This will not have many strong reactions to summer league, but it does give an extra perspective to consider so let’s dive into the top 5 and follow it up with other notable performances:
Victor Wembanyama
Wemby was about as expected. One game the shots weren’t falling, the other game they were. His offense is a bit of a question mark because he cannot handle around guards without getting picked off, and he takes so many jumpshots he is highly leveraged on his ability to make them longterm. But there is potential on that end, and huge potential on D.
It may take him some time to adjust to NBA physicality, so he is not likely an instant stud like Luka or LeBron. But he should be very good in time so long as he can stay healthy.
Brandon Miller
Miller was stuck on a dreadful team with a dreadful backcourt in Nick Smith and James Bouknight, as neither are good at passing or basketball in general. He struggled early but came on late with a big final game, and overall was about as expected.
There has also been discourse about Miller not knowing who Khris Middleton is being a red flag, as that allegedly means that he does not care that much about basketball. There is no evidence that this is a signal as we historically haven’t had prospects go on social media the way they have this year.
What if rookie Michael Jordan was entering the league this year— would it really be surprising if he was unfamiliar with the league outside of the top few players? He never seemed like much of a basketball junkie, yet he became the GOAT because he knew how to work on his craft and perform in the moment.
Miller overachieved bigly at Alabama in a way highly atypical of an older freshman, and showed progression in his flaws throughout the season. He seems to have some intelligence that enables him to develop well. Maybe he didn’t have time to watch much NBA because he was focused on honing his skills and immediate competition.
Overall Miller seems wired to succeed and this seems like a fairly trivial point. This makes him even less relatable, because he is unlike most fans, and people are already predisposed to hating on him. But there is no reason this should have any predictive gravity.
Scoot Henderson
Scoot only played a bit more than half a game, and was productive at creating a high volume of offense with 15/6/5 in 21 minutes. Overall, he looked about the same as he did in the G League.
He seems to have an odd distribution of athleticism, where he has a great first step and is good at getting to his spots on the floor, which is helpful for creating offense for others with his passing. But his athleticism is not so good when he tries to finish in traffic, so much of his scoring comes from shooting pull-up jumpers.
Ultimately, it’s hard to see him sniffing the rim pressure of Rose or Westbrook with his finishing woes. He can still pressure the rim some, but he likely needs to become an excellent shooter to be great given how heavy he is on pull-up jumpers.
Thompson Twins
Amen was highly productive in his only game, and Ausar was productive in his 4 games as they stuffed the stat sheet across the board offering a bit of everything. They were better than expected, and I have a more positive skew on my expectations after seeing them perform well in a familiar context.
Entering the draft there were two main sticking points with the Thompsons. One it is unclear how well their OTE performance translated up to higher levels, and two it is unclear how far behind the curve they are defensively playing in a joke league through age 20.
For the first point, their summer performances were encouraging as they faded a good amount of disaster risk. There was some chance they would have been disastrous, so it is encouraging that they were able to be among the most productive rookies.
For the second point, it is still unclear. They are long, athletic, highly disruptive, and seem at least reasonably intelligent. These are all qualities that lend themselves to massive upside on defense. If playing OTE instead of college is not much of a hindrance for their defensive development, there is nothing preventing them from being Iguodala types.
That said, there still is that downside risk that their defense is less than great due to learning actual defense for the first time at too late of an age, and there is still a chance that they do not have enough offensive skills to be playable with non-elite defense.
Personally I still have no idea what to expect from them. But their bust risk is looking less likely than it did pre-draft, and their upside potential looks more attainable.
It is still likely correct to approach them with caution instead of getting drunk on the hype. They still would not be my picks at 4 and 5 over younger quality NCAA guys like Cason Wallace, Anthony Black, Dereck Lively, or Taylor Hendricks. But it is at least plausible that they prove to be the best players at their slots in due time.
They were good enough to make me feel slightly bad about grading those picks an F, because it’s not like they are known to be bad. They come from an odd context at an older than ideal age of 20, and it is more efficient to be a stickler for proven performance than gambling on these mystery boxes, even if it means you occasionally miss out on a stud or two.
But sometimes degenerate gambles pay off, so perhaps the twins will be an instance where they do. In retrospect I should have graded these picks a D for being degen instead of an outright F.
