2k25 Summer League Notes
Thoughts and takeaways from the first few days of Las Vegas Summer League
2k25 Vegas Summer League
General takeaways:
It’s easy to take for granted how hard these guys work. They play for 5mins and are gassed. It’s a demanding brand/style of play, even if it’s imprecise .
July 13, Jazz vs Mavs in the Pavilion
First half musings:
Jazz:
Man, even without George and Kessler, this team is loaded.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be a Flip fan, but he’s good. You can just tell. And a really solid athlete. Had his head at the rim on a pre-game alley.
Kenny lofton is f*%$ing UNIT. Which I already knew, but to see him in the Pavilion is something.
Easily my nerdiest and perhaps funniest observation is that I love that Jason Preston gets the ball over half with limited dribbling. In fact, he does a lot of stuff without it
Sensabaugh showed some ok feel. He's..husky. I don't know enough about him to know whether this is his typical "body", but it stood out
Cody Williams produced a nice game in the end, but something is funky about his off the dribble shot. It's like he's deliberate in lining up with the rim. Not even sure that's a bad thing, but would need to see more for myself to say for sure how i feel
Mavs:
Jared Dudley has great coach energy lol. He’s loud, assertive, active, engaged. It’s really fun.
Dunno much about Brandon Williams, but he’s having a quarter. Fearless attacking the rim, quick, and deceptive bounce. Had a put back Dinka’s part of his 9pt quarter so far.
No idea if Omax will make shots, but I like the stroke. FT looks clean too.
This Gortman can shoot a bit. Again, no idea if he can do anything out, but the Jazz adjusted to him quick enough that they decided he was a threat.
July 13, Raps vs Thunder in the Pavilion (Arrived late first quarter):
Raptors:
ok, so this isn't a popular opinion on Twitter right now, but I found myself underwhelmed with Gradey Dyck's play yesterday (at least overall). My lady was trying to figure out why "I hate him" lol
I do not hate Gradey at all. At first, I honestly wondered if he was feeling ok.
He’s a lot bigger and longer in person. He’s huge by summer league standards. But he didn't seem to be super active, wasn't running the court super hard.
Like he looked exhausted. "Are they trying to increase his minutes maybe?" was my end of half reflection.
Again a nerd/niche thing, but my case in point was late in 2nd Q, He had good positioning in a weak side box out. Saw the guy coming from his corner, had position,got into a stance and leaned into him, had at least 3 inches on the guy... and just got pushed underneath the hoop and the ball goes right over his head. Which is really weird, cause he had a solid rebounding game overall.
Again, maybe a fatigue thing, maybe he enjoyed Vegas last night, and if he did, I don't care. I want little to do with judging these guys off the court, I just want to judge what I see, and I was surprised he lost that situation so easily.
His hands haven’t come above his knees when he’s defending. Mahlalea was right in front of him, "HANDS GRADEY" and nothing, Flagler rose up and hit one in his face seconds later.
He really looked frustrated in the 3rd quarter. He was the low man on defense and had guys in both corners. He saw the long rotation he was going to have to make, hesitated, then was late and even yelled like a high school close out. At least his hands were up.
But then the guy makes the shot and he hangs his head. His body language in general up to this point in the game just wasn’t positive. It’s very odd. He missed all of his 3’s short, so maybe that was part of it. He was checking his shooting hand often after he had a run in with a defender or two. He ran middle on a fast break and got hacked/stripped as the ball arrived. So maybe that was bothering him.
Dycks body language is better in the second half. Still real tired looking.
Maybe I'm being too harsh on him, jamal shead just had his own pretty poor sequence, not fighting over a screen, compromising the defense, and then leaving chomche kinda out to dry inbounding.
I’ll give gradey this, he’s rebounded the ball quite well, outside of the one box out situation, and he’s played a spirited 4th
Watching Ja’Kobe was interesting.
I like his shot mechanics. Clean up and through.
He seemed to handle the ball a lot. Especially in lineups without Shead or Carton, but even when Shead was on the court, Ja’Kobe was the baseline imbounder. Things like that.
General Raptors thoughts:
I can see the appeal with Shead for sure, but I sort of got the impression like he was “pressing” more on defense. Like he was putting pressure on himself as if he should be doing more. He had one pretty bad lapse, but could be anything from miscommunication to fatigue. He pointed to himself after making eye contact with the bench so it leads me to believe that it was more him.
He attacked the paint fairly well, but was looking to distribute more than anything.
Chomche is comically long. Like “tie his shoes standing up” type length. But it’s odd, he clearly doesn’t know what to do with it yet, because for all that length, he really didn’t affect shots in his area all that much. He rebounded fairly well, but was very deferential on offense. Which I guess is to be expected.
Thunder:
Dunno who Adam Flagler is, but he hit three 3’s in the second quarter. He’s small, but gets his shot off around Dyck, Agbaji, and Shead well.
(Flager makes his 5th 3, bringing him to 20pts) Goodness, Flagler is balling out.
Dillon Jones clearly believes this is his show. He was aggressive in shot selection and didn’t move the ball much without looking to get a paint touch himself first.
Not saying this is a negative necessarily, just an observation.
Ajay Mitchell is one that I actually just don’t have thoughts on. Ended up getting so caught up in all the Raptors guys that I didn’t “see” him enough.
July 13, 76ers vs Pistons in T&M (Arrived late 3rd quarter):
Pistons:
Umm can Bobi Klintman dribble? That seems bad.
I know Bryce said he was impressed with his passing and movement, which is positive for sure, but man he did not look real tight or comfortable on the bounce. Especially around smaller or more aggressive defenders.
I can see the appeal with Ron Holland. He attacks the basket hard and had a couple of nice touch finishes that I saw on TV early in the game, but in this quarter he had a couple really rough stretches.
His jumper looks ok mechanically, like not totally broken off the catch
But he forced multiple drives to the rim, like 3 possessions in a row just put his head down and ignored the world. All 3 got ripped or swallowed up. Not great!
In the classic “I don't know who this guy is, but he can play a little bit!” I present to you, one Aaron Estrada.
I dunno who this big white kid, Jayce Johnson is, but he’s puttin in work right now.
Soft touch, decent positioning. Have no idea if he can really move or “play”, but he killed the Sixers in the 2nd half.
76ers:
Of course my first observation of Sixers is one of my classic niche ones: It’s objectively hilarious to me how many times the sixers have changed defenses in a summer league quarter. Like we are talking about dangerous levels of drinking game frequency.
I admire Ricky Council's ability to get into the paint, but literally just had the thought, “Oh so like when Ricky Council is on the court, no one else really gets the ball.”
Which is both true, and a little unfair, as he created multiple free throw situations and shots at the rim throughout the second half, but the degree of difficulty was high and he did not move the ball well.
McCain struggled in the box score, but more unfortunately he was just kinda invisible out there. Doesn’t doom him forever, just happened to feel true.
Dont know what it is about Downtin Jr, but he caught my eye. Like the way he moves.
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