Summer League Thread

[Mainstreet]

My thing with Fox's outside shot, and it goes to Lonzo's first 2 games too, is his misses on long shots. Good shooters miss short or long not right or left, Fox routinely misses left or right, even in college with a short 3 many of his misses were like that. Lonzo in the 2 SL games was often missing right or left which if it persists is a concern, at UCLA that wasn't the case most of his misses were long or short, he was generally on line.

I do really like Fox and his mechanics on his shot look fine, I just think he has his hand on the ball too much it doesn't bother him on the floater, but on longer shots he has too much palm on it and his off hand the guide hand is too involved in the shot.

He has a chance to be a terrific defender and his speed in transition is terrific.

It will be interesting to follow the top PGs in the draft and see how it all plays out. Dennis Smith Jr. is making a case for himself as well.

I'm comfortable Fox's shooting will be fine even he does not turn into a good 3 point shooter. DeMar DeRozan has done pretty well for himself.

 

[Mainstreet]

The good news is it's not a high ankle sprain. 2 weeks and a lateral sprain is GREAT news for Fultz.

I bet the 76ers front office and fans breathed a sign of relief.

 

[Folster]

Offensively Tatum and Booker would have been quite the duo. It'll be interesting to compare the careers of Tatum and Jackson over the years.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Offensively Tatum and Booker would have been quite the duo. It'll be interesting to compare the careers of Tatum and Jackson over the years.

I reckon they will be very difficult to compare all in all. They will have very different impacts on their respective teams. Jackson as more of a defensive guy and Tatum as more of a offensive guy. Scoring points is always sexy so a lot of people will probably lean towards Tatum because of that, but it won't mean his impact is bigger.

 

[Raze]

I reckon they will be very difficult to compare all in all. They will have very different impacts on their respective teams. Jackson as more of a defensive guy and Tatum as more of a offensive guy. Scoring points is always sexy so a lot of people will probably lean towards Tatum because of that, but it won't mean his impact is bigger.

Exactly. It still amazes me how people tend to forget that there are 2 sides to the game. Tatum, Fultz, and Ball only play 1 side. Fox and Jackson play both. Most people only remember that Kobe and MJ were amazing offensive players that filled the stat sheet. They completely leave out that they were the best defenders on the floor almost every game. That's why they won championships. That's why they're legends.

The problem is that there aren't stats for average fans to look at to help you determine who is a good defender or not. There needs to be stats for:

Stopping a player from driving the lane and forcing them to dish off (brick wall),
Getting a hand up just enough to alter a shot (Altered shot),
Hustling back defensively to impede a lay up attempt (Impede),
Causing a player to pick up the dribble because of defensive pressure which stymies the O (Stymies),
Forcing a player into a bad shot (Force).

That way Josh Jackson might end a game with: 7 BW's, 9 AS's, 3 I's, 2 St's, and 5 F's. Maybe then people might give more love to defensive players. The NFL did it. I don't see why the NBA couldn't.

 

[CardsSunsDbacks]

Exactly. It still amazes me how people tend to forget that there are 2 sides to the game. Tatum, Fultz, and Ball only play 1 side. Fox and Jackson play both. Most people only remember that Kobe and MJ were amazing offensive players that filled the stat sheet. They completely leave out that they were the best defenders on the floor almost every game. That's why they won championships. That's why they're legends.

The problem is that there aren't stats for average fans to look at to help you determine who is a good defender or not. There needs to be stats for:

Stopping a player from driving the lane and forcing them to dish off (brick wall),
Getting a hand up just enough to alter a shot (Altered shot),
Hustling back defensively to impede a lay up attempt (Impede),
Causing a player to pick up the dribble because of defensive pressure which stymies the O (Stymies),
Forcing a player into a bad shot (Force).

That way Josh Jackson might end a game with: 7 BW's, 9 AS's, 3 I's, 2 St's, and 5 F's. Maybe then people might give more love to defensive players. The NFL did it. I don't see why the NBA couldn't.

Obviously the more stat savvy individuals will just pull BB reference and be able to tell how good a player was on defense (for the most part), but yeah outside of steals, rebounds and blocks there isn't anything on the stat sheet that actually explains how good someone was on defense. It's very easy to look at a stat sheet and tell exactly how impactful someone was on offense.

