Wolves vs bucks SL

[ALLDAYCHRIS [enjin:19712952]]

WOW!! The Wolves just had an amazing end to the half! Really fun to watch. 3-0 here we come!

[BloopOracle]

McDaniels has everything you want from a low usage high impact 3 and D player. Really refreshing to watch!

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Jaylen Nowell sucks. Confirmed.

[Coolbreeze44]

McDaniels has everything you want from a low usage high impact 3 and D player. Really refreshing to watch!

I hope he doesn't want to stay low usage.

[KG4Ever]

I like what I have seen of McDaniels in Summer League Play so far, except for his loose handle, though I think this is a good opportunity for him to work on his ball handling. That said, success in summer league is not necessarily very predictive. I have recent memories of Kris Dunn and Tyus Jones killing it in SL play. I put much more stock in preseason games when the level of competition is much greater, so hopefully McDaniels can show out this well then.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

Just watched it....

- The great Gus Johnson called the game. That's a pretty big gun to be calling a summer league game!

- Once again, defense keyed the win. The coaches have that whole team playing hard on defense. It's the exact sort of thing you want to see when you think about what our roster needs. Hopefully the guys from this group that come to camp carry that attitude with them.

- Nothing too new with McDaniels. Yes, he's trying to be a bit more aggressive, but his handle needs a lot of work. He's not even close to where he'd need to be someday to be a #2 kind of guy. But at least he's trying. Other than his handle, he looks like a pretty complete player against this level of competition.

- Nowell...the guy is truly incapable of getting hot. Yes, he had a decent all around game, but he missed multiple clean looks for 3 that a 3rd year guy who is supposed to be known as a shooter should be making. He could have easily scored 30+ points with all the clean looks he had from 3.

- Knight made a few impressive plays putting the ball on the deck. He actually has a better handle than McDaniels. His problem is he keeps taking (and missing) 3's. He also gets a bit handsy at times defensively.

- Wright and Miller both continued to do outstanding work pressuring the ball. Wright even made a 3!

- Giannis was in the house and the cameras/guys "in the truck" obsessively focused on him simply sitting in the stands whenever there was a break in the action and they cut away. It was a bit much....

- They interviewed Rosas who between platitudes did mention that the summer league squad is out there to play hard and play defense, which is the culture they need to surround KAT, DLO, and Ant with.

- Miller probably had the dunk of the tournament on a breakaway.

Go Wolves!

[SameOldNudityDrew]

McDaniels has everything you want from a low usage high impact 3 and D player. Really refreshing to watch!

I hope he doesn't want to stay low usage.

I hope he wants to get better, regardless of his usage rate.

If it turns out he's capable of initiating scoring, including off the dribble, great. I'm glad he's trying that this summer. It does still look like he has a ways to go in that regard, particularly with the handle, but I do like the idea of him taking more shots off the catch or having some handoff-into-jumpshot type plays called for him. As long as they are efficient shots, I'm all for increasing his offensive role.

If it doesn't work out with him doing much initiating off the dribble, he really is well cut-out to be a 3 and D guy who can also use his length a bit to get off some shots in the midrange off catch-and-shoots or set plays and he can finish at the rim, and that guy would be a great fit with what we already have in the starting lineup.

At the end of the day, the most important thing for us to improve as a team is our defense and 3 point shooting, particularly defense. If Jaden ends up as a Covington or Thybulle type of guy with above average 3 point shooting, that would be great. Personally, I'd like to see him gain some more muscle and get stronger so he could better guard guys like Kawhi, Luka, and Zion. That's our biggest need in terms of what an individual player can bring right now, to my mind.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

McDaniels has everything you want from a low usage high impact 3 and D player. Really refreshing to watch!

I hope he doesn't want to stay low usage.

I hope he wants to get better, regardless of his usage rate.

If it turns out he's capable of initiating scoring, including off the dribble, great. I'm glad he's trying that this summer. It does still look like he has a ways to go in that regard, particularly with the handle, but I do like the idea of him taking more shots off the catch or having some handoff-into-jumpshot type plays called for him. As long as they are efficient shots, I'm all for increasing his offensive role.

If it doesn't work out with him doing much initiating off the dribble, he really is well cut-out to be a 3 and D guy who can also use his length a bit to get off some shots in the midrange off catch-and-shoots or set plays and he can finish at the rim, and that guy would be a great fit with what we already have in the starting lineup.

At the end of the day, the most important thing for us to improve as a team is our defense and 3 point shooting, particularly defense. If Jaden ends up as a Covington or Thybulle type of guy with above average 3 point shooting, that would be great. Personally, I'd like to see him gain some more muscle and get stronger so he could better guard guys like Kawhi, Luka, and Zion. That's our biggest need in terms of what an individual player can bring right now, to my mind.

Yes, I have always viewed an elite 3 & D player as the second most important piece to have on a winning team after the high usage scorer/playmaker type. McDaniels could absolutely become that player for us.

In terms of evolving into a bigger offensive threat, one only needs to look at the early years for guys like Jimmy Butler, Kawhi Leonard, and Giannis to see that what we now consider to be elite, #1 type option guys started their careers as low usage role players. It wasn't until year 4 that Butler and Kawhi edged their way into a top 2 or 3 option on their team.

That's not to say that McDaniels will ever reach those players' heights, but it is not unusual at all for someone like him to start his career filling a lower usage role and then taking multiple seasons to grow into something bigger. We'll see if that ever happens with him. For now, I'd be absolutely thrilled for him to become our Robert Covington or Mikal Bridges.

[FNG]

I haven't seen any SL games, but Dane Moore tweeted Jaden was the best player in summer league. Take SL for what it is, but you can't ignore a comment like that with guys like Cunningham in the mix. Still, I'm not hopeful or even in favor of Jaden taking a big step forward offensively. I'm happy if he continues to play tough defense on the opponent's best player, and scores when he has an open shot. We don't need an alpha offensive player when we already have DLO, KAT, Ant and Beasley.

[Coolbreeze44]

I haven't seen any SL games, but Dane Moore tweeted Jaden was the best player in summer league. Take SL for what it is, but you can't ignore a comment like that with guys like Cunningham in the mix. Still, I'm not hopeful or even in favor of Jaden taking a big step forward offensively. I'm happy if he continues to play tough defense on the opponent's best player, and scores when he has an open shot. We don't need an alpha offensive player when we already have DLO, KAT, Ant and Beasley.

But we need good players, needle movers. DLO and Beasley are not top 75 players in the league. We can only hope Ant becomes a top 10 guy, but we need someone else to crack the top 40 along with KAT.