Yeah anytime a player doesn't have a contract yet they aren't going to be doing any playing, to prevent an injury which might diminish their value. Like how Varejao didn't play for Brazil in last year's Americas tournament (CONCACAF or something, I forget).
I researched Gustavo Barrera. I read that he is playing for the Uruguay national team which is competing in a FIBA Americas qualifier tournament right now. It looks like he is getting the majority of the minutes at PG right now. Hopefully he can show the Rockets some good things in SL and get an invitation to Training camp. Below are the links to some of his most recent games. Enjoy! (Click on the score to see the stats.)http://www.basquetcaliente.com/sudamericano2008/index.htm
http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/Rockets_Announce_Summer_League-276960-34.html?rss=true Houston Rockets 2008 NBA Summer League Roster No. Name Pos. Ht. Wt. Birthdate College/Country NBA Exp. 0 Aaron Brooks G 6-0 161 1/14/85 Oregon 1 3 Russell Robinson G 6-1 205 1/24/86 Kansas R 5 Donté Greene F 6-9 222 2/21/88 Syracuse R 6 Gustavo Barrera G 6-5 180 4/7/85 Uruguay R 7 Dijon Thompson G/F 6-7 195 2/23/83 UCLA 2 10 Maarty Leunen F 6-9 220 9/3/85 Oregon R 13 Mark Tyndale G 6-5 210 1/4/86 Temple R 15 Joey Dorsey F 6-7 268 12/16/83 Memphis R 19 Mike Harris F 6-6 240 6/15/83 Rice 1 25 Lanny Smith G 6-3 194 10/30/84 Houston R 30 Joseph Jones C/F 6-9 255 3/21/86 Texas A&M R 33 Loren Woods C 7-2 260 6/21/78 Arizona 6 Head Coach Elston Turner (Mississippi) Assistant Coaches Jack Sikma (Illinois Wesleyan) T.R. Dunn (Alabama) R.J. Adelman (Willamette) Rockets 2008 NBA Summer League Schedule: July 14 Phoenix vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 7:30 p.m. CDT) July 16 Cleveland vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 9:30 p.m. CDT) July 18 Houston vs. Denver (Thomas & Mack at 9:30 p.m. CDT) July 19 Washington vs. Houston (COX Pavilion at 7:00 p.m. CDT – NBA TV) July 20 Sacramento vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 7:30 p.m. CDT)
Hey everybody! I'm from Uruguay, Panchi Barrera's country, and I will give you my take about him. He started to play in the first team of Welcome in Montevideo at the age of 17. At that time, Welcome had all the uruguayan best players, so he was a backup PG. However, as a great talent he was, got to play as a backup in the uruguayan national team in some non official tournaments. Not much time later, he got recruited by Joventut in Spain. He played side by side with Rudy Fernandez, becoming the best young tandem in the country. You have several articles that confirm that. It was a little bit later when his passport problems began, and he couldn't play much. He was, nevertheless, invited to play with a B Spanish National team. To make it short, he came back last year, with his confidence shattered, and having lost almost two years of development. So if you are expecting a Rudy Fernandez type of player, forget it. He began playing for Hebraica Maccabi in Uruguay, with not much success. You could see he wasn't comfortable in the court, and didn't have much help, with the exception of an american named Grady Reynolds (who is a beast PF). The team started the season with a 7-7 record. After that, he started dominating. He took more scoring responsibilities, and increased his assist numbers big time. He took the team to the finals, while posting 14ppg and 6.7apg (leading the league by far) and 3rpg. Remember that FIBA assists are far more difficult to get than NBA assists. In the national team, he played as a backup (there are very good and more experienced PGs in Uruguay), in the Panamerican games where Uruguay came in 3rd place. He played in two southamerican tournaments where Uruguay came 2nd in both. In the last one, recently finished, he played as a starter, logging about 30 MPG, with 10.5 PPG, 5.2 APG (2nd best in the tournament) and 3 RPG, shooting 50% FG, 52% 3PT and 80% FT. He is getting his confidence back, although I don't know if he is NBA ready right now. He has the talent, and is coming to his old self, but can't tell you if it's the time for him. About his play: Positives: He is a big (6'4) pass first PG (not SG), with excellent ballhandling skills, and is outstanding at passing. He has a great court vision, and is superb in fast breaks. He is very athletic, very fast and can jump, and is very good finishing near the rim. He also has a nice wingspan that allows him to get his share of steals. He can easily beat his defender with the dribble and is very good at finding the open man in the penetration. He definately makes his teammates better, getting a lot of open looks for them. His defense is ok to good (not great). Negatives: He is streaky with his shot, he doesn't shoot great when a player is on him. Tends to overdribble a little bit, and commits silly turnovers because of that. He gets distracted on D from time to time. He risks on D a lot, so he picks up dumb fouls, and leads to giving up easy points. I think his confidence is not there yet, so it can affect his game. What I think you will see from him: - Great passing and handling - Nice fast breaks - Not a lot of scoring, especially from long range - He could get beat on D because of distractions Well, that's my 2 cents on Panchi, hope it is usefull to you guys. P.S. I apologize for the english mistakes this post can have.
