Summer League Thread

[duppyy]

So sad that Utah got Bailey, still got a good player from their blatant tanking

[WuTang_CMB]

A lot of these kids are immature. Not their fault. Where were we at 18 and 19? Ace for all accounts is a good kid, and prob just got bad advice from his agent. But all these players do that in the draft, it just got amplified with Ace cuz he wanted push his way like 3 spots lol

Chet, Sarr did this too

[Dalek]

Great video highlighting a few guys that are going the undrafted route. Clifford Omoruyi mentioned as a defensive game changer and several other honorable mentions that include guys we have on SL.

Watch on YouTube

[Dalek]

So sad that Utah got Bailey, still got a good player from their blatant tanking

I mean what's your definition of tanking. We had a much more talented roster and we were basically sitting healthy players for the second half of games or just not playing guys. Jazz were mostly just bad from a roster construct. Maybe Philly tanked the hardest given the talent they had.

One draft can change things for a team:

Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. are going to be good players. They just have to be patient with Ace because he obviously doesn't know the game well. He hunts for his own shots and misses easy passes, and he ignores defensive assignments.

I really think Bryce Sensabaugh is ready to step up for them. Not sure what the plan is for Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks but I guess they are depth pieces.

They still will be terrible, but 2026 they add another high end piece they might have something.

[OhCanada]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

[OakleyDokely]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

summer league is the time for hot takes and delusions! it's all we got

[sbsat]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

snarky eh.

The big problem is the projections people make on here based on friggin summer league. Like Ace Bailey is not nba ready, did you see his first half of game 1 of summer league? Brutal. Or Ochai Obaji is not an nba player, he looks lost in summer league.

[Los_29]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

Why is GG Jackson even in Summer League? This guy is a 3rd year player. lol.

[pharring]

A lot of these kids are immature. Not their fault. Where were we at 18 and 19? Ace for all accounts is a good kid, and prob just got bad advice from his agent. But all these players do that in the draft, it just got amplified with Ace cuz he wanted push his way like 3 spots lol

Chet, Sarr did this too

For the longest time, I thought Ace Bailey was Toby Bailey's son - the Toby Bailey that played for UCLA during one of their NCAA Championship runs.

Turns out he is related to a Toby Bailey but not the same Toby Bailey. Ace's Toby Bailey did play in the NBA, but in a different era for a different team.

Not sure why I thought the son of UCLA's Toby Bailey should know better than to punk out on individual workouts to try to control the draft process, but now I understand how some outside influencers could be running Ace's show.

[Madvillainy2004]

I can't wait to see the comments when CMB airbags his first corner 3 on Friday I got raptors fever again lmao

[HiJiNX]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

Why is GG Jackson even in Summer League? This guy is a 3rd year player. lol.

He was the youngest player in his draft with some shot selection and maturity issues. He also had an injury that took away some needed development time. I think he just needs as many reps as he can get.

[HiJiNX]

Guys like Edgecombe typically stand out in summer league. No defense is played, there's a lot of transition opportunities, athletic guards/wings who handle the ball are going to fill up the stat sheet. 28 pts on 27 shots and 1-7 from 3, 1-3 from the line isn't exactly an efficient scoring game. But he stands out because the raw numbers are big.

How good Edgecombe becomes will likely depend on his ability in the halfcourt, when the game is slower and teams are actually defending the paint and the line and you ain't learning about that in summer league or even the preseason.

Totally agree.

That said, the fact VJ was able to get anywhere he wanted in Summer League means he's passed that hurdle. To me that means something. I think it increases the likelihood of him doing it at the NBA level. No guarantee there, but a marginal increase in probability. If he flat out kills all Summer League, the odds ratchet up further. At that point I wouldn't be surprised if he was able to flash that ability in preseason.

There's Oladipo (and dare I say Wade) comps for a reason.

Very much reminds me of DWade but not as wide in the shoulders.

[mtcan]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

Why is GG Jackson even in Summer League? This guy is a 3rd year player. lol.

He is a young 3rd year player.

[HiJiNX]

I think people pushed back on some claiming he can be a superstar. I still like those MPJ comparisons. He can make tough shots. He has his flaws but that won’t stop him from contributing in this league.

He will need to improve his shooting, which is his selling point. Guys with great shooting touch usually come with highs ft%, even MPJ average around 80%. Ace is currently at 69.2%.

Agreed. And we can claim he’s a tough shot maker but that means very little when he’s still inefficient. He’s young, has great size so the potential is there to get better. But I can certainly see why he dropped in the draft. He has a lot to work on.

He’s got a good foundation. It’s about building consistency with his shot, expanding his shot profile, and finding more ways to get closer to the basket. But he seems to play hard and is a willing defender. Could be really good.

[duppyy]

So sad that Utah got Bailey, still got a good player from their blatant tanking

I mean what's your definition of tanking. We had a much more talented roster and we were basically sitting healthy players for the second half of games or just not playing guys. Jazz were mostly just bad from a roster construct. Maybe Philly tanked the hardest given the talent they had.

One draft can change things for a team:

Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. are going to be good players. They just have to be patient with Ace because he obviously doesn't know the game well. He hunts for his own shots and misses easy passes, and he ignores defensive assignments.