Others
Cam Whitmore won Summer League MVP, and showcased his potential averaging 19.3 points per game along with 2.5 steals and almost as many assists (2) as turnovers (2.3). That said, he laid an egg after winning the award and was overall a lukewarm MVP performance. Further, this is a setting where freestyling on athleticism is ideal for success, and there are still questions about his ability to stay healthy and follow a defensive scheme.
But his talent is real, and he could prove to be a steal for sliding that far if health permits. I ranked him #16 and then graded the pick a C- simply because he is not a guy I wanted to buy the dip on, but in retrospect that was an unnecessarily harsh score. There was no other strongly compelling talent on the board at #20, and it was a good time to take a gamble on a guy with a unique distribution of strengths that could overcome his red flags.
His lack of length and suspect basketball IQ still adds a boatload of longterm risk, but at #20 overall it seems that it was clearly worth stomaching given his youth, athleticism, slashing potential, and ability to be disruptive on the perimeter generating steals.
It was likely correct to take Jaquez and Podz ahead of him at #18 and #19, but once those guys were off the board there was nobody who strongly deserved to go ahead of him.
Cason Wallace was likely the biggest disappointment in summer for me. He averaged 6.2 3PA in 26.7 mins and made 39%, but otherwise was a disaster offensively making just 6/21 2P with 13 assists vs 14 turnovers in 5 games.
In spite of his hot shooting he posted a meager 8.6 PER. Granted, this is not too far behind rookie Jrue Holiday’s 10.6 summer PER. So the upside comp is not dead. But it is worth bracing for a potential offensive struggle for Cason. Even then he will not be dead because he has so much potential on defense, but it would have been nice to see more.
Brandin Podziemski averaged 10.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, 5.3 assists in 29.7 minutes, which is not terrible for counting stats. But it came with a dismal 41% TS and 3.9 turnovers per game. He struggled to score against greater length and athleticism and make outside shots, although he showed sharp passing and continued to work hard for rebounds. This is also far from a death knell, as Austin Reaves similarly struggled in summer league as a rookie. It’s typically the high feel guys who don’t do as well, and Podz popped as a passer and rebounder, so if he can figure out how to score decently enough and be alright on defense he can still be very good.
Jordan Hawkins has one skill of being a shooter, and could not make his shots going 9/36 3P 11/20 FT. Typically small sample shooting is just noise, but it is worth fearing that he is merely a very good shooter who gets up massive volume of 3PA rather than an elite shooter who gets up massive volume. If he is a non-elite shooter, he is going to bust as a small SG who cannot defend or handle and is relatively older at age 21.
Keyonte George vs Kobe Bufkin
George showed major improvements from college, with improved physical fitness and athleticism. He also was far more efficient than expected, averaging 18.7 pts, 5.3 assists, and 1.8 turnovers in 26.4 minutes per game on 60% TS. The low turnovers is particularly impressive as he was a turnover machine in college. And the main obstacle to buying a Jamal Murray upside comp was limited athleticism, but being thinner may have been enough to solve that.
I ultimately rated George #21 and Kobe Bufkin #12 after agonizing who to take higher, and feel fairly bad about having them so far apart. Not that Key’s gains were that easily foreseeable, but I had no idea on them for a while and let them drift apart for a bit.
Bufkin struggled, although he was a decent enough scorer outside of struggling on 4/29 3P which is just small sample noise. If he made 9/29 from 3, then he would have averaged 19 points on 56.3% TS in 27.1 minutes, and still has more defensive potential than Keyonte. But the main difference is that he struggled more as a passer with 3.6 assists vs 4.6 turnovers per game.
Granted, it is all small samples, but Keyonte landed with a great coach in Will Hardy and showing the superior PG potential is not trivial. In retrospect, I should have kept them closer pre-draft. Although rating Bufkin higher was fine at the time. And now based on summer league the edge should shift to Keyonte. Perhaps not by a huge margin, but it is reasonable to favor him.
Jordan Walsh vs Bilal Coulibaly
These are fairly similar prospects, as both are young, long rangey wings that are fairly raw offensively. Pre-draft I rated Coulibaly higher because he is 5 months younger, has a better first step, and played better competition, but it was not a major gap with Coulibaly being #13 on my board and Walsh #19. Overall they did not seem that far apart, and Coulibaly largely benefitted from the French league being overrated.
