Minnesota Sports Forum

alexftbl8181 wrote:Wes Johnsons summer league stats 2012

30 mpg
48% FG
45% 3 point
93% FT
20.5 PPG

just to keep in mind

Okay... And you see what numbers KCP is putting up this Summer League? Doesn't change how people feel about their potential. LaVine can post lesser stats than Johnson in Summer League and I think most would still agree Zach's ceiling is much higher than Johnson's ever was. That was my point.

Your point is to not take SL too seriously, which is true. Nothing wrong with being excited about a player with the tools to lift this franchise to a higher level in the future, though.

alexftbl8181 wrote:well looks like this time of year where people get overly excited about summer league.

Note: This isn't even summer league. It was a scrimmage. Nothing that happened means absoultly nothing. zip, zero nada. Even if Bazz scored a 100 or Lavine did a 1080 dunk.

Alex, I appreciate your point about not getting overly excited about summer league. I know I'm guilty of that sometimes, and success in SL certainly doesn't guarantee success in the league. But most of us are seasoned basketball watchers, and SL provides us with our first eye test for some of these guys against NBA-like competition. It means much more than the various workout videos we have been looking at. I put a lot of stock in Lip's first hand report about LaVine, because I am a skeptic having watched him flounder much of his one year in college. Lip's report makes me wonder if Alford stifled him too much in college, and if he is the kind of guy who will flourish under Flip. I'm beginning to get excited about Zach long-term. Personally I think we will see him in the D-League much of this year to hone his developing talents, but it's tough not to get excited when Lip says he may turn out to be the best player in this historically great draft.

I'll go out on a limb here.. I highly, highly doubt LaVine sees any time in the D-League. That takes him away from Flip, who is probably going to handle him with extreme care to max his potential. Plus, I'm beginning to think there's a chance LaVine gets significant and consistent minutes this year.

alexftbl8181 wrote:well looks like this time of year where people get overly excited about summer league.

Note: This isn't even summer league. It was a scrimmage. Nothing that happened means absoultly nothing. zip, zero nada. Even if Bazz scored a 100 or Lavine did a 1080 dunk.

Is there a more appropriate time to get excited about summer league?

I've watched all the Wolves draft picks in SL the last 5 years or so and let me be honest none of them were that impressive to me no matter what shooting percentages the put up. That includes Love who showed promise but was fat and out of shape.

A scrimmage is fun to go see and yeah you can't put too much stock in what you see but I'll say that all the strong impressions (good and bad) I got from watching the Nebraska scrimmage last year were pretty much spot on. Pitchford was a 6'11" dude with shotblocking ability that can really shoot the 3, Webster looked sort of awful but you could see why he was highly thought of, Leslie Smith could play on the offensive end and Miles might be one of the most engaging coaches in college basketball.

My point is that I am more interested in seeing what guys can do well and show some more skill than just hitting a high percentage of shots like Flynn and Wes did. You can take away something from these games. I'm not putting anyone in the HOF or anything but this scrimmage or summer league is still a worthwhile way to evealuate guys especially since its what we have right now before they play real games. We all know guys can be great for 20-30 real games then fizzle out. Remember that year when the Kings had Rookies Tyreke and Casspi and that looked like an amazing draft. Casspi is a bench player and Tyreke is an underachieving bigtime talent and neither guy is with the team.

I think its fun that fans are actually excited based on that turnout about some young talent. I know I am.

In regards to summer league, players are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If a player sucked in summer league it becomes "oh he can't even dominate a summer league game." Or if he did dominate it becomes "big deal, it's just summer league."

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:In regards to summer league, players are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If a player sucked in summer league it becomes "oh he can't even dominate a summer league game." Or if he did dominate it becomes "big deal, it's just summer league."

Bingo! :thumb:

Camden wrote:

Phenom's_Revenge wrote:In regards to summer league, players are damned if they do and damned if they don't. If a player sucked in summer league it becomes "oh he can't even dominate a summer league game." Or if he did dominate it becomes "big deal, it's just summer league."

Bingo! :thumb:

Yeah that sums it up. Making sweeping conclusions about a player based on summer league stats is ill-advised. But I think it's appropriate to begin to form judgments about elements of a player's game. For instance, it's appropriate to evaluate a player's motor in scrimmages and SL...that seems valid to me. And failure in SL at least creates a watch situation for coaches and fans, especially if it is a trend that continues from college. Marcus Smart is an example. He is an exciting player, but he struggled with his shooting in college and pre-draft workouts, and he has gotten worse in his first three SL games. We Wolves fans know the frustration of a poor shooting PG, and I'm sure Celtics' coaches and fans are watching this element of his game closely.

It means nothing because Lavine's going to look a hell of a lot different going against NBA level players who are actually trying to win games and coaching plotting schemes against him

continuing on he hasn't played road games, played a NBA schedule, played with any injuries. Even after that being able to learn to be a starter, handle NBA level crunch time. Lavine could very well be very good, but he's so far away right now that's it's not fair to expect anything significant from him this year