Las Vegas Summer League 2010 - Day 2

[Uncia03]

Day two was a great day. The games I watched were:
Game 1: Nuggets vs. Bulls
Game 2: Cavaliers vs. D-League (Only 1st Quarter)
Game 3: Raptors vs. Rockets
Game 4: Kings vs. Lakers
Game 5a: Warriors vs. Heat (Only 1st few minutes)
Game 5: Trail Blazers vs. Hornets (Missed 1st quarter)

So let’s get right to the games.

Day 2: Nuggets vs. Bulls

At the start of each game I’ll point out to my wife the players she should be watching to potentially have an impact on the game. To my surprise I saw J.R. Smith warming up on the court, and he in fact did play for the Nuggets today. I’m not certain if he just felt he needed to get some real 5-on-5 practice in, but there were a lot of people who were excited to see him out on the court.

Joe Alexander was listed as being on the Bulls summer league roster, but given that he’s still a FA he was not present. He’s had some good summer league games, and I had hoped to see if he’d improved at all.
Also Taj Gibson was not listed on the roster or at the game from what I could tell. I’m not certain as to why he wasn’t playing, but that also hurts the talent level of the Bull’s roster.

So it wasn’t too surprising to see the Nuggets get an easy win over the Bulls considering the differences in talent on the court.

Denver Nuggets: Ty Lawson(5’11 Guard)
20 minutes, 18 points(6/10 fg, 5/5 ft), 3 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 turn-over

Lawson had a great game today, and really impressed with his 1st quarter showing. He was able to easily get into the lane and find either a teammate cutting to the basket, an open big-man who’s defender rotated over, or an open shooter on the wing. He also made some great entry passes from the top of the key.

His passing was great and he also shot the ball very well. It’s one of those tough things to try and judge though, because he took a lot of really tough shots. They were the type of shots where everyone cheers because the degree of difficulty was so high, but just because he made them doesn’t mean that it was a good thing for him to take. But he did make his shots, so I can’t be too hard on him.

He didn’t play at all in the 2nd or 4th quarters, but came out in the 3rd quarter and put together more solid basketball. He continued to have good drives into the lane and made great decisions once getting past his man. His only turn-over came from a pass a bit too tough to handle on the fast break.


Denver Nuggets: J.R. Smith(6’6 Guard)
16 minutes, 9 points(3/5 fg, 2/2 ft), 1 rebound, 1 assist, 2 steals, 1 turn-over

Though Smith did play in this game he didn’t try to take the game over as the veteran on the team. Rather, he let Lawson run the team, and let the game come to him. He was a solid contributor in his limited minutes and shot the ball well.
On one of his steals he led the fast-break and had a very flashing pass which led to a bucket. He made a really tough turn-around jumpshot, and had a fantastic dribbling spin-move in the paint for a strong finish.
Considering the type of gunner he can be, I was surprised at his patience and willingness to not be ‘the man’ on this summer league squad. It seemed to pay off as he had a very solid game.


Denver Nuggets: Coby Karl (6’5 Guard)
23 minutes, 6 points, 4 rebound, 3 assists, 3 steals

Karl was another player who had a very solid game for the Nuggets. I expected him to shoot the ball more, but he only took 3 shots, 2 of which were 3-pt shots set up by Lawson.

What actually caught my eye in this game was his dedication to pushing the ball in transition. He had back-to-back steals where he pushed the ball hard up the court for easy transition points. He also secured four defensive rebounds and pushed the ball hard each time.
So though he didn’t score a lot of points himself, he really set the tone by getting the Nuggets into good transition situations where they were able to score easy points and obtain a lead against the Bulls which was never challenged.


Denver Nuggets: Antonio Anderson (6’6 Guard)
17 minutes, 7 points(2/3 fg, 3/3 ft), 2 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 turn-over

Since Anderson has been mentioned as a possible candidate as the SG next to Tyreke I paid very close attention to him in this game.

One thing immediately stood out to me in regards to his game.
It has to do with how he plays defense. It looks as if he’s a good athlete, and because of that he completely plays off of his man, when his man is on the weak-side.
It happened over, and over, and over again. If his man is on the weak-side corner he’ll hedge to the edge of the key.
If the man with the ball drives baseline or swings it to the top of the key, he’ll move towards the direction of the ball leaving his man completely open. Now, this can be fine if the man he is guarding isn’t a shooter, but when he got into the game his man was Derrick Byars who had earlier hit back-to-back 3-pt shots.

Now he did end up getting a steal while providing that weak-side help, but he really over-commits on the help, and though he is a good athlete he isn’t able to close out on his man fast enough to really contest open shots.

His man defense is fine on the strong-side (though he did gamble on a steal and missed, and got blown by once or twice), but pretty much anytime on defense I could look at the court and see the man Anderson was supposed to be guarding by finding the man who was wide open on the weakside.

