This article is part of our Hoops Lab series.
A Night in Vegas
Every summer during the MLB All-Star break, RotoWire has an annual trip to Las Vegas. While I like interacting with my fellow writers, getting our business for the year in order, and of course enjoying the Vegas life, the biggest perk to the trip for me is the chance to go watch the Las Vegas Summer League in person..@deanvasic@ProfessorDrz@RotoWireKyleNBApic.twitter.com/l6uKFkxoWI
— Josh Lloyd (@redrock_bball) July 14, 2015As I've watched the Summer League through the years, I've gotten a better feel for the difference between dominating the Summer League and being capable of translating that to the actual NBA. The Summer League is in many ways set up for score-first guards to look great, because team defense is weaker and most of the perimeter players there are not there for steller 1-on-1 defense. Thus, if I see a score-first player blowing up in the Summer League, I don't necessarily believe it. This was part of what allowed Foye to look so good back in 2005, because he could get into the lane and finish at will in Vegas in ways that were never replicable in the NBA.
Thus, these days, I don't even really track stats when I'm at the Summer League games. I just watch. I look for skill sets. I look for how quick someone's first step is. I look for how confident they are creating their shot and whether it's a shot they'll be able to create at the next level. I look at how comfortable the player is with the ball in his hands in different situations and also how comfortable they are setting up their offense either playing off the ball or by utilizing their teammates.
This was how Roy was, rightfully, able to dominate the 2005 Summer League … he showed that he was capable of smoothly running the team, playing off of picks that would be available in the actual NBA, and able to create in-control/great looks for teammates off of his penetration. Had his knees retained any cartilage, this skill set would have allowed Roy to continue to be one of the more dominant guards in the NBA to this day using the same tools I first saw him display in Vegas.
Last summer, I came into the games excited to watch top lottery picks like Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker, and Dante Exum to see if they might be ready to make an impact as a rookie. But instead, the two players that really stood out to me were Giannis Antetokounmpo and Rudy Gobert. I tweeted about both of them while at the game last season, for example this exchange:
Oh snap! Greek Freak posteriors Gobert with 2 hand dunk...next possession Gobert posterizes him right back! @RotoWire@CLNS_Nick
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 15, 2014And again, it was more their skill sets and the way they played that stood out to me than any numbers they might have put up. On a team with Jabari Parker, Antetokounmpo was CLEARLY the best, most polished performer out there. He controlled the ball, he controlled the team, and he ran the show. When paired with his ridiculous athleticism, I was confident that the Greek Freak was continuing well on his path to becoming an impact NBA player, and we saw that play out over the course of the 2014-15 season. But it was Gobert who shocked me the most that game. He was dominant defensively, with length and timing that certainly looked capable of translating to the league. But more than that, he had an edge. As mentioned in the tweet above, when Gobert was challenged, he was ready and willing to come right back at the other end. That showed me a lot, and that insight made me one of the first to get on Gobert's bandwagon once he started getting some minutes in Utah this season.
So. That's the past. But what did the Vegas Summer League have to show me this season?
On June 13th I had the chance to spend an evening at the games that featured three of the top four draft picks from this year. Here are my impressions on those players.
Observations from a night in Vegas
Karl-Anthony Towns: Of everyone at this year's Summer League, Towns was the one that I was most anxious to see. He was the consensus No. 1 pick by the time the draft rolled around, but I wanted to see whether he was a generational talent or merely the best prospect in a draft that generated some buzz but wasn't considered historic.
My first impressions of Towns came while watching him in the warm-up line, where most of his teammates were doing the standard layup line, Towns was dribbling and then planting for pull-up jumpers. He was setting up anywhere from about 15 feet to the 3-point line. He wasn't making them all, but his whole motion was fluid and comfortable. It was clear that he is natural as a ball handler and shooter, not someone trying to acquire a new skill.