 

[Errntknght]

You can read something about defense from the tracking data - defense at the rim. For Cs and PFs what you generally want to see is a high number of attempts against and you also want a low success rate (of course). Together they tell you how good of rim protector someone is, but suppose you know the guy is not a rim protector, then you want to see few close in shots attempted against him. Wings and guards are almost never rim protectors so naturally you want to see few attempts against - a low success rate is always good - but if the defender gets beaten so bad he's not even guarding the guy at the rim, that isn't reflected in the stat. It could be given because the tracking data contains the necessary information. I'd like to a separate stat for that because it is an important bit of information not available from normal D at the rim data.

I'm not sure that, say, 3 point defense is readily available from the tracking data but I think it is possible - the problem being the defender is frequently not within five feet. It would require a determination of who is supposed to be guarding the shooter to do a good job. Overall team defense against threes is readily available in the box score, and team stats.

In my own stats display program I incorporate the defense at the rim stats so I can see the team average stats for that data - thats one reason for my claim that the teams D was better than it's offense, because our team D at the rim was better than average in both attempts and success rate. Hopefully, the display program online will eventually have such team stats as its rather trivial. My program can also show summary stats by position thusly: PG; 2.1 & .582 SG: 2.5 & .567 SF: 3.5 & .541 PF: 6.5 & .521 C 9.0 & .511 . The number of attempts is per 36 minutes of playing time. Obvioiusly, the tracking data normal display could easily summarize the data that way but they didn't bother with it.

 

[Folster]

I didn't know where to post this, but Scott Bordow is taking over the Suns beat for Doug Haller who is going back to ASU/Pac 12. I'm not sure why there has been so much turnover after Coro held it for years.

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[leclerc]

I would have put it in a new thread.

 

[Mainstreet]

I didn't know where to post this, but Scott Bordow is taking over the Suns beat for Doug Haller who is going back to ASU/Pac 12. I'm not sure why there has been so much turnover after Coro held it for years.

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And the acknowledgement from Scott Bordow.

scott bordow‏Verified account@sbordow 8h8 hours ago

Thanks to @DougHaller for the hand-off on the Suns. I'm on vacation until the 17th but will pick up Suns coverage then

The Suns really need someone whose specialty is the Suns at azcentral.

 

[SweetD]

Good game to watch tonight is going to Lakers vs Kings. I am sure they will not put Ball on Fox. Kuzma is playing well for the Lakers, unfortunately he will not get much playing time of the regular squad.

 

[Mathew81]

I didn't know where to post this, but Scott Bordow is taking over the Suns beat for Doug Haller who is going back to ASU/Pac 12. I'm not sure why there has been so much turnover after Coro held it for years.

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I think Haller said when the switch happened that he was only temporarily going to be covering the Suns

 

[Ronin]

K.C. Johnson @KCJHoop

Kris Dunn's summer league is over. Flew home to attend to family situation.

 

[Ronin]

K.C. Johnson @KCJHoop

Paul Zipser is also out for Bulls with ankle sprain.

 

[Russ Smith]

Good game to watch tonight is going to Lakers vs Kings. I am sure they will not put Ball on Fox. Kuzma is playing well for the Lakers, unfortunately he will not get much playing time of the regular squad.

Unfortunately I'm reading Lonzo won't play, groin injury.

FOX apparently posted a face palm on his twitter and then deleted it so he was presumably questioning whether Lonzo was really injured.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

Unfortunately I'm reading Lonzo won't play, groin injury.

FOX apparently posted a face palm on his twitter and then deleted it so he was presumably questioning whether Lonzo was really injured.

Very annoyed by this. Sitting five rows back center court and was excited to see the matchup. Ball supposedly hurt the groin last week. Seems like he is dodging Fox, which makes sense when you consider how bad he has looked. (And to be clear, that is BAD, triple double be damned.)

 

[Russ Smith]

Very annoyed by this. Sitting five rows back center court and was excited to see the matchup. Ball supposedly hurt the groin last week. Seems like he is dodging Fox, which makes sense when you consider how bad he has looked. (And to be clear, that is BAD, triple double be damned.)

He looked bad in the first game, 2nd half, in the 2nd game he was just fine. his 3's were still not falling but you don't get 11 assists and 11 boards by just showing up, he was doing an outstanding job in those areas,

Remember PJ Carlesimo mentioned the injury on the air during Lonzo's debut, said he wasn't 100%.