Thanks for the contribution! We will be chatting while we watch the games if you are interested. The link is http://www.clutchfans.net/chat.cfm
Live coverage right now on nba.com! http://broadband.nba.com/cc/playa.p...rlandmagic_060502.asx&video=blank&nbasite=nba
Damn you had me all excited! I thought I was gonna get me some Rockets action... Thanks anyway though!
Thanks everybody, I'm lookin forward to the Rockets summer league to see Panchi in action. I understand it begins next week, is that so? Will it be broadcasted in NBA.com?
Panchi always was in Spain a player followed because of his potential. Caco, do you know how is the level of Uruguay's league compared with LEB league? He was an average/good-starting point guard on LEB league. Do you think he has improved his game?
Panchi has shown a lot of improvement in the last Uruguayan league. He is slowly gaining his confidence back, as he finally assumed the leader role for his team and carried it almost by himself to the finals. In the finals there wasn't nothing he could really do since the other team was very superior. I saw him with a lot of confidence with the national team too. He played over 30 mpg, and was without doubt the playmaker of the team. I don't really have many elements to compare the LEB league with the uruguayan league. I would say that the best players in the Uruguayan league would have no problem in playing for LEB teams. They probably wouldn't shine, but would be very good contributors. So I think the Uruguayan league is a little less competitive than the LEB, but is improving year after year, as can be noticed in the results of the National team (3rd in Panamerican games, and 2nd in the last southamerican tournaments). The Uruguayan national team features Esteban Batista and Nicolás Mazzarino as the best players. They absolutely dominated the uruguayan league when they were here. I mean, there was really no competition for them. Batista was with the Hawks for two seasons buy couldn't play many minutes, and he then was with the Celtics this season, where he was offered to stay in the roster but refused (man, he refused a ring) and is now playing very well in Maccabi Tel Aviv. Mazzarino has been playing in the Italian League for many years now and remains competitive. Barrera is as today the second best uruguayan PG, but is without question the one with the more potential. The one ahead of him is in his prime, and I think Panchi is at least two years of competition to get there I believe Panchi will be in a year from now, the second best player in Uruguay, behind Batista. That's why I say I don't know if he is ready yet.
I don't know if I'm being clear here. I believe Panchi has to go through those couple of years of development he lost in Spain due to passport issues. He plays now in Uruguay, where the level is not close to the ACB, but it is close to the LEB. However, he has to be the leader in the teams he plays, so that helps a lot. If you ask me if he is going to be the player everybody in Spain expected him to be I would say no. But he will be very good, and will be able to play in the ACB or even (in the best case scenario) as a backup in the NBA.
The games will be broadcast streaming on NBA.com. I am not sure if you will be able to access it overseas (though I am guessing that you can). The schedule is listed in the link I posted above, but for convenience sake.. Rockets 2008 NBA Summer League Schedule: July 14 Phoenix vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 7:30 p.m. CDT) July 16 Cleveland vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 9:30 p.m. CDT) July 18 Houston vs. Denver (Thomas & Mack at 9:30 p.m. CDT) July 19 Washington vs. Houston (COX Pavilion at 7:00 p.m. CDT – NBA TV) July 20 Sacramento vs. Houston (Thomas & Mack at 7:30 p.m. CDT)
I can watch Orlando summer league so I will be able to watch this one too. I'm not overseas by the way, I'm just beetween Brazil and Argentina, but I don't expect you to know Uruguay's location, we are so tiny LOL!!! I haven't a very good bandwith tough, and the time zone is different too, so I'll see what I can do. Thanks man.
LOL I didn't mean you in particular.. I know we have posters from all over the world who chat here so I meant "overseas" as a general "not in the continental US". But maybe I should have said.. over"gulf" in your case! Hopefully we will see you in chat. Summer league can be very boring to watch on your own.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=Orlando-Day3-080709 Chris Douglas-Roberts has a chip on his shoulder and plans to dominate the summer league. Mario Chalmers of Kansas has the same mentality I hope we didn't make a mistake but it is summer league though we all remember John Lucas and how hott Aaron Brooks was last year. Saying that i think Aaron is about to have a breakout year.
Live coverage of the Orlando Pro Summer League at 3 ET on nba.com! http://www.nba.com/magic/news/summerleague.html Thursday, July 10, 2008 1st Game 3:00 Chicago New Jersey 2nd Game * Indiana Orlando 3rd Game ** Miami Oklahoma City Friday, July 11, 2008 1st Game 11:00AM New Jersey Indiana 2nd Game * Oklahoma City Chicago 3rd Game ** Orlando Miami * (20 minutes following completion of Game 1) ** (20 minutes following completion of Game 2) All games on Magic Practice Court at the RDV Sportsplex and closed to the public. Games feature four, 10-minute quarters.