On the offensive end he was pretty passive.
He’d set himself up on the 3-pt line and rotate along the line waiting for someone to pass him the ball. When he got the ball, he usually just made a quick swing-pass around the horn.
He did have a strong take to the basket with a finish, and he also had two dribble-drives and kick-outs to shooters. But it looked as if his first reaction was to pass the ball along rather than create something for himself or someone else.

Denver Nuggets: Laurence Ekperigin(6’7 Forward)
16 minutes, 14 points(4/4 fg, 6/9 ft), 3 rebounds, 2 turn-overs

A very brief mention of Ekperigin. He’s an extremely under-sized PF, but he was around the basket for all 16 of his minutes. He hustled and scrapped and came away with 14 points. All of his shots from the floor were from 3 feet and in, and he got fouled and sent to the line quite a bit.
So he had a positive impact on the floor, but he’s just so undersized I don’t think he has a shot in the league.


Chicago Bulls: James Johnson (6’9 Forward)
32 minutes, 13 points(5/11 fg, 2/2 ft), 1 rebound, 2 assists, 2 blocks, 4 turn-overs

I watched Johnson play a few times in summer league last year, and he really didn’t impress. In this game he had a fantastic 1st quarter, and he really was working to put the team on his back to stay competitive. However, after the 1st quarter I don’t have hardly any notes on him for the remainder of the game.

I don’t know if he just ran out of gas, or if he just got discouraged and realized that he wouldn’t be able to do enough to help the Bulls get the win.

So because he made such a strong 1st quarter impression I felt he had a good game, but in reviewing the over-all game numbers, he clearly was flat for the game after the first 10 minutes or so.

The first thing he did in the game was make a fantastic recovery block on his man during a fast-break. On the next defensive sequence he was able to steal the ball from J.R. Smith when Smith tried to drive into the lane.
He made a nice cut into the lane for the dunk, and then later used a good head-fake to get into the lane and finish.
He made some nice defensive plays, created his own shot, moved well with-out the ball, and looked for open shooters when he had the ball. So a strong first quarter but wasn’t able to sustain his intensity level for the duration of the game.


Chicago Bulls: John Lucas (5’11 Guard)
22 minutes, 15 points (6/11 fg, 0/0 ft), 1 rebound, 3 assists, 2 steals

Lucas is an undersized scoring point-guard. I use the term point-guard very loosely as Johnson actually looked to distribute the ball and run the offense more than Lucas did. Lucas basically spent his time looking for his own shot, and didn’t do much to try and create for others.

He did shoot the ball well, but his game is about hitting the jump shot rather than driving into the lane. He didn’t have any free-throw attempts, and though he did manage to get three assists, he didn’t really do much to create good scoring opportunities for other players.

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Cavaliers vs. D-League

As I’ve mentioned earlier, they have two separate courts where they play games simultaneously. So I sat and watched the first quarter of this game, before moving over to the other court to watch the Rockets vs. Raptors game.

I didn’t recognize any of the D-League players, so I basically just took notes on whomever stood out to me in the first quarter of play.

So I’ll give you my first quarter impressions.

Cleveland Cavaliers: Danny Green
35 minutes, 12 points(5/14 fg, 1-2 ft) 4 rebounds, 4 assists, 3 steals, 1 block, 8 turn-overs

I watched Green play for Cleveland last year, and though he was one of the main men on that team, he never seemed to play as well as you’d hope.
He ended up having 8 turn-overs in this game, and I only notated a single turn-over where he almost lost the handle while driving into the lane, but then recovered and promptly threw a bad pass for the TO.
He made a nice driving curl into the lane for the foul-line extended jumpshot, and also hit a spot-up 3-pt shot.
He along-side Pooh Jeter controlled the ball and initiated the offense for the Cavs.


Cleveland Cavaliers: J.J. Hickson (6’9 Forward)
38 minutes, 18 points(9/12 fg, 0/6 ft), 9 rebounds, 1 assist, 2 turn-overs

Hickson had a good year for the Cavaliers last year, though he didn’t get much playing time in the play-offs.
He had the best 1st quarter for the Cavaliers in my opinion.
He started off the game with a hard take to the basket where he was fouled. He ended the day being 0 for 6 at the charity stripe, so that’s an obvious area he needs to improve on.

He then hit the face-up 15 ft shot, and later hit an uncontested 18 ft jumper. He runs the floor very well on the fast break and had a nice slam dunk in transition. He did have the ball stripped once when trying to take it to the rim, and he made a very nice pass to a cutter on another possession.

He was just very active in this game, showing good athleticism, a smooth mid-range jump shot, and a willingness to fight for rebounds and run the floor hard in transition.


Cleveland Cavaliers: Christian Eyenga (6’5 Guard/Forward)
32 minutes, 13 points(4/7 fg, 4/4 ft), 4 rebounds, 1 steal, 2 blocks, 2 turn-overs

Eyenga is a good athlete and he demonstrated his athleticism by playing very good man defense in the first quarter. He had a great block when his man attempted a turn-around fade-away jumpshot. He also closely contested another jumpshot which was missed.
He had a nice catch of the ball in the key then an immediate drop-off pass to Hickson who was fouled going up. He also spotted up for two 3-pt attempts, hitting one and missing the other.
I really didn’t notice him in the first few minutes of the game, but he started to get my attention with his defense and had a solid first quarter.


