Summer League: Vegas baby, vegas.

[gaspar]

Yay, Summer League reviews!

[grumpysaddle]

Lol. These refs man. Reviews on a meaningless SL game. Come on.

[NTB]

Mike "Choker" James

[Dambo]

wow he is actually a choker.

[grumpysaddle]

Refs need to get into season form on drawing games out with unnecessarily long reviews. It's SL for refs too.

[grumpysaddle]

Mike James is a Swiss army knife of choking.

[Banana Milk]

Would've been good to see a quick hitter drawn up to get Reed a shot. They both shot 2/10 but I think they could've run something better to close out the game.

[bwgood77]

Would've been good to see a quick hitter drawn up to get Reed a shot. They both shot 2/10 but I think they could've run something better to close out the game.

Yes, I would have liked to have seen more from Reed...welcome to the forum...I've never tried Banana Milk but is sounds good.

[Mulhollanddrive]

That was surprising to see Reed miss so many, 6 games in 8 days might be fatigued.

[thamadkant]

Didn't watch the game... Obvious reasons... But how bad was Mike James?

[NTB]

Watch on YouTube

[batsmasher]

Didn't watch the game... Obvious reasons... But how bad was Mike James?

Knows how to score but played the game like it was a rec game. Extremely blinkered and 0 PG instincts on display.

[Saberestar]

Just two wins in the tourney and not too many things to be happy about it.

This team has been probably the worst Summer Suns team in the last few years. I have not enjoyed the games.

A few positive things....Josh Jackson is who we thought he would be. He has been our best player in Summer League, he is NBA ready.

Great ball handler, great rebounder. Very good in transition, bad 3p shooter. Good passer and unselfish.
I think that he is gonna play a lot of minutes since day one.

Bender played poor basketball the first three games, but in his last two games he was REALLY good. More agressive going to the rim and finishing in traffic.

He understands the game and he is "system player"...if he shoots a higher percent from three he is gonna be good. Really happy about his passing ability.

Reed looks a solid 3&D. Not more, not less.

And that is all the positive IMO.

Mike James is not a pure PG, but he attacks the rim and can shoot the three ball, not bad as a third string under Bledsoe and Ulis.

I am OK with James on that limited role, but I am not a fan.

[Bogyo]

I was about to make the exact same post. Not impressed at all with this Summer League.
Bright spot was JJs handles, passing, hustle (most of the times). Benders last 2 games. Reeds 3&D. Thats it.
The rest was from meh to worrisome. Let's hope the problem childs use the rest of the summer to work on their game/body/attitude.

[ImNotMcDiSwear]

Just two wins in the tourney and not too many things to be happy about it.

This team has been probably the worst Summer Suns team in the last few years. I have not enjoyed the games.

A few positive things....Josh Jackson is who we thought he would be. He has been our best player in Summer League, he is NBA ready.

Great ball handler, great rebounder. Very good in transition, bad 3p shooter. Good passer and unselfish.
I think that he is gonna play a lot of minutes since day one.

Bender played poor basketball the first three games, but in his last two games he was REALLY good. More agressive going to the rim and finishing in traffic.

He understands the game and he is "system player"...if he shoots a higher percent from three he is gonna be good. Really happy about his passing ability.

Reed looks a solid 3&D. Not more, not less.

And that is all the positive IMO.

Mike James is not a pure PG, but he attacks the rim and can shoot the three ball, not bad as a third string under Bledsoe and Ulis.

I am OK with James on that limited role, but I am not a fan.

I was about to make the exact same post. Not impressed at all with this Summer League.
Bright spot was JJs handles, passing, hustle (most of the times). Benders last 2 games. Reeds 3&D. Thats it.
The rest was from meh to worrisome. Let's hope the problem childs use the rest of the summer to work on their game/body/attitude.

I agree with the bolded parts. I think it is worth noting that JJ's apparent ability to contribute right away is an amazing take away from this SL. There just aren't many players who show that they could start right away. This year, several teams had one of those guys. I was skeptical about this draft, but they've looked great so far - much more so than in years 2013, 2014, 2015 or 2016. DSJ, Fox and Mitchell are ready right now, in addition to the big 4. It's hard to put a cap on JJ's potential with those perimeter handles and that quick twitch athleticism. That's the stuff elite perimeter offensive players are made of. And then you add his defensive talent with his passing and rebounding. If this guy added a shot, he could be an all-time great. And if he doesn't, he could still be one of the NBA's best players.
And here we're talking about being disappointed about SL.

I thought Dragan looked terrible in that second half against the Rockets. And I wasn't impressed by his performance against the Kings. The last two games changed quite a bit, as Dragan played without Marquese on the floor, opening up the drive. Dragan has shown not only a willingness but a desire to put the ball on the floor. He's kept the ball safe on his drives - something Alex was never able to do. So on offense, he's been most successful as a center. The passing has been great. He needs to get the arc on his three high and consistent. The nervousness so evident last year has dissipated. He can defend the post against most power forwards and your average center.

Could he guard Embiid or Gasol? Can he average at least as many as 5 rebounds per game and box out consistently? These are things we'd need to see over the next couple years for Dragan to be a truly great player. Even if he never quite gets there, he could still end up an all-star if he only adds 40% 3FG to his current skillset.
And here we're talking about being disappointed about SL.