This idea largely manifested in summer league, as they had nearly identical outputs in a number of categories. Per 40 minute stats:
They had nearly the same rate of 2PA and FTA with Coulibaly being slightly more efficient inside the arc, but Walsh having fewer turnovers. And the big difference is that Walsh got up a much greater volume of 3PA, and made 41% to Coulibaly’s 18% on lower volume.
Granted, the percentages are just noise in such a small sample, but it’s nice to see Walsh getting the attempts up and it seems close to a genuine coinflip between these two prospects.
If Coulibaly doesn’t take off and leave Walsh in the dust longterm, this will be a good example as to why trading down is sharp. Boston scooped 4 future 2nd rounders of good quality to move down from #25, and Indiana send 2 future 2nds to move up from #8. Teams are too prone to falling in love with their guy, and often there is another just as good guy that you can get later by collecting a vig in a trade down.
Denver Nuggets Underrated Summer
People are giving the Nuggets way too much grief for paying Reggie Jackson $5M when he should be a vet’s minimum player. Sure, they could have done slightly better with the money, but it’s a fairly low leverage move, and they nailed the high leverage stuff with their trading for draft picks.
They won the trade with OKC sending a protected 2029 pick for #37 this year, the least favorable of OKC 2024 1st, and OKC 2024 2nd.
Then they won the trade with Indiana sending #40 and their least favorable 2024 1st for #29 and #32.
Collectively, they turned #40 and a 2029 protected 1st into #29, #32, #37, OKC’s 2024 2nd rounder, and perhaps a slightly better 2024 1st.
That’s some heavy lifting for a 2029 protected first that does not have that much upside and is not important assuming top 5 protection. The draft talent curve gets flat pretty quickly near the mid-late lottery, and Jokic will only turn 34 that season and should still be great.
That 2029 pick will be in teens to 20’s fairly often, which will be a trivial payment for all of their current draft capital that was sorely needed. If it lands say #10 overall, that’s not a major win but still well worth it for the Nuggets who need pulls now.
They have a championship window that should be open for at least the next few years, and getting young cheap help is much higher leverage than signing the right vet’s minimum guys.
Julian Strawther, Jalen Pickett, and Hunter Tyson were all productive in summer league. They may not all be world beaters, but if just one or two become decent rotation players, they are in great shape to continue as contenders.
Further, Christian Braun should be ready to step into a bigger role as a sophomore. And Peyton Watson, Vlatko Cancar, and Zeke Nnaji may also be ready to play bigger roles.
It was nice to get Bruce Brown for cheap last season, but there wasn’t another Bruce Brown available this year. And without getting a slam dunk cheap FA, building through the draft is far more efficient than scrap heap of free agents. Most people did not rate the Nuggets draft picks as world beaters, but this summer they certainly did not look like duds. There is no reason why they cannot provide good value for a team desperate for decent minute eaters.
I think Walsh and Keyonte impressed me the most. Keyonte looked more athletic and shot like he did in high school. Looks like he has a little Jamal Murray upside, which is big for him. Walsh shot well and looked confident doing it, which opened up a lot of the passing he flashed at Arkansas. And he's a menace on D.
Other random rookie thoughts:
- Dick looked way ahead of Jett and Hawkins as wing shooters.
- Leonard Miller looked great given his age/experience. Solidified him as top 20 may top 15 for me.
- Podz passing was really high level
- Hodge and Castleton both look good for LAL, could get minutes this year and were great UDFAs. Which is funny cuz JHS looked *bad*
Cam is going to be really interesting to watch moving forward. I'm significantly higher on him but he's such a mixed bag.
I know the injuries were a red flag for teams, but it also makes me wonder if his limited feel is really limited experience. He was already younger than most prospects, and he had a gnarly knee injury when he was 15 and missed a full season. Then missed a lot of game time w/ the COVID year. Then missed preseason + beginning of the season with 'Nova.
He's got some natural feel (cutting, ballhawking), but ballstops and gets tunnel vision with the ball in his hands. If the game slows down for him w/ more experience (eg 19 ast in 700 min college vs. 12 ast in 186 min SL) and he can make quicker shoot/pass/drive reads, he's got real real upside.