I really think Bryce Sensabaugh is ready to step up for them. Not sure what the plan is for Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks but I guess they are depth pieces.

They still will be terrible, but 2026 they add another high end piece they might have something.

My hate for Utah is due to them sitting Kessler while he was healthy and it messed up my fantasy team during playoffs. So I hate them for that and was hoping they wouldnt get a good player in the draft.

[OakleyDokely]

GG Jackson has been impressive for Memphis. He's playing with alot of grit and hitting big shots for them. With his length and skill he could be a Jalen McDaniels kind of player for Memphis if he keeps this up.

Is that okay with everybody! Am I allowed to be impressed by a few SL performances or am I gonna get lit up here for complimenting this young mans progress?

Why is GG Jackson even in Summer League? This guy is a 3rd year player. lol.

To be fair though, he's still only 20.

[OakleyDokely]

So sad that Utah got Bailey, still got a good player from their blatant tanking

I mean what's your definition of tanking. We had a much more talented roster and we were basically sitting healthy players for the second half of games or just not playing guys. Jazz were mostly just bad from a roster construct. Maybe Philly tanked the hardest given the talent they had.

One draft can change things for a team:

Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. are going to be good players. They just have to be patient with Ace because he obviously doesn't know the game well. He hunts for his own shots and misses easy passes, and he ignores defensive assignments.

I really think Bryce Sensabaugh is ready to step up for them. Not sure what the plan is for Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks but I guess they are depth pieces.

They still will be terrible, but 2026 they add another high end piece they might have something.

My hate for Utah is due to them sitting Kessler while he was healthy and it messed up my fantasy team during playoffs. So I hate them for that and was hoping they wouldnt get a good player in the draft.

and for this season, they've already lost Clarkson, Sexton and Collins. If anything happens to Markanen, it's going to be hard for them to get to 15 wins. Tanking for them is just playing their normal rotation.

[Kingsway_fan]

I mean what's your definition of tanking. We had a much more talented roster and we were basically sitting healthy players for the second half of games or just not playing guys. Jazz were mostly just bad from a roster construct. Maybe Philly tanked the hardest given the talent they had.

One draft can change things for a team:

Ace Bailey and Walter Clayton Jr. are going to be good players. They just have to be patient with Ace because he obviously doesn't know the game well. He hunts for his own shots and misses easy passes, and he ignores defensive assignments.

I really think Bryce Sensabaugh is ready to step up for them. Not sure what the plan is for Cody Williams and Taylor Hendricks but I guess they are depth pieces.

They still will be terrible, but 2026 they add another high end piece they might have something.

My hate for Utah is due to them sitting Kessler while he was healthy and it messed up my fantasy team during playoffs. So I hate them for that and was hoping they wouldnt get a good player in the draft.

and for this season, they've already lost Clarkson, Sexton and Collins. If anything happens to Markanen, it's going to be hard for them to get to 15 wins. Tanking for them is just playing their normal rotation.

Yep. Perennial tankers... Raptor Fans and Ownership would not tolerate that...

[mtcan]

My hate for Utah is due to them sitting Kessler while he was healthy and it messed up my fantasy team during playoffs. So I hate them for that and was hoping they wouldnt get a good player in the draft.

and for this season, they've already lost Clarkson, Sexton and Collins. If anything happens to Markanen, it's going to be hard for them to get to 15 wins. Tanking for them is just playing their normal rotation.

Yep. Perennial tankers... Raptor Fans and Ownership would not tolerate that...

Have we not learned from the past 2 drafts that no matter how many losses you accrue, that it never guarantees draft success? They claim it isn't rigged but when 2 teams that lost in the play-in end up getting #1 picks 2 years in a row...is that not the lottery gods (who may well be Adam Silver) are discouraging tanking.

TWO were losing their **** about going from a 14% chance at a #1 pick to 12.5% this past season...and then the team with 1.34% chance at the #1 pick gets it...how does it feel to know that none of that ever mattered? They were being all condescending telling others that they don't understand math. lololol...

Jazz lucked out that Ace fell to them but for all the losing and suffering their fanbase has endured...dropping to 5th had to be a wake up call.

[TheGeneral99]

Classic summer league hot takes.

Let me give you the last few Summer League MVPs:

2024 - Jalen Wilson
2023 - Cam Whitmore
2022 - Keegan Murray
2021 - Davison Mitchell and Cam Thomas
2019 - Brandon Clarke
2018 - Josh Hart
2017 - Lonzo Ball
2016 - Tyus Jones
2015 - Kyle Anderson
2014 - Glen Rice Jr.
2013 - Valanciunas (yeah!)

Any of these scream all-star to you?

Summer League provides a nice glimpse but I wouldn't take too much away from these games unless you can see the guy obviously has no IQ or feel for the game.

Remember when Davion had 37 points in a summer league game and people thought he was the steal of the draft? He's an okay player but nothing more than a good back up. Korkmaz dropped 40 in summer league, Belinelli was dominating, Hezonja was dominating, Selby was unreal in summer league, Duarte looked unreal, Austin Daye looked great etc.

Sarr looked bad last summer but ended being decent as a rookie. Wemby had some struggles during summer league but still had a great rookie season.

It's usually common that sophomore NBA players dominate summer league.