Summer League And Other Stuff
2009-07-13
Okay, the first thing before I go about doing some extremely quick box-score notes on Summer League: anyone can score in Summer League. You get shots, the defense is lackluster, the offense goes into isolation, and leashes are long enough so that any player can get his shots. Remember, every player on a summer league roster has probably spent at least a decade of their life as the featured scorer in every game they played in. What you’re looking for are the guys who are getting their points with efficiency, keeping fouls and turnovers down, and passing the basketball.
(Sidebar: I haven’t been able to watch any of the games yet, so these are just box score notes, and should be taken with a shaker of salt.)
With that being said, here are some hits from the Cavs’ squad and around the league:
-I think that the odds are overwhelmingly strong against Christian Eyenga ever becoming a rotation player for the Cavs, just based on his utter lack of production before getting drafted. He’s coming off the bench in Vegas, and doesn’t seem to be imposing his will, but it’s nice to see that he went 4-6 from the field today. If he wants to play for this team, he’s going to have to learn that 4-6 from the field is about the best line he can hope to acheive in a given game with the established players already on the Cavs.
-Tarence Kinsey has been making me look pretty bad so far. He’s not finding the mark from the field at all, and hasn’t been moving the ball. In his defense, he’s a guy who gets better the further away he gets from being the best player on the floor because of the way he plays. But if you want minutes in the big-boy rotation, you should find a way to thrive against summer-league competition.
-Danny Green had an absolutely PERFECT 1st Summer League game: 16 points on 5-7 shooting (4-6 from 3 and 2-2 from the line, for a TS% of 1.000%), with one assist against one turnover. That’s exactly what we want from him, so it’s great to see him at least do it at the Summer League level.
-Darnell Jackson: Ick. He’s another guy that actually plays better when he can do the little things instead of trying to create, but he’s shooting 29% from the field right now.
-A guy to temper your enthusiasm for: He’s a Trojan and I love him for it, but Demar DeRozan has 30 points on 32 shots and, after 65 minutes of play, has as many assists as I do. Those aren’t the habits to be building, especially for a guy whose best chance to contribute right away is to use his athleticism to defend and fill in the gaps offensively.
-That’s all for baskeball for the moment: again, I haven’t gotten a chance to watch anything past highlights as of yet and want to try to do my job without polluting the interwebs with 1,000 words of meagerly informed observations.
-Instead, I’ll note this: does anyone else find themselves feeling decently satisfied when Entourage ends, and then actually getting angry throughout the night when you go back over the show and realize how terrible it really was? I cannot imagine a worse season opener for a show that’s already pretty much pissed away whatever good will that existed towards it. The only two characters who actually work, Ari and Lloyd, seem to have been relegated to some sort of ridiculous season-long riff on old people doing frat-like hazing rituals. Also, less Hollywood and more about the love lives of boring hangers-on. Awesome stuff.
I still watch The Real World, and that is terrible, but somehow I find the familiar awfulness of dish fights, drunken shennanigans, and bisexuals comforting, while Entourage’s awfulness actively disturbs me. I do not know why this is, nor do I particularly care to find out. Until next time.
The Leno thing was weird. Just another dropped plot point. The show’s specialty. Really the only reason to watch at this point is the guy’s busting on each other. But for a half hour with good looking girls, I can deal.
Saw Entourage… thought it was good while watching it, then got disappointed after. Not angry, just disappointed. The whole E and Sloane back and forth really got on my nerves, and was no one else slightly confused about the Leno appearance? I mean, Vinny goes on the show, talks about how he bribed the driving instructor, and his publicist says he killed it? That was just a little odd to me.
John, I love ya, but I think you were a little rough on Eyenga with “odds being overwhelmingly strong” that he won’t make the Cavs rotation. I assume you mean this year, because, yeah, that’s not happening. But a year or two in the Europe top league with the Cavs supervising his development in the offseason… who knows. He could end up contributing.
Even if Eyenga never pans out (highly likely), Danny Green might just end up being better than Sam Young, and getting him in the 2nd round makes it that much more of a value. I’m not saying that because of 1 summer league game, but they have very similar games, and while Green is not as big he can shoot better and is younger. I understood what they were doing with the Eyenga pick when it happened, but I still think Beaubois is much more likely to make an impact in the NBA at some point in his career.
My brother said Entourage was good last night, you say it was terrible. Just have to find out for myself tonight.
The guys the Cavs select as their new role(bench)players better be multi-talented this upcoming season,not only able to snap fake pictures but willing to be a bowling pin for Shaq’s act,as the lead bowler.I wonder if Lebron will be the kinpin on Shaq’s fake bowling team?