D-League Select: Russell Robinson (6’1 Guard)
26 minutes, 20 points(7/12 fg, 5/6 ft), 2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 4 turn-overs

Robinson was definitely looking to score out there. He’s got a great mid-range pull-up very similar to Beno’s and he hit on that twice in the 1st quarter. He also had a nice aggressive take to the rim where he was fouled.

He had four turn-overs in the game, but only one of them came in the 1st quarter, and the TO came off of a very bad bit of ball-handling in the lane where he eventually was called for the double-dribble.


D-League Select: Curtis Withers (6’8 Forward)
27 minutes, 9 points (4/7 fg, 1-2 ft), 9 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 block, 2 turn-overs

Withers is a post-player with really good patience in the lane. He sort of reminded me of how Landry plays around traffic at the rim.
He started the game with a nice post-move for the bucket. Then had two possessions where he used a nice up-fake to get his defender off-balance allowing him the easy score.

He only had 9 points in the game, but he had 3 baskets at the rim, and was fouled hitting 1 of 2 from the line all in the first quarter. So I don’t know what happened to him after that, but he looked very good in the first 10 minutes that I saw. He also was the leading rebounder from both teams with 9 boards, so a solid game for him.


D-League Select: Larry Owens (6’7 Guard/Forward)
30 minutes, 15 points(7/14 fg, 0/0 fg), 1 rebound, 5 steals, 3 turn-overs

Owens came off the bench, so he managed to make an impression with only a couple of minutes of playing time.
He basically came out looking to score the ball, and he did so rather well.

Coming into the game he hit a 3-pt shot on the move. He then followed that with a nice drop-off pass to Withers who got fouled going up. He also made an extremely difficult jumpshot over Eyenga who really contested the shot.

He looked pretty fluid out there, and definitely was a spark-plug off the bench. He did almost lose the ball with a wild drive into the lane, but he managed to hold on and avoid the turn-over.

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Raptors vs. Rockets

I left the Cavaliers vs. D-League game in order to watch this game in it’s entirety, and I’m glad that I did. The Raptors have a stacked summer league team, so it’s going to be fantastic to watch them play the Kings on Friday. The Rockets also have a great summer league roster, so this was just a fun game to watch.


Toronto Raptors: Demar DeRozan (6’7 Guard/Forward)
20 minutes, 23 points(10/15 fg, 3/6 fg), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 1 turn-over

DeRozan did not have a good summer league last year, but he really stepped it up in this game.
It’s the best that I’d ever seen him play. He’s always had the athleticism to be an NBA player, the question was how long would it take for him develop a good outside shot, become more aggressive, and put all his physical tools together.

Today he was extremely impressive. He scored 23 points in only 20 minutes of action, and he was very aggressive. He was attacking the rim and finishing strong, driving into the lane and hitting a 10ft pull-up, and also hitting 15ft and 18 ft face-up jumpers. He just had everything clicking from an offensive standpoint and he was doing it all from both inside the lane and outside.

In addition, he was playing good defense.
He got one of his steals and took it full court for the slam. Then in back-to-back sequences, he set up Weems for a fast-break alley-oop slam, and then Weems set him up for the fast-break alley-oop slam.
He collected five defensive rebounds, and he was looking to push the ball hard up the court each time he had the opportunity.

DeRozan just exploded in today’s game and there wasn’t anything the Rockets could do to stop him.


Toronto Raptors: Sonny Weems (6’6 Guard/Forward)
26 minutes, 13 points(5/14 fg, 2/3 ft), 5 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 turn-overs

Weems is an extremely athletic wing who likes to attack the basket. He stood out to me last year in summer league, and it looks as if he’s improved his all-around game from last year.

He started the game off really well with a transition slam dunk and an aggressive take to the rim and finish.

He then started settling for some long outside jumpers which he had little success with. (1 of 5 from 3-pt land)

In the 2nd quarter he had the nice alley-oop set up by DeRozan, then had the favor returned when DeRozan set him up in the next transition opportunity.

He showed much better passing skills in this game than I had remembered from last year. He made a nice drop-off pass to a big man who was then fouled, and in addition to the alley-oop to DeRozan, he also had another nice pass in transition for the bucket.

Weems did have two turn-overs, with both of them coming when he took the ball into the lane and lost the handle or got stripped. And he needs to maintain better balance when attempting his outside shots, as he has a tendency to step into the shot rather than letting his feet be set.

So the shooting percentage was poor, but it was an otherwise solid and aggressive game from Weems.


Toronto Raptors: Ed Davis (6’10 Forward)
26 minutes, 4 points (1/3 fg, 2/6 ft), 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 1 block, 3 turn-overs

I was really interested in watching Davis play. The question was whether or not he hurt his stock by staying in NC another year, and then not playing well and ultimately getting hurt.

