Summer League Overview, what it's like and other things

Tue, 7/17 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas v1.0

There are a lot of reasons to come to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas in July. In v1.0 here we look at the basketball reason. In v2.0 we'll talk with a number of Kings and potential Kings as well as getting a fresh perspective from Coach Jax on both he and his squad. In v3.0 we'll look at the Eye Candy reason from four perspectives.

Speed of summer league games is faster then NBA games as everyone is showcasing their skills, trying too hard much of the times and trying to outdo each other on every play. Way too much one-on-one ball. But in this, the biggest Fishbowl of a tryout arena in the world, players know the multitude of eyes of GM's, Player Personnel Managers, agents, scouts and front office folks from virtually every team in the NBA are on them. And they only have 5 games to show themselves.

Even tho' you may play on the Kings summer league squad, you are auditioning for every other NBA team as well as the multitude of international teams. At one game I counted 22 scouts/agents from Europe and Latin America in the designated Media section of the arena. Kinda hard for a player to remain very calm in hat environment

Watching the Blazers, in only their 2nd game, play the Rockets (their 3rd game), they are at a higher level than the Kings squad. Five of the Blazer squad listed as rookies played overseas last year and some for several more years before that. Meyers Leonard, the 7-1 center from Illinois played well and ran the floor.

The Rockets squad were all rookies but included Terrence Jones (Kentucky), Jeremy Lamb (UConn), and Donatas Motiejunas (Lithuania) who all played to their level. I bring this up in view of the Kings squad originally to include 7-1 Hassan Whiteside, active SF Tyler Honeycutt, new top recruit Thomas Robinsoni and hot shot Jimmer Fredette.

What happened to the King's squad in playing three bad games? Well Whiteside's motor died and he forgot how to play basketball so he didn't pan out, Honeycutt developed a stress fracture in his foot before getting here and is not playing. Robinson's super speed motor took him places he couldn't get out of and that left only Jimmer, the only King squad member with any real NBA experience and that more unusual than normal. In his 3rd game, Jimmer followed Coaches suggestion to shoot more and lit up for a cool 30 pts. But that was about the only. right spot so far.

So the Kings were at a disadvantage against any team with 3-4 or more players with a year or more of NBA and in some cases with 3-4 years of international experience. Mitchell and Lee played well but not really well and Darnell Jackson with a few extra pounds was a big in the middle but didn't get much of a chance to show his stuff with a bunch of solo shooters. Wednesdays 4th game will be IMHO the best game so far. Hopefully Coach Jax has gotten through to TRob to slow down, to relax and let the game come to him and play like he did last year at Kansas when he was #2 in voting for Player of the Year.

In one of the hazards of the summer league, Nolan Smith, the PG for Portland was suddenly walking very wobbly, dazed then suddenly fell over with around a minute to play. He lay motionless for some 10 minutes and was taken off on a stretcher but was talking with staff and somewhat alert. Later a CAT scan showed he was OK and had gotten a concussion from the elbow of another player. The game was called by the summer league with the Rockets up by 11.

You see good games at summer league and you see some really bad games. The coaches and front office folks in attendance are looking at individual player performance for any stretch of a couple of minutes. It may be a player on-the-bubble or it may be one of their own second rounders. How they play here in he summer league could start or end their NBA career. I give you Hassan Whiteside. The final score to staff personnel tends to be quite iirrelevant.