Karl-Anthony Towns showing off 3-point range in warmups. Wolves vs Jazz up next https://t.co/X2mhKxX7lC
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 14, 2015Once the game started, I paid a lot of attention to how Towns moves. On defense, he was mobile enough to defend his man out to the perimeter and then still get back to challenge for rebounds. His rotations weren't perfect, but (more importantly) he seemed to have the quickness and the willingness to rotate (if not the perfect scheme/technique to do so).
I remember two blocked shots in the game, one of them on-ball off of a player that was driving (clean rejection) and the other helping on another driver (blocked it straight up). Both blocks demonstrated good timing and an ability to use his length, which is key because his leaping ability isn't explosive, and in today's NBA, it's better to rely on length and the verticality rule to challenge shots instead of explosive leaping ability. This should help him with foul issues in the league, which is ironic because he had nine fouls in the Summer League game that I watched.
Who me? Foul number 9 on Towns for the illegal screen https://t.co/rZkryiymt0
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 14, 2015On offense, the Wolves were playing without Zach LaVine (he'd lacerated a finger trying to dunk on Larry Nance Jr. in a previous game), and their offensive plan was pretty pedestrian. It seemed clear that one of their main goals was to get Towns a lot of touches with his back to the basket to allow him to practice his moves. He did a lot of mid-range posting, which led to a lot of 12- to-18-foot turnaround jumpers. He wasn't hitting a lot of shots that day (4-for-14 from the floor), but again, I was more interested in how he looked than what he produced. And again, he seemed very comfortable and confident with his mid-range and turnaround jumper. Towns attacked the rim off a few of the posts, which led to several free-throw shooting opportunities, but for the most part, his post-ups tended to end like this:
Towns takes a lot of post up fadeaway jumpers from 12 to 18 feet. Post game is more Kevin Garnett… https://t.co/TvZXJU3v8d
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 14, 2015One thing that I was looking for, that I didn't get to see a whole lot of, was Towns' passing ability. I was told that in previous games Towns was really showing off his ability to make fancy passes, even some behind the head. I didn't see that in the game I watched, but he did show the ability to easily pass out of the post be it strong-side or even weak-side on occasion.
All told, Towns looked like a great prospect but one that was working on his game more so than dominating. It's always nice when a blue chip prospect dominates in production as well as skill set (as he would a couple of days later with 20 points (7-for-9 FG, 6-for-6 FT), 10 boards, three blocks, and two steals against Portland), but in my experience, it's the skill set more so than the production that is a better predictor of future NBA success.
D'Angelo Russell: Russell was another player I wanted to see, because he had moved up to the No. 2 overall pick ahead of Jahlil Okafor, who had been projected as a can't-miss prospect since his high school days. Russell is a lead, scoring guard, which is just the type of player that can be set up for huge production in the Summer League. Apparently Lakers Nation agreed, because the Thomas and Mack Center was PACKED for every Lakers game. That was a first in my decade of Summer League experience, especially for the big court, as usually those games are pretty sparsely populated. This year, every Lakers game on the big court was standing room only.
When I arrived in Las Vegas, I wondered if Russell would end up looking more like 2005 Brandon Roy or Randy Foye, but in either instance, I thought he would be the most magnetic offensive player for the Lakers. Instead, Russell was…inconclusive. He definitely didn't dominate the game, and in fact, he was often almost invisible. In hindsight, this was perhaps the worst possible game I could have seen from Russell, as he went on to have only one assist and eight turnovers for a very lackluster Lakers offense. He apparently looked (slightly) better in earlier and later games in the Summer League, but he was pretty 'meh' in the one that I watched live.
One of the big problems for Russell seemed to be that the Lakers had Jordan Clarkson in the "scoring lead guard" slot, and it seemed that Clarkson was the aggressor/initiator on most possessions. Clarkson had a poor shooting game that day, but visually he was just clearly the primary force in the Lakers backcourt. As I tweeted from the game:
Jordan Clarkson has been the dominant backcourt player for Lakers thus far, out shining Russell https://t.co/BvNsChKfKG
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 14, 2015If an aggressive Clarkson was in any way part of Russell's issue, he's going to have to get over it because the Lakers will be full of ball-dominant lead guards this season with Clarkson, Lou Williams, and of course Kobe Bryant all expected to play significant minutes. Russell is going to have to learn to be assertive when he has the ball but also find ways to make his presence felt off the ball. He is more of a scorer than a shooter, but if he can make himself into a reliable spot-up threat and/or worker off of off-ball screens then that would certainly be more productive than what I saw in Vegas. In Vegas, when Russell didn't have the ball, it was easy to forget that he was on the court at all. That will have to change.