He still managed to get selected in the lottery, but I think most people still considered him a fairly raw player, so it was going to be interesting to see how he’d play in a more NBA-type setting.

The numbers indicate that he didn’t have that good of a game, and in this case I am in complete agreement. For being their 1st round pick, he was basically just along for the DeRozan ride, and didn’t have any sort of impact in the game.

I don’t have a lot of notes on Davis, but the first thing he did which caught my eye was mis-handle a nice transition pass from Bobby Brown for the turn-over. Later he missed another easy finish at the rim, and on defense he really bit on an upfake and allowed his man to blow right by him to the rack.

In the 4th quarter he was on the wing and made a nice entry pass to a posting big. On another play, he secured an offensive rebound, and when an immediate put-back opportunity did not present itself, he decided to kick it out to a guard, rather than take a bad shot, so that was good recognition on his part.

So all-in-all he just didn’t have an impact on this game. We’ll see him again, most likely matched up against Hassan, so it should be interesting.


Toronto Raptors: Solomon Alabi (7’1 Center)
18 minutes, 10 points(2/4 fg, 6/6 ft), 6 rebounds, 2 turn-overs

I watched Alabi quite a few times at Florida State, and he slipped from what many people considered a pick in the early 20’s down into the 2nd round. If Whiteside had not been available, he would have been one of guys I’d have liked to see picked up by the Kings.
In fact the first time I watched Alabi play was against Georgia Tech and Florida State won that game, and I felt that Alabi played a major role in keeping Favors/Lawal contained.

He’s a tall player with good length and decent athleticism. He’s not very explosive, and on offense he’s very mechanical. He’s great free-throw shooter, taking the free-throw on technical fouls while at Florida.
On defense he uses his length well to alter and block shots, but doesn’t commit to shotblocking like Hassan does, so he does a better job of staying in defensive position, while not being as explosive a shotblocker as Whiteside. He also is not as good of a rebounder as he should be considering his size and length.

So I was obviously looking forward to seeing him play today. He didn’t start the game, but came off the bench in the 1st quarter and ended up splitting the Center minutes pretty much down the middle with Joey Dorsey.

He was second on the team in rebounding with 6, though he should have done better on the boards for the amount of minutes he got.
In fact, five of his six rebounds were on the offensive end, where he was very aggressive in using his length to keep the ball in the Raptor’s possession. He did a poor job of securing defensive rebounds, however.

In the 1st quarter, the first thing that he did was mis-handle a beautiful drop-off pass from DeRozan, which resulted in a turn-over. Later in the quarter he had a nice offensive rebound off of a missed free-throw.
In the 2nd quarter he had his other turn-over when he made a bad entry pass into the lane.
Through-out the game he was securing offensive boards and getting fouled and sent to the line, where he was perfect for all six of his attempts. He also hit a nice 10ft face-up shot.
So it was a solid outing for Alabi. He needs to work on his defensive rebounding, but he did incredibly well on the offensive boards, took good shots, played solid man defense, and hit his free-throws.


Toronto Raptors: Bobby Brown (6’3 Guard)
27 minutes, 20 points(6/7 fg, 6/7 ft), 0 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 turn-over

I’ll be honest. I don’t have a lot of notes for Brown.

As you know, he played exceptionally well in summer league a few years back, and we ended up signing him to a two-year deal. He played for half of the year with us, but we ended up trading him and Sheldon to the Timberwolves for Rashad McCants and Calvin Booth.

So since he was a fairly known quantity, and someone I didn’t think the Kings would be interested in, I didn’t initially start taking notes on his game.
With that said, as you can see, he had a very, very strong shooting game, hitting almost everything he put up.

In the 3rd quarter he hit back-to-back 3 point shots, the only two he took. He also had a nice pull-up jumpshot later in the quarter. In the 4th he threw up a wild hookshot that managed to find its way into the basket.

So though I don’t think the Kings are looking at him, he did himself well with a strong showing, and though no-where near as explosive as DeRozan a major reason the Raptors were able to maintain their comfortable lead in this game.


Toronto Raptors: Joey Dorsey (6’8 Forward/Center)
21 minutes, 13 points(6/8 fg, 1-2 ft), 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, 1 turn-over

You’ll recall that we waived Dorsey towards the end of last season for apparently being a potential bad-influence in the locker-room.

I know that a lot of people really, really wanted Dorsey back when we made the Artest trade, and I’ll be honest in saying that I was very happy to have picked him up in the Martin trade. In summer league last year he was just a rebounding machine, playing very strong.

We didn’t see him play all that well for us, so from a talent perspective, it didn’t feel like a major loss when we waived him.

In today’s game, he continued to show what he always seems to show in summer league. He had 12 rebounds in 21 minutes, and he just muscled everyone out of the way and collected rebound after rebound.

He also went 6 of 8 from the field, with most of those being either offensive put-backs, or finishes at the rim when provided the ball.
I’m very excited, because we are going to see him and Cousins get after it on Friday, and that should be a great matchup for the rebound battle.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking about the Raptors, but I want everyone to be familiar with this team, as we’ll be playing them on Friday, and it will hopefully give you some insight on what to expect as far as match-ups. With that said, it’s time to talk about the Rockets. (Go Adelman!)

