Menu

Vegas Summer League, Day Five

Vegas Summer League, Day Five
Jul 12, 2006, 12:53 pm
Game One Final: Cleveland 91 – Golden State 66

Cleveland

Bradley Sutton

Shannon Brown

Brown continued his strong play today with a variety of plays that showed that he is ready to contribute at this level. First off was his ability to get to the hoop, his dribble penetration. Remember, he is not a small guy like a Rajon Rondo or Sebastian Telfair. He’s a bulky 6’3” 200lbs,+. Yet still he had enough quickness to get to the hoop, almost at will, for either a layup, a tear drop, or a dime to one of his teammates. He even took it coast to coast at one point for the hoop without anyone being able to catch up to him.

Martynas Andriuskevicius

Marty had probably his best game of his summer league career. While he is still not NBA ready yet, he showed glimpses of what scouts saw a couple of years ago when they had hyped him to be a lottery pick. Here is a 7’2”/7’3” guy who was flying up and down the court, stroking it from the outside (Hit two out of his three downtown balls, and about 3 more midrange jump shots, one off of a beautiful pick and pop play), threw in a couple of post moves, and was hustling on both ends. He had a nice block on a layup try, and only had one turnover. He still has a ways to go, but today’s game should make Cleveland fans happy that they were able to nab him in the 2nd round.

Sasha Pavlovic

Sasha had a terrible game, bottom line. In the first half, he couldn’t get open at all, and his teammates couldn’t find him on the rare occasion that he was alone. Because of this, when he finally did get the ball, he forced up a couple of bad shots that missed, it was almost like he was saying, ‘I had better throw this brick up, who knows when I’m going to see the ball again.’ The other occasion he did get the ball, he had to push off just to get the shot off, and thus was whistled for the offensive foul. Stats do not usually tell the whole story, but in this game, he played 20 minutes, had 4 points, and 6 fouls.

Brandon Hunter

Hunter was arguably the best player on the floor today. He was literally all over the court. He gets off of the floor faster than most, and this is a guy who weighs upwards of 260lbs. He was leaping above people to get rebounds, stuffing everything in sight (he had about 3 other dunks called off due to fouls away from the ball, 3 second violations, etc.), diving for loose balls, and driving to the hoop (and earning 19 free throws due to his foul drawing ability). He had game highs for both teams of points and rebounds.

Golden State

Patrick O’Bryant

Patrick had an up and down game. Whenever he got a pass, you could tell, he either A. had already made up his mind to go to the basket or B. was caught in lala land. If he got the ball within 10 feet or so of the basket, you could bet times out of ten, he was going to the hoop with it. But when he got a pass more on the perimeter, or in the flow of the offense, it looked like he did not know what to do with the ball, he would catch it, then look around aimlessly trying to figure out what to do. When he did go to his post moves, he does (as has been noted on other days) have a nice hook shot that he relies on. The form is great, and he hit half of his shots today. He didn’t really force anything today, which is a good sign. He does need to work on his fouls as he picked up one almost every other minute (9 in 22 minutes of play), and almost all of them were needless reach-in fouls.


Jose Juan Barea

Jose is lightning quick. He also has excellent body control…numerous times he was able to stop on a dime and change directions, even while bouncing off of people like a pinball due to his small frame. His speed also helps him on defense. While not possessing strength, he is still able to do a decent job on defense since he is so quick. He was able to almost always stay in front of the guy he was guarding, and recovered from getting picked off on screens faster than anyone else in the game. He hustled on loose balls, and was able to get three contested rebounds, despite being the smallest player on the court. He hit one three pointer, and had an all around decent game.

Will Bynum

Bynum did not have a good game today. For someone as small as he, you would expect him to be able to dart around, beat people off of the dribble, etc. But he was unable to do that, every time he tried to make a move to the basket, his defender was able to stay right with him. He only had one recorded assist in his 21 minutes, and the last straw was when he had a clear breakaway dunk that he clanked because he tried to pull off a windmill. Shortly thereafter he was pulled from the game, and did not return.




Game Two Final: Houston 71 – Dallas 70

Houston

Bradley Sutton

John Lucas

Can we say anything more about John? Once again he just seemed like he was smarter, faster, and plain better than everyone else on the court. The first half was his show. About 75% of the Rocket’s points were a direct result of either him scoring, or his assists in that half. Many times, his teammates would just stand around, not getting open. But Lucas would just put on his “what me, worry?” face and drive to the basket at will. Out of all of his drives he was stopped maybe only two or three times from doing what he set out to. All of the other teams he either laid it in (once he did so right over Pavel Podkolzine), or drew a double team so that he could leave it off to a teammate for the layup. On defense, he did not have any fouls, but drew three charges. The biggest thing that stuck out was his patience. He rarely forced the issue. In the second half, just like in previous games, he kind of put his offense on hold so that he could get his teammates more involved. He ended up hitting the winning free throws with a few seconds left to give his team the victory.

Matt Haryasz

One of the reasons Lucas had to do so much was the lack of offense from his other teammates such as Pat Carroll and Steve Novak who combined to shoot 6/24. But Haryasz actually surprised many with some solid play at both ends of the floor. He out hustled almost everyone, especially on the glass where he was very active. He hit 4 out of his 5 shots, including a nice And-1 off of a rebound. He also saved the game for the Rockets, blocking Ager’s potential game winning shot at the buzzer.

