Summer League 2025

[zzaj]

That PnR pass is available almost every time for both Yang and Clingan, the guards never get it to them though.

Nice to see the whistle start to even things out.

[Walton1one]

So how many years do you hold on to young guys if they show that they just don’t have it?

Rupert in his 3rd SL needs to be dominant, looked fine the first night looked pretty awful tonight

Cissoko, pretty much the same thing but in reverse, was invisible the first night, played fairly well tonight

Neither one of these guys are rotational players

And Caleb Love? 7–21, lol, yes that’s subpar efficiency carries over m, he is Banton light, but without the height.

[DaVoiceMaster]

Does Caleb Love have a shot at making the team?

Didn't the Blazers sign him to a 2-way contract?

[DaVoiceMaster]

The difference one night makes. Hard to believe that's the same team we watched last night. Yang did not do much. Rupert did absolutely nothing. Cissoko looked decent. Love wasn't anything special. No one else is even worth mentioning after watching that game. Yang needs to hit the weight room cuz he's getting pushed around and can't seem to grab a contested rebound.

[Norm2953]

That's a very solid Memphis team with more experience and better players that wasn't playing
on a BxB. They were also playing with GG and Coward tonight.

This summer league was all about getting Yang comfortable in what the Blazers like to run in their
offensive sets. Granted there are not a lot of guys who are a threat to be in Portland's rotation,
but come fall camp which will come in two months, Yang will be working with the team's regulars
in what will be a learning experience.

I don't doubt they are going to be a 35 win team again this season in a tough western conference
for there will be a lot of nights where they will struggle to score 100 points. Perhaps if they can
add a Bob Gross type of wing to be their 14th man, they can get to 38 wins but their defense
should be able to keep them in more games this season.

[zzaj]

Blazer coaching tried to get cute playing without a big for two stretches in this game. The first stretch, MEM wasn't really able to capitalize. That second stretch in the 4th quarter MEM took over the game, with two leak outs and taking advantage of no drop big around the basket.

MEM was allowed to play pretty handsy and physical all night, while PDX was not--that discrepancy showed up in the box with MEM +13 at the foul line.

Bit of a reality check game for Yang. Still did some nice things, but dictated less on both ends of the floor. Especially defensively. Last game he was quick to the ball, this game he was more reactive and made mistakes because of it. Looked a little tired to me. I have no idea if the CBA has B2Bs.

Cissoko looked good in spots, but...meh. Rupert just isn't aggressive enough, and I doubt his skill level ever gets high enough to overcome that. I don't think Love is really an NBA player. He doesn't have an NBA skill. Probably fine for a Gleague team.

[Shem]

Watch on YouTube

[dckingsfan]

One thing to consider is that the Blazer offense runs zero post up sets, and last night they didn’t run a single post set for Yang.

Nearly every time he touched the ball it was in that 5-out delayed action with the big at the top of the key. It was pretty clearly intentional. One of my big complaints about the Blazer offense last year was there was very little effective off-ball screening…especially North/South. Hopefully, what we saw last night is an indicator for some more interesting offense next season.

I doubt we’re going to see Yang post ups anytime soon.

Agreed. It will take Yang at least 2 years to move from the high post to the low post. Guessing the same is true with Clingan? The development of both is going to be soooo key for the Blazers over the next two years. But I can see the "why" of going with Yang. Of course, there might have been someone at 11 that turns out to be really good - so there is that.

My point was that there’s a chance we’ll NEVER really see Yang in the low post, or Clingan for that matter. It’s something the current Blazer offense simply doesn’t run, and for pretty good reason in the modern NBA. It basically kills all high percentage shots at the rim, allows defenses to be set 100% of the time, and if you’re team is not shooting 40%+ from 3 every night, you’re not going to win.

We might see it here and there in special situations, but if the team wants to optimize players like Deni, Sharpe, Scoot, and Camara…I doubt we’re going to see much direct posting up.

Agreed with all of that - and a great point.

Where it is useful is when you have mismatches. A screen and a mouse gets in the paint with your big. If they have good low post moves, they can score without committing an offensive foul.

[dckingsfan]

So how many years do you hold on to young guys if they show that they just don’t have it?

Rupert in his 3rd SL needs to be dominant, looked fine the first night looked pretty awful tonight

Cissoko, pretty much the same thing but in reverse, was invisible the first night, played fairly well tonight

Neither one of these guys are rotational players

And Caleb Love? 7–21, lol, yes that’s subpar efficiency carries over m, he is Banton light, but without the height.

Reminder, it is summer league.

Answer for Rupert (opinion): end of this year.
Answer for Cissoko (opinion): endo of this year.

Answer for Love: You don't need to carry him this year.

