https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/in...3-best-rookies-free-agents-veterans-las-vegas Best rookies: 1. Keyonte George, Utah Jazz 2. Cam Whitmore, Houston Rockets 3. Hunter Tyson, Denver Nuggets George looked different playing for the Jazz, who also hosted the Salt Lake City summer league before making the short trip to Vegas. He told Utah reporters that he was down to 190 pounds, his high school weight, after playing his lone season at Baylor around 215 pounds. The results were noticeable in his explosiveness. George was able to get to the hoop to set up teammates, averaging 6.3 assists per game and posting an assist-to-turnover ratio near 3. George also hit 44% of his 3-pointers en route to 21.7 points per game, the most among 2023 draft picks. That accuracy might be hard to sustain for George, who hit 34% from the shorter college line, but he showed why he was projected as a top-10 pick entering college. The same was true of Whitmore, who was widely expected to go in the top 10 before sliding to 20th on draft night. It's impossible to evaluate long-term concerns about Whitmore's knees in this setting, but his game looked top five as he led the Rockets to the title game and was named NBA 2K24 Summer League MVP. Whitmore averaged 19.3 PPG by relentlessly attacking the basket, while his high steal rate (2.5 per game) also carried over. As compared to those one-and-dones, Tyson's story is totally different. He averaged just 1.8 PPG as a freshman at Clemson before developing into a nightly double-double threat as a fifth-year senior. Drafted by the Nuggets in the second round, Tyson showed potential as a versatile stretch big, knocking down 3.6 3s per game at a 50% clip en route to 20.8 PPG. Most promising rookies: 1. Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs 2. Scoot Henderson, Portland Trail Blazers 3. Amen Thompson, Houston Rockets As ESPN's Tim Bontemps has noted, Wembanyama's rough debut (nine points on 2-of-13 shooting) might have been the best possible thing for him in the long term. The hype about Wembanyama's ability to dominate the NBA as a teenager was an enormous amount of pressure. There will be nights like that when his shot doesn't fall during the regular season, although balanced by efforts like his second game in which Wembanyama had 27 points and 12 rebounds to go along with strong rim protection. Playing just 21 minutes before a shoulder injury ended his summer, Henderson looked very much like the prospect who was second only to Wembanyama going into last season. He controlled the action, putting up 15 points and six assists in that brief span. Ideally, Henderson would get all the way to the rim more frequently than he did, with just three of his 13 shot attempts coming within five feet. Better floor spacing with the Blazers' full roster around him should help in that regard. Going against Henderson, Thompson had 16 points and five assists in 28 minutes before suffering his own injury (an ankle sprain). By contrast to Henderson, Thompson lived in the paint, taking 11 of his 13 shots there. That's more necessary for Thompson, who did hit a 3-pointer but is not known for his outside shooting. I was also impressed with Thompson's defensive activity, which resulted in four blocks and three steals. Slowest-starting rookie Kobe Bufkin, Atlanta Hawks … Best veterans 1. Jabari Smith Jr., Houston Rockets 2. Chet Holmgren, Oklahoma City Thunder 3. Orlando Robinson, Miami Heat As Henderson and Thompson went at it in the first half of the Rockets' Vegas opener, Smith was largely a bystander, putting up four points on 1-of-6 shooting. From there, Smith took control, scoring 67 points in 49 minutes over the next game and a half before being shut down. More exciting than Smith's production was how it came, particularly against the Detroit Pistons when he had six assists to go with his 38 points -- as many as the No. 3 pick in 2022 had in any game as a rookie. Smith was creating offense off the dribble, something we saw at Auburn but almost never as an NBA rookie. It's worth remembering that Smith didn't turn 20 until May, making him four months younger than rookie teammate Thompson. Holmgren, picked one spot ahead of Smith, is a veteran only in terms of summer league after missing his first NBA campaign because of injury. I already broke down what we saw from Holmgren in his return to the court. There were no shortage of candidates for the last spot in these rankings. Jaden Springer averaged 22.3 PPG in three appearances for the Philadelphia 76ers, Smith's teammate Tari Eason was active at both ends and Dyson Daniels filled up the box score. I went with Robinson, a candidate to be Miami's next undrafted success story. Promoted from a two-way contract, Robinson averaged 25.8 PPG and 9.3 RPG and will battle Thomas Bryant for backup frontcourt minutes this season. Best free agent Michael Devoe, Portland Trail Blazers … Best game: Houston-Portland What was supposed to be the undercard for Wembanyama's debut against No. 2 pick Brandon Miller proved the most entertaining game of the night by far. Although Henderson and Thompson were both off the court for the finish, Smith delivered a winning 3-pointer from a step in front of the summer league logo on a play that started with 0.6 seconds on the clock.