Chuck Hayes

Chuck played the complete game today, as did John Lucas. He didn’t do anything spectacular, but he was tough on the boards, grabbing 19 of them.

Dallas

Maurice Ager

Ager had a very streaky game today. In the beginning he could not hit anything, and even got called for a couple of offensive fouls. But in the second quarter, he completely caught fire. At one point he went on a personal 11 point run, with a baseline drive and dunk, and then three straight three pointers. But for the next quarter and a half he got colder than liquid nitrogen. He still was his team’s leading scorer for the day, though.

Pavel Podkolzin

Pavel is fun to watch. He puts a lot of emotion into his plays. During one sequence, he grabbed a rebound, and stuffed it (jumping about 4 inches to do so), hanging on the rim, and then stomping halfway down the court (a la Shaq), acting like he had just made the shot of his life. The crowd loved it. He played a so-so game. He lost a lot of rebounds to guys 6 and 7 inches shorter than him, had some terrible over the back fouls that he never should have done, but on the flip side was able to get to the line a lot and hit his foul shots, and had a couple of nice blocks, while altering a lot of others. He still needs to work on conditioning. As the first quarter was winding down, at one point he could only make it to half court because he was so tired, and the play went on about 5-6 seconds with him just standing at half court praying for a timeout.

Pops Mensah-Bonsu

Pops showed today one of the reasons why we do not solely rely on stats to gauge someone’s performance. His statline wasn’t that impressive, but he was easily the most exciting player for Dallas today with his hustle on the boards, and his insane ups on a couple of dunks, including an offensive rebound/dunk at the 3rd quarter buzzer. He plays a lot bigger than he is.

Game Three Final: Portland 72 – Washington 68

Portland

Bradley Sutton

Brandon Roy

Brandon again was mainly running the point while he was out there, and didn’t do a bad job at all of it. Like in the previous game, he was able to use his great lateral motion to get to the hoop either for the layup or for the dish to the open teammate. His very first play when he stepped out there was one of these, when he drove to the hoop, but then somehow found Webster open outside the arc for the three pointer. For some strange reason he wasn’t credit in the game with an assist, but had at least 3 from our count.

Martell Webster

Martell started the game on fire, hitting threes and outside shots left and right. He wasn’t able to create his own shot off of the dribble, but was able to get himself open a few times for these catch and shoot jumpers. He needs to work a little on his ball handling, but even without that, he should be a decent scorer. He also needs to work on following his midrange shot, there was a couple of chances he had at rebounding his own miss, but was out of position. As a matter of fact, in 30 minutes of play he did not get one rebound.

LaMarcus Aldridge

Aldridge did not have a great shooting day, missing a lot of his shots out of the post, but was very active on defense. There was one play that got the crowd to its feet in the first half…Blatche was driving baseline and took off for the tomahawk jam, but Aldridge met him mid air, avoided hitting him with the body, and stuffed the dunk attempt, leading to a fast break for the Blazers. He showed good timing on his contesting shots, as well as his rebounding, and also hit an outside jump shot in the first half.

Washington

Andray Blatche

Andray frustrated many of the Washington fans on hand for the game. There were a couple of occasions where he brought the ball up the floor due to the PG being tied up, but then after crossing the midcourt line, instead of passing back to the PG, he would wave everyone else off, and try to run the play himself. On two occasions in the first half, this lead directly to a turnover, and then fans screaming, “you’re not a point Blatche!” As far as potential goes though, the sky is the limit if he can put everything together. Very few players in the summer league can boast his height combined with his ball handling, speed, athleticism, and shooting. He is still a streaky shooter, but his only made field goes of the day were all NBA three pointers, showing he does posses the range. More than anything he needs to work on his decision making. There were those aforementioned turnovers when he was trying to do too much, and then him challenging Aldridge for that dunk, and paying for it.

Peter John Ramos

In a matter of two hours, the fans at Vegas were treated to three of the largest centers in the world. Pavel Podkolzine in the Dallas game, and Ha Seung Jin/PJ Ramos in this game. Ramos continues to improve his coordination, and low post game, and hit almost all of his shots (5/6). The biggest holes in his game today were 1. Rebounding. When you’re the largest guy on the court by 5 inches, you need to be able to grab more than 3 rebounds in 30 minutes. And 2. Turnovers. He continuously got ripped and had a couple of bad passes to the tune of 5 turnovers at our count. He would be best served with another year of the NBDL if eligible. He does not get as tired as Pavel, he’s more coordinated than Ha, but still has a ways to go to be NBA ready.

Oleksiy Pecherov

Oleksiy might have been the second leading scorer for the Wizards today, but he was by no means efficient. His shot was way off today, (3/12), and included an air ball three pointer, and an air ball seven footer in the lane. The positives for him was, despite the missed shots, he never turned the ball over, and was the only one on the Wizards going after the rebounds it seemed. His form on his shot looks good, as was mentioned his high arching shot coupled with his good size makes it very difficult to block. But they just weren’t falling for him today.

Recent articles

3.1 Points
2.8 Rebounds
3.7 Assists
6.9 PER
-->
4.0 Points
1.5 Rebounds
1.5 Assists
-3.3 PER
-->
1.0 Points
1.0 Rebounds
0.0 Assists
1.8 PER
-->
0.6 Points
0.4 Rebounds
0.0 Assists
1.3 PER
-->
5.8 Points
1.8 Rebounds
4.9 Assists
11.3 PER
-->

Twitter @DraftExpress

DraftExpress Shop