[Dame Lizard]

One thing I liked about Yang was his boxing out. He wasn't a prolific rebounder from his own box score, but he had that Robin Lopez habit of boxing out so his team mates get the board.

[PDXKnight]

I dont think you can read anything into bigs one way or the other in the SL.

As far as the draft move down time will tell if it was a good move. Regardless of how yang does that magic 28 pick is in our hands and as good as ORL's future looks Now a lot can change in 3 years especially in a smaller market

[mojomarc]

I'm more wondering if Yang develops a mid range jumper, if he'll end up being another Pau Gasol.

If that's his ultimate upside then this was seriously a great pick by Cronin.

[DusterBuster]

Marang who was at summer league this weekend said he talked with officials from 3 different teams while he was there and said he had it confirmed from all of them that multiple teams had plans on picking Yang in the top 25. Nets @ 19, Wolves @ 17 and Hawks @ 23. He said he was told the Wolves had Yang in for a secret workout the week of the draft, so sounds like he shot up a lot of teams draft boards to a middle of first round pick and the mocks just didn't catch wind of it.

This was why they were reported only willing to slide back to 16, and even then, weren't super comfortable with it and were scared a team like the Nets might trade up to 15 with the Spurs.

[DeBlazerRiddem]

Marang who was at summer league this weekend said he talked with officials from 3 different teams while he was there and said he had it confirmed from all of them that multiple teams had plans on picking Yang in the top 25. Nets @ 19, Wolves @ 17 and Hawks @ 23. He said he was told the Wolves had Yang in for a secret workout the week of the draft, so sounds like he shot up a lot of teams draft boards to a middle of first round pick and the mocks just didn't catch wind of it.

This was why they were reported only willing to slide back to 16, and even then, weren't super comfortable with it and were scared a team like the Nets might trade up to 15 with the Spurs.

I think teams definitely try and hide those things from the public, it doesn't surprise me more teams had their eye on him and gave misleading information where they could. In hindsight it looks like Kasparas was used as a kind of smoke screen, with teams probably overstating their interest to divert attention. At the time I thought Demin was the smoke screen but wow I was wrong on that.

[zzaj]

I'm pretty tired of the last 5 minutes of games in SL taking 40 minutes simply because of point differential. It's a waste of everybody's time. It's a massive miss to advertise a game starting at 7 and have the thing actually start 1 hour later.

[zzaj]

Seriously, WTF is the holdup with the Blazer games. Literally every game has been 40-55 minutes late. The GS/Griz game was scheduled to start AFTER the Blazer game and yet it's going on before the Blazer game. Is it really because they are trying to get as many Chinese viewers as possible?

[oldfishermen]

Who is Pedulla?

He looks very bad so far, very bad.

[zzaj]

Yang has some bad rebound habits. Any high school basketball coach will tell you, "...when a shot goes up, make a decision: find a body to block out, go get the ball, or leak out." Right now Yang finds a body if there's one near and that's it. He never pursues the ball, and of course at his size and speed he's never going to leak. He needs to learn to pursue...

How are they not giving a flagrant to NO here? Dude literally pushed Cissoko down. Completely unnecessary...

[JRoy]

Who is Pedulla?

He looks very bad so far, very bad.

Cannot play.

[zzaj]

Rupert with another game, the type of game that should be the norm for him now in SL against this type of competition.

I liked Carton's play tonight--in some ways even more than Love. Carton is 24 and Love is 23...I don't think either really have enough NBA skill to overcome age at this point. Both probably career Gleague or overseas players.

That Pedulla kid is way out classed even in SL.

I like Queen moving forward for NO as long as they play him the correct way. As long as he can play PF or C on offense and only PF on defense, as long as he has high usg, he'll put up numbers. I'm not sure that he's a "winner", based on what I've seen. But he clearly has a knack and feel for getting the ball to go in. Yang looked outclassed trying to guard him straight up.

So far in SL, I would have liked to have seen a little more 4 out play from the Blazers, with Yang posting. I feel like if he's ever going to play in the post, that's about the only play call that will work in actual NBA games. If he has the BBIQ and he improves his reaction time slightly he's either going to get a trip to the FT line, an assist to an open shooter off of help D, or a chance to show his touch and footwork around the basket.

The 3pt shooting is fine, but among bigs it doesn't matter much unless it's consistently on volume. Teams will happily give up a couple uncontested 3s from Clingan/Yang in games, rather than their bigs fully committing to guarding out at the perimeter...teams aren't going to give up the paint just so they can get out on a 30% 3pt shooter. We'll see with Yang though. Obviously he's going to get opportunities if they run that delay action with him in the middle of the court acting as an offensive hub.