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Raptors vs. Rockets (Continued)


Houston Rockets: Chase Budinger (6’7 Forward)
34 minutes, 13 points(4/13 fg, 5/6 ft), 5 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 turn-overs

Last year Budinger was projected to be an early 20’s pick and ended up slipping to Houston in the 2nd round. He’s a good athlete who is also a good shooter, and while his play in summer league and in the regular season was inconsistent, he displayed a lot of good basketball and was a nice find for Houston.

In today’s game he was matched up with Weems, and surprisingly enough their stats almost mirror each other identically, and it seemed as if they both cancelled out each other’s play.
Budinger was the more prominent player for Houston and did a lot more ball-handling/play-making than Weems, but his shot was really off.
He went 0 of 5 from downtown. From the 3-pt line he’s better as a spot shooter, but in this game he was trying to create space off the dribble when taking the 3-pt shot, and that didn’t work well for him.

Both of his turn-overs came from him driving into the lane and losing the ball. But unlike some of the times I’ve seen him, he was very aggressive at trying to get into the lane and either finish or find the open man under the basket or on the wing.

He rebounded well, got others involved, and was aggressive, but since he had a very difficult time finding the bottom of the bucket, it wasn’t the best of games for him.


Houston Rockets: Jordan Hill (6’10 Forward)
31 minutes, 15 points(5/8 fg, 5/5 ft), 6 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 turn-overs

You’ll recall the whole New York trade, and whether or not we wanted to take on Jeffries salary in order to also pick up Jordan Hill.

Hill was selected by New York in the first round last year, and people weren’t happy with his selection because Golden State had selected Stephan Curry right in front of them. As New York was trying to clear out salary for the LeBron sweepstakes, their 1st round pick in Hill was what they had to use in order to get Houston to take on Jeffries contract.

In last year’s summer league, Hill’s play was terrible. He probably should have stayed in school another year, so I was curious as to how he was going to perform with an NBA season and a mid-season trade under his belt.

As you can see, the numbers look solid. He played much more under control, especially in the post, compared to last year. However, you can see that he was absolutely eaten alive by Joey Dorsey in the rebound battle, having half the rebounds while playing in 50% more minutes.

He was most active in the 1st and 4th quarters. In the first quarter the first notation that I have was that he mis-handled an entry pass for a turn-over. But after that he ran down a rebound on the defensive end and played solid post defense against Ed Davis.

He had a nice spin-move past Alabi for the finish, but later traveled while trying to make another post move. Though he didn’t have any blocked shots, he was able to draw an offensive charge in the 3rd quarter. In the 4th he had two nice offensive rebounds and a very strong finish through contact.

So a much better game than any I’d seen from him in previous summer league games, and though he wasn't dominant, he was more controlled, and just seemed to have a better feel for the game.


Houston Rockets: Patrick Patterson (6’9 Forward)
29 minutes, 14 points(6/13 fg, 2/2 ft), 9 rebounds, 1 block, 1 turn-over

Patterson was the Rocket’s 1st round pick this year. He was an interesting selection because the line on him is that he’s an energy hustle player who is good at a lot of things, but not really great at anything.
So the question was whether or not his predicted ‘up-side’ would prevent him from being drafted early, or his all-around utility, and readiness to immediately contribute would make him a good fit for some teams.

In today’s game he was the Rocket’s leading rebounder, and did a far better job on the boards than Hill.

Last year at Kentucky he worked hard to develop his outside shot, and he actually hit quite a few 3s for them. Today, he was 0 for 2 from the 3-pt line, and one of the first things he did in the game was take a bad off-balance 3-pt shot.
But for the remainder of the quarter he hustled and made some good rebounding plays.

He ran the floor very well, and got a bucket or two in transition. He also had a bucket or two in the post. Most of his misses came from his jumpshot, which he tried to make while on the move instead of being completely set.

All-in-all, though the stats show him with a decent game, I wasn’t terribly impressed.

He did have a better game than Ed Davis, and his impact on the court was more than Davis, but he didn’t really stand out much to me in this game, and I was watching him fairly closely.
I hope he has a more impactful showing the next time I watch him play.


Houston Rockets: Ishmael Smith (6’0 Guard)
23 minutes, 6 points(3/6 fg), 4 rebounds, 9 assists, 1 turn-over

Smith had a very good game for himself on the offensive end. I mentioned earlier that Budinger did a lot of the playmaking for Houston, and while that was true, it was Smith who was working to get players into their sets, and trying to facilitate the initial offensive sets.
He ended up with 9 assists and only a single turn-over, and he though he wasn’t looking for his shot, he did hit half of the shots he attempted.

The biggest issue he had was on the defensive end, where he was completely unable to prevent Brown from doing whatever he wanted to do on the floor.

