Summer League Wrapup

I hope Walker is ahead of him by opening night—he, unlike Giddens, has the ability to play without the ball.

Fazekas sucks ass… so no.

I liked what I saw from him in the last couple of games… him attacking the paint. I think it will be enough to keep him around, we’ll have to see what opportunities Ainge finds out there with FA’s. What I like about Pruitt is that he can guard SG, so he can play with House no problem…. it’s hard to find PGs that can do that. Pruitt still isn’t a good PG, but if he attacks the basket, protects the ball, shoots the ball well he should be fine because he can play a bit of defense.

If you were simply looking for Pruitt to show you some playmaking ability, you would be dissapointed. I didn’t expect him to do that because I know he’s not really a good PG. But I like how he was aggressive the last couple of games, attacking the paint and finishing well. I think that’s something we can work with. But we’ll see what other options are out there.

Pruitt’s playmaking ability, while not at a Rondo level, clearly outshines anyone else we have on the 2nd team. I thought Pruitt showed good PG awareness during several pick-and-pop plays with Fazekas. Paired with the infinitely more talented Wallace, he could do some good playmaking on the 2nd unit.

Giddens hardly made any jumpers all week. Worse, he played with the ball EVERYTIME he got a pass. He never simply took a standstill jumper (when, say, Pruitt got him an open look). He’d either jab step 20 times, or dribble between his legs 5 times before hoisting a contested jumper. If he had simply taken the shots that showed, he would have shot a higher percentage.

Walker has progressed, at least if you consider learning to play one’s role as progression. Unlike Giddens, who needs to dominate the ball to be successful, Walker showed that he could get to the rim w/a dribble or two, score in the post, and run the wing for transition buckets. Walker doesn’t need the ball to be successful—he relies on ball movement and good point guard play and therefore fits more into the team concept and will be able to make an easier transition to an actual NBA rotation.

Karl was a chucker plain and simple and a complete disaster at point guard, where he was forced to play after Hudson got hurt. Personally, I would have used Giddens as the emergency point—as mentioned above, he needs to dominate the ball to be successful and as such playing him at point might be an idea going forward. Giddens has also show a decent ability to drive and dish, and that puts him way ahead of Karl…

Caveat: we can’t put much, if any, weight into this last week. It was only summer league. It doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme. I would have loved to see Pruitt/Giddens/Walker dominate this week, but domination isn’t indicative necessarily of NBA-success. As such, I think almost all pronouncements in this thread should be taken with a grain of salt.

I wholeheartedly agree, no one on that summer league team is going to help us this season. I would almost think we’d get more from Robert Slow, I’m mean Swift, at least he’s 7 Ft tall and can guard the basket.

The only value I see from Gabe is as an expiring contract.

I see Walker, who I really like, Giddens and Hudson rotating to Maine in the D League. Heck, I could even see Danny trying to find a place for Hudson overseas and bring him back next year.

Same here. A disappointing summer league.

He’s bad defender. His only real asset is that he can shoot the 3 a bit. I wouldn’t put too much stock on a big man shooting a high percentage in Summer League though. More interesting than Fazekas was Rogers.

He’s a very fine shooter from range and has all the junk shots—floaters, runners, finger rolls, etc., which makes him a very capable scorer. He also have surprisingly rebounding prowess and decent anticipation.

Sadly, he’s a terrible defender and probably one of the more un-athletic players you’ll ever see in your lifetime.

Although Walker didn’t show much, I wouldn’t be so down on him at the moment solely because he was suffering from some back injury.

Giddens certainly has to improve his free-throws, that’s just about the only real thing that bothers me from him. I can leave with his shooting though. As I’ve mentioned before, I think he should focus on draining those corner 3s like Bowen.

Hudson is someone who is easy to root for.