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Grading Las Vegas NBA Summer League Debuts for AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson
All eyes were on Darryn Peterson and AJ Dybantsa when the Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards met for their Las Vegas Summer League showdown at Thomas and Mack Center. The top two overall picks did not disappoint.
Just how good were the star rookies in their Vegas debuts? We're busting out individual report cards to figure out.
Final stat lines will be referenced and play a part in our initial impressions. But this is—[Extremely Dick Vitale Voice mode activated] —summer league, baby!
Vibes and the eye test reign supreme. We are not judging Dybantsa and Peterson by their exact results. One game into Sin City's showcase, these grades are more about how well their styles and flashes held up during their early tastes of NBA action.
AJ Dybantsa: The Good
1 of 5
Every bit of AJ Dybantsa's on-ball scoring arsenal seems like it will translate. The 6'9" wing dropped 27 points, tying Blake Griffin for the highest scoring total from a No. 1 pick making their Vegas debut.
The vast majority of Dybantsa's buckets came off self-created looks and drawn fouls. He looked comfortable attacking in the half-court to both the left and right. Utah threw plenty of double coverages at the 19-year-old, and it seldom fazed him. He cut through every level of the defense while shimmying between patience and urgency.
Generating separation won't be a problem at this level, even if that space comes subtly. Dybantsa leveraged his size to uncork turnarounds, and he has wide enough live-dribble strides to get around the first layer of defense.
He can also simply, you know, go through everyone:
Washington's use of Dybantsa is perhaps the most encouraging takeaway of all. He was heavily featured on-ball. Though this could strictly be a summer-league feature, it is actually a nod toward the Wizards' plans for him in the regular season. At least, that's what head coach Brian Keefe said during his fourth-quarter interview with ESPN.
Darryn Peterson: The Good
2 of 5
Despite a 6-of-18 clip from the floor, Darryn Peterson just oozes "I'm going to make many, many shots at the next level" vibes.
The 19-year-old churned out 24 points and got to the foul line at a nice clip. His floater game has a chance to be special, and, like Dybantsa, he already has the ability to get off absurdly difficult looks:
Utah defaulted to Peterson running the show, a role he's unlikely to hold outside the inexperienced confines of summer league. And that's a good thing.
Peterson showed a willingness to pass coming around screens and out of double teams, but there was also a distinct comfort in how he moved and spaced away from the ball. He will be at his most dangerous early on as a secondary attacker alongside Keyonte George.
AJ Dybantsa: The Bad
3 of 5
Dybantsa did not beat the low-medium activity wrap on the defensive end. He finished with two steals and one block, but he wasn't especially present as a helper.
The rookie clearly isn't comfortable with his three-point shot, either. He went 0-of-5 from long range, and more than half of those looks were fired off reluctantly.
Something that won't be part of his grade but should be filed away: Dybantsa fouled Peterson late in the fourth quarter, removing himself from the lineup. He told ESPN's Jorge Sedano during his postgame interview that it was merely leg soreness and doesn't think it's a big deal.
Fingers crossed, everyone.
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Darryn Peterson: The Bad
4 of 5
Peterson followed up a 12-assist, two-turnover performance to close out Salt Lake City Summer League with a three-assist, eight-turnover debut in Vegas. The tape on this is as rough as the numbers suggest.
Credit the Wizards—and the foul-happy Jamir Watkins, specifically—for wearing Peterson like a second skin and pressuring him away from the basket. It visibly rattled him. His turnovers came in all forms: bad passes, lost balls, an offensive foul, even one in which he stepped out of bounds.
This also wasn't a night in which Peterson's athleticism popped. He didn't move like he was wearing cinderblocks for shoes, but he bailed out Washington's defense a few times by settling from the in-between rather than following through all the way to the hoop.
That's not a problem on its face. Peterson can make fadeaways and floaters in his sleep. The frequency with which he gets two feet deep into the paint is something to watch, though.
Racking up nine fouls, meanwhile, could be a harbinger of his defensive activity. Except, it wasn't. Not relative to, you know, having nine fouls.
The Wizards weren't picking on him the way that the Jazz went after Tre Johnson. But he didn't look like a 6'6" hyper-mobile combo defender out there, either.
Grades
5 of 5
AJ Dybantsa: A-
Final Line: 27 points, seven rebounds, two assists, two steals, one block, 7-of-18 shooting (0-of-5 on threes)
Aside from the shaky-looking three-point shot, Dybantsa easily outstripped lofty expectations.
Even the playmaking popped on two occasions, one of which was a thread-the-needle bounce pass in transition. He has room to get off the ball more in future outings, but it never felt like he was operating outside the flow of the offense.
Committing one turnover in summer league, while shouldering his on-ball workload, is actually bananas. In the event he isn't a capable outside shooter from the jump, he'll still walk into 20-plus points per game and, more importantly, uplift Washington's offense.
Darryn Peterson: D+
Final Line: 24 points, three rebounds, three assists, one block, 6-of-18 shooting (2-of-7 on threes)
For the sake of my social media mentions, please remember these are one-game grades and not a verdict on career trajectories. Peterson has the look and feel of someone who will eventually be awesome.
He just wasn't that someone on Thursday night.
Not much about his outing warrants long-term concern. If there's anything to worry about moving forward, it's the on-ball bailouts in the half-court or the decision-making against physical pressure.
The on-ball shot profile and separation are the bigger sticking points, at least in the interim. Peterson shouldn't have to face the wrath of an entire defense game-planning around him once he's playing beside Keyonte George, Jaren Jackson Jr. and Lauri Markkanen. If he's still going 1-of-5 around the hoop in Utah's core lineups, we'll need to have a longer discussion.
Dan Favale is a National NBA Writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Bluesky (@danfavale), and subscribe to the Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by Bleacher Report's Grant Hughes.
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