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Kings vs. Lakers


The match-up of the summer league from the perspective of a Kings fan. We have the superior talent and so the expectation has to be that of a winning game, which is always a joy to behold.
And this game was a great one. Not only did the Kings get a win, but they were led by a dominating performance from potential franchise Center in DeMarcus Cousins. So let’s take a look at how the players performed in this great game.


Sacramento Kings: DeMarcus Cousins (6’11 Center)
31 minutes, 19 points(8/20 fg, 3/3 ft), 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 5 turn-overs

Cousins had himself a very good game. I think that one of the important things to remember about this game is that Cousins was matching up against what people had considered the best big man in the summer league to that point in Derrick Caracter. So even though Caracter was selected very late in the 2nd round, he had been playing very, very good basketball.

Cousins is unquestioningly an impact player, as he is completely involved on the offensive end, and works hard on securing rebounds, and providing a post presence on the defensive end.

He secured 12 rebounds and battled with Caracter all night on the boards. In the end, he won that battle decisively by grabbing more than twice the number of rebounds than Caracter, who at that time was averaging 10 a game himself.

On the defensive end Cousins actually provided great size in the middle.

If you’d watched Caracter play in previous games you’d know that all of his points come in the post. He creates space with his big body and good footwork, then uses a little hook with either of his hands.

In this game, none of Caracter’s points in the first 3 quarters(10 of 14) came from with-in the paint. Caracter had 2 free-throws, and 4 jumpshots for his ten points through most of the game. Caracter did end up with 2 post baskets in the last 4 minutes of the game.
But Cousins was such a big body in there, that it forced Caracter to completely change his style of attack on offense. Now you have to credit Caracter for making those face-up jumpshots, but Cousins did a great job of forcing Caracter to change the way that he’d been playing in summer league to that point.

On the offensive end I could go on and on about how good Cousins looked.

He still has turn-overs from trying to do too much, over-dribbling, making too tight of a pass, but I think that with more experience he’ll learn what he can and can’t get away with.
He also took some really tough shots in the post, but I don’t mind him learning what is going to be effective for him in the future. He didn’t get to the line nearly enough considering the amount of time he had the ball on offense, so hopefully we’ll see him either try to go through contact to get fouled, or pass the ball out to reset the offense if he finds himself in a situation where he can’t make a good offensive attempt for himself.

All I can say is that people in the crowds have been very impressed with the two performances DeMarcus has put up on the floor. As far as just dominating a game, so far only DeMar DeRozan has come out and had as much of a ‘take-over’ game that I’ve seen so far.


Sacramento Kings: Hassan Whiteside (7’0 Forward/Center)
31 minutes, 4 points(2/5 fg), 5 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 turn-over

Hassan came down to earth in this game, when compared to his first game against the Pistons. That is alright with me, as he is going to be a work in progress.

What I love is that his first game shows the potential he has to be a game-changing defensive presence. Today was a more realistic look of what we can expect from Hassan while he works to develop both his game and his consistency.

All of Whiteside’s points came in the 1st quarter. He had a nice bank shot when his man moved away from him, and the ball was delivered to him.
He also hit a little turn-around jumpshot.

One of the shots that he missed later in the 1st was an offensive rebound tip-in which didn’t settle, and late in the 4th quarter he made a nice post move, but the ball rolled off the rim.

What I liked about Whiteside in yesterday’s game as well as this one is that he seems to be content to let the offensive come to him and not get frustrated with touches. He is aggressive on the offensive boards and looks to score that way, and looks to have a decent touch on his jumper when his man plays off of him.

From a defensive perspective, Hassan helped Cousins in forcing Caracter to adjust his offensive playing style. He wasn’t as out of control in regards to going for blocks in this game as opposed to the first, so he did a bit better job of staying in defensive position.

From a rebounding perspective, he did have major problems.

He was matched up against Sims, who in the same amount of minutes had three times as many rebounds.
Whiteside seems to really rely on his length to secure rebounds, and he’s going to have to learn better rebounding fundamentals, especially since his frame is slight enough to allow him to get pushed around on the block while fighting for defensive rebounding position.
So though he made some athletic rebounding plays, he needs to be more cognizant of establishing good position, and boxing out his man to ensure himself the best chance at securing the rebound.


Sacramento Kings: Donte Greene(6’11 Forward)
16 minutes, 17 points(6/10 fg, 2/3 ft), 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 2 turn-overs

A great game by Donte, and I’m just loving how he’s handling himself on the offensive end of the court.

His biggest problem has been shot selection and consistency. Today he shot the ball extremely well and though he was very aggressive in attacking the rim, he didn’t find himself too much out of control.

He had one baseline drive where he was blocked, and another drive into the lane where he lost the ball. But he finished multiple times at the rim as well as made some nice passes once getting past his defender.

If he can continue to bring the defensive intensity we saw develop last year, while knocking down the open shot, and creating for himself and his teammates when the defense gives him the opportunity, I don’t think there is any doubt that he’ll be the starting SF for the Kings at the start of the season.

