Portland Trailblazer Summer League Weekend Recap

Las Vegas is an excruciatingly hot city. It's in the middle of nowhere and should not be a inhabited by humans. Yet millions travel to endure 113 degrees and all the rest of what Sin City has to offer.

For the Bust a Bucket crew, two Blazer games and two nights in Vegas is enough to wreck anyone. It was a great trip, plenty of future NBA-ers and current NBA players in a relaxed atmosphere. Summer league is definitely going to be a regular occurrence, and should be considered for any Blazer fan.

Non-Blazer highlights included an Antawn Jamison sighting, Kevin Durant and James Harden watching Blazers game three, and me asking KD if he was tweeting. His response was "No?" as if he was in trouble. No trouble, keep on Tweeting young man.

I also snapped a few pictures of Johnny Flynn and Blake Griffin signing autographs. We also watched Griffin play a little, he looks out-of-this-world athletic, but I am not sure if he can be a true superstar in the league. He is damn good and seems to handle summer league talent fairly well.

On Saturday, we sat behind Brook Lopez and his parents while Robin played. It was funny to see mama Lopez berating the officials and telling her son to calm down while he shot free throws. I didn't realize that "basketball mom" still existed at the NBA level.

It's also worth noting that Hasheem Thabeet looked terrible. I'm not sure how much he can improve on feel for the game, but as CDub said to me, he has the potential to be similar to the "Seattle Super Sonics perpetually bad center picks."

I'm serious, he has no hands, no court awareness, no aggression, motivation or ability to even finish a dunk. He'll struggle for awhile.

Okay, on to the Blazers.

Our first game of the weekend started much earlier than the projected 7:30pm start time. We showed up at 7:20 and the first quarter was already over. CDub and I settled in and quickly realized that the Blazers weren't playing with much intensity.

One of their better players, Dante Cunningham, was out of the game and the team seemed to be going through the motions. Not a good idea considering some guys are playing for their NBA lives.

The Nuggets looked prepared and played as a team while the Blazers seemed to be disinterested. Ty Lawson and Sonny Weems killed Portland. It was not an enjoyable game to watch. Box Score

For the Blazers fourth game and our second, we showed up a few hours early to get a look at Blake Griffin, Josh Heytvelt and Micah Downs. Griffin tried to do a little bit too much in the quarter we watched, while the Gonzaga boys represented well overall for the week.

By the time the Blazer game started, there was an obvious increase in intensity and focus. Perhaps coach Prunty got on them about the night before. Cunningham was back and hitting jumpers early. Jerryd Bayless was out for blood and playing very well.

It's important for Blazer fans to realize that Bayless' summer league assist to turnover ratio is very flawed. He gets into the paint and hits open guys, but Gardner, Moss, Jones all seem to brick every jumper.

When Bayless can kick it out to Rudy, Travis, Martell, Brandon and whoever else, the assists will definitely go up. Jerryd needs a real opportunity and I hope he gets it. Jerryd, Pooh, Dante and Jeff all played well in the Saturday game, it was nice to see them work as a team and communicate well. Box Score

Overall

Dante Cunningham seemed to be the guy who raised his stock the most this week. We all knew he was an athletic forward but he also showed great range on his jumper. If he can hit a jumper he can definitely play for Portland.

The only thing I'd like to see him do more often is take his man off the dribble and get to the hoop. I know he can do it but I've heard that he didn't much at Villanova either.

Jeff Pendergraph didn't seem to earn himself a spot on the team in summer league. I had initially thought his ability to rebound would earn him the back-up spot behind LaMarcus. At this point I think Cunningham has shown more.

But there is still plenty of time for things to change. The greatest example of all time would have to be the way Nicolas Batum played in summer league last year. Absolutely night and day as he moved into the starting lineup in the '08/'09 season. So I'll reserve judgment for now.

Pooh Jeter was a fun player to watch all week. He can get very hot and weave his way into the lane but his size is definitely an issue. He won't play for Portland but his skill-set as a point guard will be nice wherever he ends up playing.

We also sat and chatted with Ben from Blazer's Edge during both games. He's done a terrific job of covering the Blazers summer league. There are plenty of interviews and pictures to be enjoyed from them.

Rip City Project was in attendance but we never got a chance to meet those guys. They were tweeting games all week and I definitely enjoyed their work before our Vegas arrival.

Antonio Harvey was also around, doing the NBA.com gamecasts. I stopped him and introduced ourselves. He's a great guy and his work on the summer league as well as paired up with Wheels during the season is tremendous. Blazer fans are spoiled to have so many good Blazer personalities on TV and Radio.

Summer league is an awesome event for fans of college and NBA basketball, it's a great opportunity to see these young guys work for their ultimate goal of being in the NBA. The crowds are very sparse yet there is so much talent walking around. The only difficult part for us is spending the whole day watching games when you're in a city like Las Vegas.

In almost any other city I'd watch games all day. But in LV there is gambling, pool time and everything else to be enjoyed. At least we got to see the Blazers play a couple games. Great trip, great work by the Blazers summer league team and I hope to do it again next year!

Link to full album from Summer League