Summer League Game 2: More Analysis

While we wait for Game 3 on Friday, I figured I would follow Matt’s thoughts on Game 2 with thoughts of my own. You guys know how this works:

Wayne Ellington: Started Game 2 with an awful stretch including an ugly airball followed by a wide open 3 point brick, biting terribly on a pump fake and leaving his feet to make attempt a pass that was cut off. That didn’t last. The questionable defense did (including leaving his feet defensively on a pump fake several more times), but his offense caught fire. Once he got a couple easy ones, including driving to the hoop and drawing the foul to shoot a pair of free throws and a transition dunk, his perimeter stroke was smooth as a baby’s bottom hitting shot after shot. He looked like the Ray Allen of Summer League at times hitting shots all over the floor including a heat check long pull-up two that Wolves fans have seen Troy Hudson miss all too often, but then again we’ve seen Marcus Banks and Nikoloz Tskitishvili go off in ways just as, if not more impressively during Summer League so take it for what it’s worth.
The skinny on Ellington: Shaky defense, but finally caught fire and showed off his impressive offensive game including putting the ball on the floor in addition to his primary weapon, long distance shooting.

Jonny Flynn: Played very similarly to Game 1 in that good things kept happening when he put the ball on the floor, but still took some of his long contested pull-up jumpers. Once again displayed terrific drive and dish instincts routinely drawing several defenders and hitting the open player on the perimeter for a 3, whether that was Ellington, Pecherov or Harris. He managed to improve his assist/TO ratio from 1:1 to a bit better than 2:1 with an impressive 14 assists to go with 6 turnovers, but 6 is still a number that needs to come down during the regular season. Some of that can be credited to be unfamiliar with a jumble of players he just met within the last week or so, which is evidenced by a turnover on a lob pass that he threw in transition to the stereotypical big whitie himself, Rob Kurz…honestly, Rob Kurz just doesn’t do that kind of thing. Once Flynn has a full training camp and pre-season to figure out his personnel for the regular season, that should be less of an issue.
The skinny on Flynn: Did not lock down defensively, but showed solid nice defensive potential. Still got into the lane whenever he felt like it, terrific when he puts the ball on the floor but still needs to work on his perimeter shot.

Corey Brewer: Has yet to stand out like an NBA player should in Summer League, but I’m willing to cut him a bit of slack as this is his first basketball back from an injury and really he’s still trying to do things that he would not be called on to do during the regular season. I know last time I said it looked like he improved his handles a bit…I don’t know what happened to that. He once again looked out of control with a sloppy handle. It does look like he’s done some work on his jumper, but he’s still a little overzealous pulling the trigger.
The skinny on Brewer: Still rusty, still playing outside of himself, I’m going to hold out hope that he settles down and finds his role during the regular season.

Oleksiy Pecherov: Played consistently all game hitting shots, showing off a very smooth stroke and ending the game with a nice state line of 15 and 10 and even managing to block a shot. However, his defense was pretty average. This was pretty much the norm for the team though especially defending the paint, as the D-League Select put up 96 points and only hit a single triple.
The skinny on Pecherov: Could hold some value as the only 7-footer on the roster and could play off of Jefferson and add 3-point shooting to a team in desperate need for it, but his defense is going to have to improve.

Paul Harris: Harris is a shot in the arm type of player. He showed the best defensive effort on the roster, always being a pest and disruptive. His outstanding physical tools help him make up for his somewhat short stature, managing to surprise players with it even managing to block a shot in each game. He has also showed better range that I ever thought he had hitting a triple in each game. A very intriguing player that should get a training camp invite.
The skinny on Harris: A high effort level player with very solid defensive prowess and more range on his jumper than expected.

Bobby Brown: Looked pretty poor all game. He was chucking, wasn’t moving the ball all that well and looked streaky at best from the perimeter. He also didn’t really help the overall poor defensive effort on the part of the team.
The skinny on Brown: A scoring guard that wasn’t scoring well. Looked Hudson-esque at times.

Ben Woodside: Finally got playing time in Game 2! Woodside only scored a single point, but was another high effort type guy. He did allow his man to score with

something like 2.7 seconds left on the clock because he tried to front the pass, and he’s just not tall enough to intercept the pass. However, he and Harris looked nice on the court defensively, especially on one defensive stand when Harris managed to poke the ball away from his man and Woodside laid his body out along the sideline to throw the ball out of bounds off a D-League Select opponent. Also during the train wreck third quarter when the Select team ran the Wolves off the court, especially in transition, on one occasion when the Wolves turned the ball over yet again leading to another D-League Select fast break, Woodside managed to recover and steal the ball back. I would like to see him play all of Brown’s minutes for the rest of Summer League just to see what we have here. Offensively he still showed his quickness slashing to the basket, but missed the floater which was his only FGA. He also had a nice pass splitting two defenders to Rob Kurz, who of course bobbled it and turned it over.

Woodside:

Looked very solid and smart on the court, I would like to see more of him.

Adam Parada: Still sucks.

Gerald Henderson: Didn’t play…don’t know why.

Garret Siler: Same deal as before: still big, strong with pretty good hands and touch, but not great awareness and slow footed.

Rob Kurz: Looked like a poor man’s Oleksiy Pecherov.

Pat Carroll: DNP

Devin Green: Has yet to check in for Summer League…depressing.

Nobody outside of Paul Harris (and maybe Ben Woodside) played solid defense. Porous perimeter defense allowed pretty much anyone into the lane and impressive help defense basically assured them of a basket every trip down court. Flynn has been playing off the ball a bit during both games. This is strange as Flynn is clearly the best floor general on the roster and the player handling the ball was Bobby Brown in Game 1 and even Wayne Ellington in Game 2. I don’t know exactly why this might be other than possibly preparing him to play with Rubio in the back court. When asked after Game 1 about his fit with Rubio, he even commented about how he played off the ball a bit in the game as evidence as how he would fit with Rubio. Now with Yahoo Sports reporting that Rubio is fine with playing in Minnesota (even though he NEVER said the words himself that he didn’t want to play for the Wolves) and David Kahn going to Spain to try to talk to Joventut to lower Rubio’s buyout…who knows? Rubio and Flynn together next year? I’m just speculating, though.

I’ll be back for Game 3 analysis.