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem he has is with his rebounding. Though he did better per minute than Whiteside in this game, I’d still like to see more than 3 rebounds in 15 minutes of play.


Sacramento Kings: Omri Casspi (6’9 Forward)
26 minutes, 7 points(3/8 fg, 1/6 ft), 4 rebounds, 2 turn-overs

This was a miserable game for Casspi.
He started off with a nice curl into the lane, but completely airballed the shot.

Things didn’t get much better from there. He had an aggressive take to the basket and was fouled, and unfortunately for him he only hit 1 of his 6 shots from the foul line in this contest.
I think his poor shooting really threw him off, because after that he had an absolutely terrible inbounds pass for a turn-over. He basically spent the entire game aggressively forcing up shots and trying to get to the rim, and had almost no success at all.

He did have a nice deflection for a steal, but seemed to have problems keeping in front of Gerald Green. It was just a poor game from Omri, so I’m hoping for a nice bounce-back game from him.


Sacramento Kings: Donald Sloan(6’3 Guard)
18 minutes, 4 points(1/5 fg, 2/2 ft), 1 rebound, 3 assists, 1 steal

Though Sloan didn’t have the greatest of numbers in the first game, I thought he did a fairly good job. Today he had another game where the numbers didn’t look good, and unfortunately it wasn’t a very good game for him.

Whereas in the first game I thought that Sloan did fairly well in trying to get the team into their sets and to play the role of facilitator, in today’s game it appeared as if he was focused on scoring more for himself and didn’t appear to try and facilitate the offense the same way.

The first thing he did was have a dribbling turn-over, this was then followed up by a bad forced shot on the baseline. He did have a good transition pass to Donte for the bucket.
In the second quarter he had a bad pass to Casspi who was cutting into the lane for a turn-over and he followed that up with having the ball stolen from him in the open court.

All in all, he didn’t have very many good plays. His shot was off, his handle was off, and his passing was off. Probably his best play of the day was in the 4th quarter where he was able to split the double-team and then kick it out to Donte who was open for the 3 pointer. But today’s performance was just not good enough.

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Kings vs. Lakers (Continued)


Sacramento Kings: Sylven Landesberg (6’6 Guard)
25 minutes, 13 points(4/9 fg, 5/5 ft), 4 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal

Landesberg had a decent game, but after watching him in his 4 minutes of playing time the previous day, I guess I had higher expectations for how he was going to play getting to be the starter for today’s game.

He’s got good size for a SG and a good handle. He made a couple of nice dribble drives into the lane where he was able to finish at the rim. He also was aggressive on the offensive boards, collecting three of his four rebounds on the offensive glass. Having that attack mentality is always a plus and a lot of ways a measure of a player’s aggression and willingness to mix things up inside.

Unfortunately his defense wasn’t quite where I’d like it to be. There were a few plays where he let his man get past him, and he was really getting knocked off his man by opposing picks and he wasn’t able to recover quickly enough to get back into the play.

He wasn’t credited with any turn-overs in this game, but on one of his drives he travelled, but was fortunate that the ref called a foul. Later in the 4th quarter he took his eye off the ball for a turn-over but it was credited to the passer rather than him.

A solid outing by Landesberg, but I was hoping for a little bit more from him today. I felt that Ryan Thompson plays a bit better defense, and so Landesberg is going to have to play better to make up for it.


Sacramento Kings: Ryan Thompson (6’6 Guard)
13 minutes, 2 points(1/3 fg), 1 steal

Thompson had a miserable game today in that he had little impact on this game. I only have one note for him and that was a wild shot attempt he put up in transition during the 3rd quarter.

He didn’t really make any mistakes but he was invisible out there today, and was certainly outplayed by Landesberg. We’ll see which one of these two will get the starting nod for tomorrow’s game.


Sacramento Kings: Wayne Chism (6’9 Forward)
17 minutes, 13 points(6/7 fg, 1-2 ft), 4 rebounds, 1 turn-over

I didn’t mention Chism in the last game because though he had a solid game, I just didn’t feel there was any sort of spot for him on this team.
With that said, I’m briefly mentioning him because he had a very good game for us today. He was a solid big body out there for us today.
He rebounded decently, boxed out, hit his shots, and basically was a very steady presence the entire game.



Los Angeles Lakers: Derrick Caracter (6’9 Forward/Center)
36 minutes, 14 points(6/9 fg, 2/2 ft), 5 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 steal, 4 blocks, 5 turn-overs

Caracter had been a dominate post presence in his previous summer league games. He just killed Monroe when the Lakers played the Pistons. With that said, he had a much more difficult time against our frontline of Cousins and Whiteside.

He basically decided to change his offensive approach and started the game taking face-up jumpers rather than trying to establish position in the post and doing his damage down low. To his credit, he was actually quite successful with that approach, as he shot the ball well, but because of this change in offensive mentality he was not as effective nor did he have the same sort of impact that he’d had in previous games.

He also had been rebounding the ball extremely well, averaging double digit rebounds, but he lost that battle against Cousins today, partly because of his change in mindframe in how he was going to go about playing against the Kings.