Russell seemed to have good court vision but had a penchant for making quick and difficult passes when perhaps a more patient, simple pass may have been more effective. Several of his eight turnovers came from the defense either anticipating his quick passes (perhaps scouted after his early games?), while a couple of others came from him getting passes by the defenders but his teammates not being ready/able to receive it. This is an area that might go better for Russell in the NBA than the Summer League, as his teammates would be better and thus more likely to be able to turn those passes into dimes than turnovers.
Russell's shot seemed to be off, but he did hit at least one jumper that stood out to me. He caught the ball around the elbow of the 3-point line, penetrated to the left of the free-throw line, then pulled up and faded left on a jumper that was strings. It was a confident move and one that should be successful even at the next level.
A lot of the pre-draft comps for Russell were either James Harden or Steph Curry-light. I didn't see any of Curry's game in Russell, and the Harden comp seemed like a bit of a stretch. But to be fair, I wasn't overly impressed by Harden way back in 2009 when I saw him in Vegas either. In both cases, in Vegas, it seemed that Harden/Russell played the game too slow to become a force in the NBA. In Harden's case that obviously wasn't correct, and Russell is still only 19, so perhaps the game will slow down for him as well, and he will eventually give Lakers fans what they are hoping for.
But from what I saw, it appears he has some work before he gets there.
Kristaps Porzingis: Porzingis was a pleasant surprise for me, as well as many other observers at the Summer League. After watching him in a few games, Josh Lloyd gave his verdict on the Knicks' lottery pick:
I have a new favourite player pic.twitter.com/8TvZsFb2OO
— Josh Lloyd (@redrock_bball) July 14, 2015I liked what I saw out of Porzingis, as well. Visually, he somewhat reminded me of what I saw out of Cody Zeller in the Summer League a couple of years back when he was one of the better performers in the league. Like Zeller, Porzingis looked smooth and athletic moving around the court. However, while Zeller is relatively long at 7-0, Porzingis is even longer at 7-3. He flat out towered over everyone on the court, and even at the NBA level, there won't be many times that he isn't the tallest player on the court.
This was my game-day description of what I saw out of Porzingis:
Porzingis looks good. Very fluid, comfortable handling the ball, can get his shot in paint...I like what I see so far @nyknicks@RotoWire
— Andre Snellings (@ProfessorDrz) July 14, 2015This was the part that so pleasantly surprised me. Porzingis moved around on offense somewhat like the current iteration of Dirk Nowitzki, which is much slower than in Dirk's prime but is still excellent movement for a 7-3 player. He appeared comfortable facing up, but when he got the ball in the paint, he held it high and was able to finish in traffic. These were all very positive signs for Porzingis' ability to succeed at the next level.
The biggest red flag for Porzingis is his strength. NBA big men are strong enough that, even with his added length, they should be able to make life very difficult for him until he adds some strength. Nevetheless, after watching him in Vegas, I have to feel that Stephen A. Smith will soon feel better about the Porzingis pick as I don't think it'll take Smith's projected 3–5 years before Porzingis is ready to contribute.
Keeping up with the Professor
If you're interested in my takes throughout the week, you can follow me on Twitter @ProfessorDrz. Also, don't forget that you can catch me on the radio on RotoWire Fantasy Sports Today with Chris Liss and Jeff Erickson on XM 87, Sirius 210. I also co-host the RotoWire fantasy basketball podcast with Kyle McKeown once a week and co-host the Celtics Beat podcast on www.clnsradio.com about once a month.