https://theathletic.com/4698289/2023/07/18/nba-summer-league-standouts-2023-hollinger/ …Nonetheless, we had some genuinely good stuff to talk about from the summer league, developments I think have legs beyond July. I was in Las Vegas for nine days(!) and saw far too much bad basketball, but in between, there was just enough quality to keep me sated. Here’s the top of the list. Jabari Smith Jr. erupts Smith struggled through much of his 2022-23 season, having difficulty as a teenage rookie dealing with the superior strength of NBA big men and being saddled with guards who were only mildly interesting in passing. His summer league was a strong indication that his sophomore campaign might go very differently. Smith only played two games before the Rockets shut him down, but he was the best player I saw in Vegas. Smith scored 71 points in his 64 summer minutes, supplementing his pick-and-pop game with a variety of off-the-dribble attacks where he was able to play through contact and finish at the cup, something that did not come easily for him last season. The proof: a whopping 27 free-throw attempts in his two games, nearly all of them as he gained a step on defenders going to the rack. This wasn’t some shooting fluke either; Smith’s 3-point game was actually the least remarkable part of his summer (6-of-18). His 35.9 PER was the best of all Vegas summer leaguers (although Murray topped it in the California Classic) and was even more notable given how he struggled in his rookie season in Houston. One hopes with a real point guard and better surrounding talent, it can carry over into a breakout sophomore season. … The Thompson twins emerge The biggest mystery of summer league was how twin rookies Amen and Ausar Thompson — the fourth and fifth picks in the draft, respectively — would look after two years of playing at Overtime Elite. The early returns suggest their athleticism and defensive chops will allay any concerns about their iffy shooting. Amen Thompson got a chance to shine for just one game with Houston before an ankle sprain sidelined him, but he stuffed the stat sheet with 16 points, five assists, four blocks, four rebounds and three steals while showing obvious potential as a lockdown perimeter defender. There were some negatives if you looked hard enough — some awkward finishes trying to get back to his left hand, some two-footed take-offs that got him in trouble — and I don’t think 1-of-1 from 3 is a big enough sample size to silence the doubters. But overall, it was an impressive performance that cemented the idea picking him fourth was the right move. Ausar Thompson got off to a slower start for a Detroit team that seemed intent on playing keep-away from him in the first two games, but once he got started, he was really good, with 35 points and 23 rebounds over the final two games. Like his brother, he showed plus defensive skills, with nine steals and seven blocks in his four games, and popped as an athlete. That was most notable in perhaps the two best dunks of summer league: a reverse transition dunk where he seemed to hover in midair while waiting for the pass to arrive and a standstill tip dunk against San Antonio where he got his head rim-high. Ausar Thompson’s shooting remains a question, and the fit is a little clunky with the other Pistons’ projected starters, as we saw in the summer league opener when the Pistons had near-zero spacing, so it’s going to be interesting to see where Detroit can best slot in his skill set. But both Thompsons looks like keepers with exciting ceilings.
Worth mentioning that Sam has generally been pretty high on the same players Houston has been - he was a fan of Garuba, Sengun, Eason, and Cam. Sometimes I wonder if some of the decision makers in Houston listen to him.
I've been thinking about being largely happy with Stone's drafting decisions, but also feeling a bit underwhelmed by them since they tend to hew so close to consensus, and my thought has been "Yeah, Rafael, I listen to Vecenie's podcast too..."