He did have four blocks, which is something he hadn’t really shown in earlier games. He had a nice block on a Cousins baseline shot, and another block when Greene took it to the rim, and tried to put some hang-time to avoid his own defender’s contest.

Oddly enough, though he played almost the entire game, he played his best basketball with four minutes left in the game.
Prior to that he was sitting on 10 points and 3 rebounds, but in the last 4 minutes he had two rebounds, with a very nice outlet pass for a transition basket on one rebound, as well as two post baskets over Cousins.
I’m not certain why he decided to get more aggressive, but he certainly played better the last couple minutes of the game.


Los Angeles Lakers: Devin Ebanks (6’9 Forward)
26 minutes, 12 points(5/13 fg, 1/1 ft), 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 turn-overs

Ebanks had a better game today than he did in the previous games I’d seen him in. He was pretty active on defense, and didn’t make any dribbling mistakes for turn-overs.
He still shot the ball poorly, and I think that it has to do with his shot selection. He took some very difficult shots in today’s game, including a made basket which was a poor shot that managed to go in.


Los Angeles Lakers: D.J. Strawberry (6’5 Guard)
32 minutes, 17 points (5/10 fg, 6/8 ft), 2 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 blocks, 2 turn-overs

Strawberry had another good game today. You can just see that he’s a competitor who doesn’t want to lose. As always he was very aggressive going to the rack and he ended up at the foul line more than any other player in this game. He shot the ball well, and controlled the team, collecting four assists on the night.

I had mentioned in my comments on a previous game that he really isn’t that good of an outside shooter. Tonight he did attempt three 3-pt shots, and he managed to hit one of them. But it’s still an area that he’s going to have to improve.

But I love his aggressiveness and his attitude on the court. Towards the end of the game he played well, and you could tell that he felt they could still pull out a win against the Kings.

 

[Uncia03]

Day 2: Warriors vs. Heat


So I had a choice between watching either the Warriors vs. Heat or the Trail Blazers vs. Hornets.

I decided to watch the Warriors vs. Heat because Ekpe Udoh was one of my favorite players to watch in college and I wanted to see how he was playing in summer league. In addition Brandan Wright was on the roster so I was curious to see if he’d improved his game.

In addition, the Heat had 3 2nd round picks in Pittman, Varnado, and Butler, and I wanted to see these guys play.
I watched Pittman a good amount at Texas, and though I wanted to like him, he never impressed me. The big question with Varnado was whether he had the size and frame to have his game translate from the college game to the NBA game.

So I go to watch the game and unfortunately am disappointed. Udoh was not playing or even on the bench (I found out later he hurt his wrist) and Wright was also not in the game.

For the Heat, Pittman was in the game, but Varnado was on the bench and not playing, and neither was Butler.
I watched for about 5-10 minutes, but no-one was really standing out on the court. So because of the guys who were on the floor, I decided to head back to the court and watch the Trail Blazers vs. Hornets game.


Day 2: Trail Blazers vs. Hornets

Because this game started earlier than the Warriors vs. Heat game, I missed the first quarter completely.
The two players I was looking forward to watching on the Hornets was Collison and Brackins. Unfortunately, when I got to the game I saw Brackins limping to the sidelines. He ended up going back to the training room and did not return, so I don’t know what happened, just that he just got injured.

Collison was not playing either for the Hornets, so I spent most of my time watching the Trail Blazers who had a lot of players in attendance.


Portland Trail Blazers: Patty Mills (6’0 Guard)
29 minutes, 18 points(6/9 fg, 4/5 ft), 3 rebounds, 3 assists, 5 turn-overs

Mills had a good game today, though his turn-over rate was a bit high. I think that a lot of his good play came in the 1st quarter which I missed, because though he handled the ball quite a bit, I don’t have a lot of notes for him in this game.
In the 2nd quarter he had a full-court push and finish on the fast-break. Later he curled around a pick and hit a 3 point shot.
In the fourth quarter he had a bad alley-oop pass to Pendergraph who managed to coral the ball to prevent the turn-over. He also got stripped in the open court and committed a clear-path foul rather than allow the highlight dunk. But he also was able to force a turn-over himself and he had a nice aggressive offensive rebound after a missed free-throw attempt.
The Trail Blazers had a comfortable lead in this game through-out, and Mills led the team in scoring and also was the primary ball handler. So a good game from him, though I think that a lot of his best play was in the 1st quarter which I missed.

Portland Trail Blazers: Luke Babbit (6’9 Forward)
29 minutes, 9 points(4/9 fg, 1-2 ft), 1 rebound

Babbit was the primary player I wanted to see from the Trail Blazers. The Blazers essentially traded Webster to the Timberwolves for Babbit, and I wanted to see his game.
Unfortunately he did not have a good game.

I'm off to go see another full day of basketball including the Kings vs. Raptors game.
I'll finish off the TrailBlazers vs. Hornets game when I get back. And if I can get back to the hotel in enough time, I'll try to get all of Day 3 games finished.