CruzDude
Senior Member sharing a brew with bajaden
This is my 18th year attending NBA Summer League in either Salt Lake City or Las Vegas. After the first 2 or 3 years, I quit coming to the first Kings summer league game as it was usually a confusing mess of overactive, overhyped and overplaying by the FA’s and rookies. Games 2 and 3 were better played and by game 4 and 5 most teams got it together and showed what their team stew consisted of, for better or worse.
This year was no different. My Kings/NBA basketball starved buddy wanted to see every game on every day so off we went arriving just after tip off of the first game. The Kings summer league team was to play the last game of this first day of a total of 7 games. But things didn’t start well for us.
After dropping off my friend at the long ticket line I went off to relax before returning in a couple of hours to buy my tickets. At the ticket window was told that games 1, 2 and 3 that day were sold out!! SOLD OUT!! No way. There is never a sell out as Thomas & Mack held 18,000 while Cox Pavilion, really just a gym, held 2,500 I guess. Turns out some NBA media genius apparently thought TV cameras at little Cox Pavilion would show a really full crowd for the premier game of the day, Anthony Wiggins vs. Jabari Parker, Bucks vs. 76ers, if only Cox was used to capacity.
Worked great except for the really pissed off crowd of several thousand fans who could get no tickets while standing in 105 degree sun for an hour or more. Then we were told that tickets would be sold for games after 5pm so back in line we went since it had now cooled off to 104 degrees.
Well, the start of the day would be a harberdinger of things to come in the Kings game. The Kings brought 4 players to summer league who all had played for them the year previous: Ben McLemore (starter most of the year), McCallum (starter after IT got hurt), Acy and DWill, Plus Marshon Brooks who played 2 years with the Lakers and Nik Stauskas the first round pick in this years draft.
For a quarter and a half they looked like summer league champs. Then their opponent, the Spurs summer league team, began to jell and narrowed the Kings lead from 16 down to only 6. Then the ugliest 2nd half of basketball I’d ever witnessed at summer league as the Kings group got outscored 50 to 26 and got outplayed every way imaginable. Stauskas was the only player who looked good for the Kings and he looked very good. Acy was an emotional banger and in the first quarter showed a new part of his game, 3-pt shooting and became the leading scorer of the first quarter and half.
But after half the wheels fell off the Kings summer wagon and player after player resorted to the infamous 1-on-1 play of last year and forgot team play and what I am sure was the game the coaches wanted. After the game Coach Malone, a witness in the stands as Assistant Coaches run most summer league teams, was livid about the sorry state of Kings play. Not a good start and yet another reason to ignore the first game of summer league.
Some teams appear to have good games on day 1 but generally their opponent played poorly making the other team look better then they really were. There were two really good first day games tho’ that were won or lost in the last 20 seconds that were good fan games of teams that will likely see only 2 or 3 of their entire summer league roster make the team in the fall.
Bottom line for the what we saw in Kings game 1:
Stauskas is the real deal. He moves well with and without the ball, uses screens better than any other King that day, got to the basket with some great drives and seems NBA ready now. His defense was impressive as he put a body on his man time and again disrupting his play and his stat line nice: 4/9 FG, 6/7 FT, 3 Ast, 2 Stl and 2 Blk with only 3 TO’s in 33 min. On a scale of 1-10, an 7 for a first day showing for our rookie.
McLemore appears not to have improved, had 8 TO’s, did not shoot well and played out-of-control.
Acy was a nice monster with 7 Reb but in 2nd half played too much “look at me”. He is a backup 4-5 and most valuable near the rim. Made 2 of 3 3-pts shots and was 5 for 8 overall.
McCallum struggled but likely caused by the mayhem from by the others, made only 2 Ast and didn’t look comfortable.
Sundays game is coming so here’s hoping they got the message after the disaster in game 1.
This year was no different. My Kings/NBA basketball starved buddy wanted to see every game on every day so off we went arriving just after tip off of the first game. The Kings summer league team was to play the last game of this first day of a total of 7 games. But things didn’t start well for us.
After dropping off my friend at the long ticket line I went off to relax before returning in a couple of hours to buy my tickets. At the ticket window was told that games 1, 2 and 3 that day were sold out!! SOLD OUT!! No way. There is never a sell out as Thomas & Mack held 18,000 while Cox Pavilion, really just a gym, held 2,500 I guess. Turns out some NBA media genius apparently thought TV cameras at little Cox Pavilion would show a really full crowd for the premier game of the day, Anthony Wiggins vs. Jabari Parker, Bucks vs. 76ers, if only Cox was used to capacity.
Worked great except for the really pissed off crowd of several thousand fans who could get no tickets while standing in 105 degree sun for an hour or more. Then we were told that tickets would be sold for games after 5pm so back in line we went since it had now cooled off to 104 degrees.
Well, the start of the day would be a harberdinger of things to come in the Kings game. The Kings brought 4 players to summer league who all had played for them the year previous: Ben McLemore (starter most of the year), McCallum (starter after IT got hurt), Acy and DWill, Plus Marshon Brooks who played 2 years with the Lakers and Nik Stauskas the first round pick in this years draft.
For a quarter and a half they looked like summer league champs. Then their opponent, the Spurs summer league team, began to jell and narrowed the Kings lead from 16 down to only 6. Then the ugliest 2nd half of basketball I’d ever witnessed at summer league as the Kings group got outscored 50 to 26 and got outplayed every way imaginable. Stauskas was the only player who looked good for the Kings and he looked very good. Acy was an emotional banger and in the first quarter showed a new part of his game, 3-pt shooting and became the leading scorer of the first quarter and half.
But after half the wheels fell off the Kings summer wagon and player after player resorted to the infamous 1-on-1 play of last year and forgot team play and what I am sure was the game the coaches wanted. After the game Coach Malone, a witness in the stands as Assistant Coaches run most summer league teams, was livid about the sorry state of Kings play. Not a good start and yet another reason to ignore the first game of summer league.
Some teams appear to have good games on day 1 but generally their opponent played poorly making the other team look better then they really were. There were two really good first day games tho’ that were won or lost in the last 20 seconds that were good fan games of teams that will likely see only 2 or 3 of their entire summer league roster make the team in the fall.
Bottom line for the what we saw in Kings game 1:
Stauskas is the real deal. He moves well with and without the ball, uses screens better than any other King that day, got to the basket with some great drives and seems NBA ready now. His defense was impressive as he put a body on his man time and again disrupting his play and his stat line nice: 4/9 FG, 6/7 FT, 3 Ast, 2 Stl and 2 Blk with only 3 TO’s in 33 min. On a scale of 1-10, an 7 for a first day showing for our rookie.
McLemore appears not to have improved, had 8 TO’s, did not shoot well and played out-of-control.
Acy was a nice monster with 7 Reb but in 2nd half played too much “look at me”. He is a backup 4-5 and most valuable near the rim. Made 2 of 3 3-pts shots and was 5 for 8 overall.
McCallum struggled but likely caused by the mayhem from by the others, made only 2 Ast and didn’t look comfortable.
Sundays game is coming so here’s hoping they got the message after the disaster in game 1.