Quese wasn't great. Jones Jr. is taking the 3 with more confidence, but he didn't show flashes of potential that *needs* to be played, which is great news, actually, as we don't have the PT to give him. Reed looks good, but the board consensus probably would have been Jordan Bell were it done by vote (my typical standard for a "bad" draft pick is one that is worse than could be achieved by democracy). But then, it's also hard to be too mad when a contributing NBA player is so much better than average for #32 in the draft.

Mike James looked MUCH better than BK because he made the ******* shot which is the whole reason BK's worth disliking in the first place. I don't love Michael "Air" James's style of play, but he's not a jerk out there. And why are we criticizing his tattoos, exactly? I thought he played off ball perfectly well when asked. I didn't like his ball dominance in the first game, but he corrected for that in the second. I didn't watch yesterday's game. But the key benefit of adding Mike James is that his shooting ability should allow us to put him on an NBA court for real minutes if, say, we trade Bledsoe by mid-season and hand the reins to Ulis.

So yeah, I think it's hard to be mad. They didn't win. We don't expect to win this season. So what.

[darealjuice]

I think we would have looked better and had a shot at winning if Ulis was able to play. Our SL team's biggest strength was it's athleticism between Quese, JJ, and DJJ, you know Ulis would have been feeding them alley oops at the rim all game. James was productive (even though I'm not the biggest fan), but he's not the floor general-type player that Ulis is and his ball pounding without Ulis' passing skills helped turn a very athletic team into one-on-one players and spot shooters.

JJ's handles seem much improved from where they were at Kansas. He could use a bit more shake to his cross over, but at times he looked like a big guard out there. He's going to benefit a lot from the extra space he'll get with Booker and Bledsoe on the perimeter instead of DJJ/Harrison and James, and I can see his off-ball movement and athleticism working really well with Ulis. His technique on defense wasn't perfect, but his activity, feel for the game, and quick-twitch athleticism definitely showed. Really it's all about his shot, everything else is about as advertised or better. Loved that he was top 5 in rebounds per game while playing the 3, dude gets after it.

[JMac1]

Just two wins in the tourney and not too many things to be happy about it.

This team has been probably the worst Summer Suns team in the last few years. I have not enjoyed the games.

A few positive things....Josh Jackson is who we thought he would be. He has been our best player in Summer League, he is NBA ready.

Great ball handler, great rebounder. Very good in transition, bad 3p shooter. Good passer and unselfish.
I think that he is gonna play a lot of minutes since day one.

Bender played poor basketball the first three games, but in his last two games he was REALLY good. More agressive going to the rim and finishing in traffic.

He understands the game and he is "system player"...if he shoots a higher percent from three he is gonna be good. Really happy about his passing ability.

Reed looks a solid 3&D. Not more, not less.

And that is all the positive IMO.

Mike James is not a pure PG, but he attacks the rim and can shoot the three ball, not bad as a third string under Bledsoe and Ulis.

I am OK with James on that limited role, but I am not a fan.

I And 1 you however, you started your post by saying there isn't too many things to be happy about, then you post JJ, Bender's and a positive about Reed. Lol.

I think we should be very happy about SL, because thus far, Jackson is who we thought he was, exactly everything you mentioned; can't ask for much more than that at this time. He is actually a lot more of a facilitator than I thought. If it is there, he takes it, if not, he passes it. Quick decision maker. With Booker obviously being a ball dominant entity, he and Jackson should work well together. DSJ, Fox, Fultz, Mitchell, and Tatum would not have been a good paring with Booker after watching SL. Ball would have been a perfect match too, however with the lack of D by both Booker and Ball.....by default JJ is a perfect fit. That alone made SL a success.

Btw, I hate Mike James.

[Saberestar]

I think we would have looked better and had a shot at winning if Ulis was able to play. Our SL team's biggest strength was it's athleticism between Quese, JJ, and DJJ, you know Ulis would have been feeding them alley oops at the rim all game. James was productive (even though I'm not the biggest fan), but he's not the floor general-type player that Ulis is and his ball pounding without Ulis' passing skills helped turn a very athletic team into one-on-one players and spot shooters.

JJ's handles seem much improved from where they were at Kansas. He could use a bit more shake to his cross over, but at times he looked like a big guard out there. He's going to benefit a lot from the extra space he'll get with Booker and Bledsoe on the perimeter instead of DJJ/Harrison and James, and I can see his off-ball movement and athleticism working really well with Ulis. His technique on defense wasn't perfect, but his activity, feel for the game, and quick-twitch athleticism definitely showed. Really it's all about his shot, everything else is about as advertised or better. Loved that he was top 5 in rebounds per game while playing the 3, dude gets after it.

Yeah, I agree with that, but the same could be said regarding other teams. Not every team had all of their young guys playing at Summer League.

We had six players on Summer League that are gonna be on our official roster in October. I expected a better play for some of them, specially Chriss.

I agree about Josh Jackson. The sky is the limit for him.

[Revived]

I'm really starting to love this Davon Reed pick.

I missed the game but looking at the stats...2-10 from 3?

Hope he was really impressive defensively or something.

[GetYourPHX]

I agree with most of what's been said in the last 10 posts, no need to reiterate it.

I wanted to add that I think DJJ really had a good summer league. He's proved to me that he's an NBA player at this point. The kid plays his role and he does it well. He's active on defense and you can tell he's working extra hard on that end of the court. On offense, he knows his shots and he usually hits them. He carried his career >50% FG efficiency into Vegas and kept it there.

He's going to carve a role out for himself in the NBA, and kudos to him for understanding how to do that. I hope we keep him around for many years to come. I'm really excited to see what he makes of his career.