Andray Blatche, the 6'11" 248-lb center picked out of South Kent Prep in Connecticut 3 years ago, has a glimmer of hope. He's got some handles and has flashes every now and then. He's a big boy and can take the NBA grind, but it's as if he hasn't made up his mind on what kind of player he wants to be. He's lacking a mean streak. He's a case study in favor of the 1-year-of-college NBA eligibility rule... I'm still not impressed by Nick Young, last year's first-round draft pick. He kind of reminds me of Harold Miner. Flashy set of tools, but nothing really stands out. Like they're almost there, but they're not. Hmmm, they both went to USC.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!!!

This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!