I don't know if he's hurt or not but my gut says he is and they decided there was no reason to risk further injury for a summer league game.

Edit, FS1 is saying that Luke Walton told reporters after the first game that both Lonzo and Ingram had missed practice time due to injury and really hadn't played that much together and that was part of why they shut Ingram down after the cramp late in game 1.

I certainly get why people might assume Lonzo is just ducking Fox but there is at least apparently evidence that the Lakers had mentioned this injury several days ago

 

[Chaplin]

He looked bad in the first game, 2nd half, in the 2nd game he was just fine. his 3's were still not falling but you don't get 11 assists and 11 boards by just showing up, he was doing an outstanding job in those areas,

Remember PJ Carlesimo mentioned the injury on the air during Lonzo's debut, said he wasn't 100%.

I don't know if he's hurt or not but my gut says he is and they decided there was no reason to risk further injury for a summer league game.

Pardon us for not exactly trusting your gut because as we all know you are a Lonzo Ball homer.

 

[GatorAZ]

Markannen looks like he has no business in the NBA.

 

[ColdPickleNachos]

All I know is every time Lonzo has a bad game, word leaks he was injured. Happened after Arizona, happened after Kentucky. Happening now.

 

[SweetD]

He looked bad in the first game, 2nd half, in the 2nd game he was just fine. his 3's were still not falling but you don't get 11 assists and 11 boards by just showing up, he was doing an outstanding job in those areas,

Remember PJ Carlesimo mentioned the injury on the air during Lonzo's debut, said he wasn't 100%.

I don't know if he's hurt or not but my gut says he is and they decided there was no reason to risk further injury for a summer league game.

Edit, FS1 is saying that Luke Walton told reporters after the first game that both Lonzo and Ingram had missed practice time due to injury and really hadn't played that much together and that was part of why they shut Ingram down after the cramp late in game 1.

I certainly get why people might assume Lonzo is just ducking Fox but there is at least apparently evidence that the Lakers had mentioned this injury several days ago

Um did you watch the game? Sorry some of the "assists" where questionable at best. They gave him credit for a few where the players stopped dribbled then scored. Also with out Kuzma hoisting up a bunch of shots that actually went in he wouldn't have his "triple double"

It is at least good to see Ball bounce back, but in no way did this show he is not going to be a bust.

 

[Errntknght]

Archie Goodwin had a good game for Bkn... 20 min 18 pts on 6/9 FG, 2/3 3pt, 4/6 FT, 8 Ast, 1 TO, 4 reb, 2 blk, 1 stl, +-= +29. Nets beat the Pels 95-66.

side note: the Pelicans have 2 guys on the summer roster named I. Cousins and J. Cousins

 

[Russ Smith]

Pardon us for not exactly trusting your gut because as we all know you are a Lonzo Ball homer.

I'm a huge fan of his I'm just pointing out if they were just ducking Fox they sure went all in even sitting Kuzma tonight.

I guess part of it is just pretty simple, they're going to play each other what 4 or more times a year in the Western Conference, I really doubt the Lakers plan to sit Lonzo all those games to hide him so why do it now?

 

[Russ Smith]

Um did you watch the game? Sorry some of the "assists" where questionable at best. They gave him credit for a few where the players stopped dribbled then scored. Also with out Kuzma hoisting up a bunch of shots that actually went in he wouldn't have his "triple double"

It is at least good to see Ball bounce back, but in no way did this show he is not going to be a bust.

Watched the whole game. By my count he had 6 assists in the first quarter and they only gave him 4. If you noticed the play by play guy Mark whatever said he had 4 assists early in the first quarter, he got 2 more after that and at the end of the quarter they said he had 4. The NBA is pretty liberal with assists, Long time ago but I used to work part time at a company called Interactive Network and we did interactive stats, we did all the Kings games. It was astounding how much they padded the stats. This was 95 so over 20 years ago but I've never been particularly impressed with assist stats in the NBA since then because it was so obvious certain teams padded stats.

I assume the NBA is doing the stats for the summer league, in the NBA it used to be left up to the home scorekeeper don't know if it still is.

 

[Yuma]

I too question the stats. The first game against Sacramento it was a block party by the Suns. So after the game I went to NBA.com to see just how many blocked shots we had, and as a team I believe it was 4 total! I swear Marquis Chriss had that many alone, at least!