The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Las Vegas Summer League Day 7
Bracket-style basketball rolled on at the NBA's Las Vegas Summer League on Thursday, and oh, what a day it became.
Sixteen teams were in action for Day 7 of the Vegas festivities. There were a few blowouts, but they were offset by a few nail-biters.
Every game, though, provided a glimpse, however slight, into the league's future.
A ton of top first- and second-year prospects were in action, many of whom (Kyle Anderson) turned heads with their provocative stat lines (Anderson) and otherworldly efforts (Anderson). Others didn't perform up to snuff, either running out of gas or struggling to work through glaring weaknesses in their game.
Certain players were just plain bad. Whether their regrettable outings were isolated or just another in a long line of summer-league wrinkles, they had a day to forget.
So, with the aim of making up for those shortcomings, let's have a recap worth remembering.
The Good
T.J. Warren Stays Hot
T.J. Warren is having himself a summer league to remember. And during the Phoenix Suns' 106-80 victory over the Milwaukee Bucks, he had himself a party.
Warren pumped in 23 points, handed out four assists and sent back three shots in under 34 minutes. He showcased a vast array of on-ball moves, driving and spinning his way to opportunities at the rim. He was equally effective when moving off the ball as well, ducking his defender with body fakes and timing his slashes toward the basket perfectly.
As has become the party line, there was a lot to like about Warren's defensive effort. At 6'8", he contests shots like a 7-footer. He doesn't just close out on shooters and get hands up on jumpers; he'll pursue ball-handlers en route to the basket, serving as a secondary line of defense at the rim.
None of this should be surprising to Phoenix by now. As NBA.com's Scott Howard-Cooper underscored, Warren has been blowing up the box scores since arriving in Vegas:
Those aren't real-life numbers, and yet this is real life, even if it is only summer league. Warren is playing—nay, forcing—his way into head coach Jeff Hornacek's rotation.
That, to be honest, is pretty convenient for Mr. Hornacek. The Suns don't have a properly sized starting small forward at the moment (sorry, P.J. Tucker) and would do well to test Warren's mettle outside summer league.
Kyle Anderson Has Them Spurs Genes
Anderson turned in a masterful performance against the Brooklyn Nets, leading his San Antonio Spurs to a thrilling 74-71 victory.
The 21-year-old sophomore tallied 25 points, eight rebounds, two assists, one steal and two blocks in just over 28 minutes of action. Jonathan Simmons was the only other Spur who had it going, so Anderson carried the offense, orchestrating plays and never leaving attack mode, per NBA writer Michael Pina:
He proved especially valuable down the stretch, when Brooklyn and San Antonio were exchanging leads. Spurs summer-league head coach Becky Hammon credited him with keeping the rest of the team engaged, per Project Spurs' Paul Garcia:
Anderson has now cleared 20 points in three of San Antonio's last four summer-league tilts. And with his 10-of-22 showing from the floor Thursday, his field-goal percentage will finally climb above 40.
It's almost like he's trying to send Spurs head honcho Gregg Popovich a pointed message—something along the lines of: "Play me more, Pop...Please?"
Noah Vonleh Has Arrived
Noah Vonleh looks ready to make an impact on the Portland Trail Blazers.
Maybe not so much on the defensive end.
He's been bad on that side all summer, blowing rotations and committing fouls in excess while reaching "pushover" status when defending—or running away from—shots around the basket.
Still, he's rebounding and scoring. He went for 18 points and eight rebounds in Portland's 91-85 loss to the Boston Celtics, numbers that encapsulate his entire time in Vegas. Indeed, he registered the second-worst plus/minus of any Blazer. But he shot 6-of-9 from the floor, including 3-of-3 from downtown.
As a bonus, Vonleh also looks less like a scrawny adolescent and more like an NBA player these days. As Bleacher Report's Fred Katz observed:
With all the iffy frontcourt shooters in Portland—Ed Davis, Mason Plumlee, Al-Farouq Aminu, etc.—the Blazers could use someone other than Meyers Leonard to stroke threes for what figures to be a subpar offense. They also need the foul-happy Vonleh to play some defense.
In the meantime, though, they'll have to settle for prolific scoring and, well, killer shoulders.
The Bad
Kristaps Porzingis, Meet Solid Ground
Kristaps Porzingis had a bad game. It happened.
After wowing New York Knicks fans with stellar stat lines through his first three games in Sin City, Porzingis, much like his team, stumbled in a 76-54 loss to the Warriors. He shot just 3-of-10 from the floor and wasn't nearly as effective on defense, often finding himself on the wrong end of James Michael McAdoo's forays into the paint.
