The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from Las Vegas Summer League Day 1
LAS VEGAS — There was no shortage of hustle and bustle during day one of the NBA’s Las Vegas Summer League. Thousands of fans streamed between the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion on the campus of UNLV hoping to catch a glimpse of basketball’s future, snag an autograph from a budding star or both.
And that’s to say nothing of all the actual NBA stars—from Damian Lillard and James Harden to Draymond Green and darn near the entire Milwaukee Bucks team—that had to be spirited away from magnetic streams of antsy kids eager to interact with their idols.
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As for the basketball itself, it was about what you might expect from squads composed largely of rookies, sophomores and erstwhile hoops vagabonds who have had only days to jell. There was excitement and sloppiness galore, albeit with the scales tipping heavily toward the latter. But there was still some good to go along with the bad and the ugly, as detailed below.
Good: Sous-Chef Curry Gets Cookin’
If you made it to Cox Pavilion in time for the opening game of the Las Vegas Summer League, you might’ve thought Stephen Curry had dropped by to scrimmage with the New Orleans Pelicans. After all, there was a Pelicans player out there with “Curry” written across his back who was stopping and popping for silky-smooth jumpers and winding his way into the lane at will.
Except, that wasn’t the NBA’s reigning MVP out there. Rather, it was Seth Curry, Steph’s younger brother and the one person on planet Earth with the most license to imitate the latest face of the league.
The end result was positively Steph-like for Seth, as well. Curry piled up 30 points on 9-of-17 shooting (10-of-11 from the free-throw line) to propel the Pelicans to a 101-89 win over the sloppy Milwaukee Bucks.
It’s only fitting that Curry went off the way he did. New Orleans’ new coach, Alvin Gentry, was Steve Kerr’s top offensive strategist for the Golden State Warriors. Gentry’s assistants, led by summer league head coach Darren Erman, have already begun implementing an uptempo, pass-happy style that worked so well for the Warriors, and it showed.
The Pelicans jacked up 29 threes (making 11) in their 40-minute contest.
"We were kind of used to it having three or four days of practice in getting up and down," Curry said afterward (via the New Orleans Times Picayune’s John Reid). "It was kind of sloppy but when playing at that pace you could tell how much better we were. That's why coach Gentry is who he is. He gives you freedom to make plays and it (sic) really tough to guard."
It’s only fitting, then, that a Curry would be at the controls—and that a Curry would be in control, as well.
Bad: Back to Black
Tarik Black came up one point shy of a triple-double. How, then, did the Los Angeles Lakers big man wind up in this section? Because his near triple-double was of the sort that only summer league can produce.
The Kansas product piled up nine points and 13 rebounds before getting flagged for his 10th foul with under a minute to play. In a real NBA game, Black would’ve fouled out long before that. In summer league, though, it takes 10 to tango back to the bench for good.
Black will have plenty of opportunities to rack up infractions with the Lakers in 2015-16. L.A.’s newest starting center, Roy Hibbert, played just 25.3 minutes per game last season and has never averaged more than 30 minutes a night in his seven NBA seasons. And Black’s chief competition for backup duty, Robert Sacre, is known more for his cheerleading than actual basketball skills.
Not everyone was put off by Black’s dubious effort, though. NBC LA’s Shahan Ahmed, for one, seemed to appreciate the big man’s hustle and physicality:
At the very least, Black will walk away from summer league as the first player to foul out in Las Vegas this year. Chances are, though, he won’t be the last.
Ugly: Lakers and Timberwolves Get Physical
Black was far from the only youngster in the Lakers’ 81-68 loss to the Timberwolves to get the referees huffing and puffing on their whistles.
D’Angelo Russell racked up more fouls (seven) than assists (six) in his pro debut. Two of L.A.’s other rookies (Larry Nance Jr. and Robert Upshaw) notched six fouls. Karl-Anthony Towns, the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft, was called for nine fouls. His frontcourt partner for the T-Wolves, Adreian Payne, picked up eight of his own.
All told, the Lakers and Timberwolves combined for an unsightly 68 infractions, resulting in 26 free-throw attempts apiece.
The ugliness didn’t end there. L.A. missed 11 of its freebies and turned the ball over 20 times, opposite Minnesota’s 17 giveaways.
This isn’t all to say that the basketball played at the Thomas & Mack Center between these two teams was entirely unwatchable. Zach LaVine poured in 18 of his 24 points in the first half on a variety of jumpers and dunks. Jordan Clarkson, who finished with 23 points, did much the same in purple and gold.
As for the rookies everyone came to see, Towns (12 points, three rebounds, four assists, four turnovers), Russell (eight points, five rebounds, five turnovers) and Julius Randle (11 points, four turnovers) had their moments but didn’t exactly shine from start to finish.
In other words, it was a standard summer league game—which was something of a shame, given the raucous crowd, composed largely of Lakers partisans, that filed into the arena.
On the other hand, it made for an appropriate occasion for the NBA’s debut of hustle stats.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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