Once the Knicks fell behind by double digits, Porzingis started pressing, throwing up some low-percentage shots off the dribble. And while he did a better job boxing out off misses, he wasn't actually going for rebounds, finishing with only four.
“For me, it’s something new,’’ Porzingis said of fatigue playing a factor, per the New York Post's Marc Berman. “I had almost two games a week [in Spain] the first part of the season...But that’s not an excuse That’s how the NBA schedule is. I’ve got to get used to it."
Now, Porzingis wasn't all bad. There were moments in which he flashed his versatility. Some timely help defense here, some off-ball denial there. He even broke up a play late in the game that led to a transition dunk:
Fret not, then, newly optimistic Knicks peeps. Porzingis still looks like a gem. He was probably just exhausted after going blow-for-blow with the burlier Jahlil Okafor on Tuesday. He'll redeem himself yet.
Until then, feel free to bask in his outside touch—evident even in a bad game—on a loop:
Emmanuel Mudiay's Secret Is Out
Emmanuel Mudiay has, without question, been the best point guard in Vegas. But his offensive flaws were on full display in the Denver Nuggets' 82-73 loss to the Atlanta Hawks.
There was nothing wrong with his 4-of-9 clip from the floor. He continued getting into the lane and collapsing the defense, and he added yet another nifty fast-break finish to his NBA resume:
But that was the extent of Mudiay's success. He dished out just one assist and committed seven turnovers, while allowing Atlanta's Stephen Holt to torch him off the dribble. All told, he posted a team-worst minus-18.
For most of the night, he was a complete non-factor on the offensive end. The Hawks forced the ball out of his hands and, as Pina noticed, dared the Nuggets to test his jumper:
Insufficient shooting has long been the biggest knock on Mudiay. He drilled a somewhat-adequate 34.2 percent of his three-point attempts overseas last season, but he's at 14.3 percent for his Vegas stint, per RealGM
If he can't consistently knock down jumpers or function away from the action in some way, the Nuggets will be that much easier to defend, and Mudiay, for his part, will find himself on the receiving end of even more lackluster performances.
The Ugly
New York's Offense
No wonder Porzingis lost his mojo in New York's loss to Golden State.
The summer Knicks went cold after building an 11-point lead. Golden State outscored them 21-7 in the second quarter, an abrupt regression that, as Basketball Insiders' Tommy Beer notes, wasn't pretty:
Not one of the five starters had it going—not even the recently red-hot Maurice Ndour.
Cleanthony Early, Langston Galloway, Jerian Grant, Ndour and Porzingis combined to shoot 13-of-44 (29.5 percent), which is a problem, because the summer Knicks are nothing without their summer superstars—most notably Grant and Porzingis, as the Wall Street Journal's Chris Herring pointed out:
Oh, well. New York's run of summer-league perfection couldn't last forever (apparently).
Kelly Oubre Jr. Continues to Struggle
Las Vegas has not been kind to Washington Wizards rookie Kelly Oubre Jr. And that didn't change during the New Orleans Pelicans' 97-81 shellacking of the Wizards.
Oubre tallied 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting, missing all three of his long-range looks. He didn't even score in the first half and remains content attempting to shoot off the dribble rather than trying to establish better position and separation off the ball.
While he made a couple of nice plays on the defensive end, picking up a steal and a block, the Wizards tossed him on the Pelicans' volume-scoring Seth Curry at times, which proved to be a bad idea.
A really bad idea:
Any chance Oubre has of cracking the Wizards' regular-season rotation is quickly fading. He's now shooting 16-of-52 over his last four contests (30.8 percent), including 2-of-18 from beyond the arc (11.1 percent).
Summer-league struggles aren't the end-all, be-all of rookie evaluation, and Oubre could still sneak into the rotation of a Wizards team that's building a small-ball beast. But if he's to join the NBA's exceedingly valuable three-and-D ranks, he'll need to, well, improve his three-point shooting and defense a great deal.
There is, however, a silver lining, in that Oubre's game shoes weren't silver:
Marcus Smart Leaves in Pain
(Warning: Video contains graphic images.)
Midway through the second quarter of Boston's win over Portland, Marcus Smart tumbled to the floor while battling for a rebound. He left the court on his own but was howling in pain, clutching his right hand.
Shortly thereafter, the Celtics came bearing some bad news:
Dislocated fingers aren't the end of the world, but this will assuredly be the end of Smart's summer-league stay.
Boston can only hope the prognosis doesn't get any worse, and that Smart and his shooting hand are good to go for the regular season.
Stats courtesy of Sports-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise cited.
Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @danfavale.
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