Summer League Thread
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I think turnovers are just going to be a reality with Wall throughout his career. But hopefully he will make better decisions with real floor time, im sure he will. He'll do enough in every other form of the game to make you ignore that he turns over the ball anyways.Comment
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I'd hate to see him against a real NBA team at this point
Of course, it's still a long time to the season.Comment
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If he can limit his turnovers he can be a top5 PG in the league in the next 3 years easily, regardless of his jumper.
See: Rajon Rondo
Edit: In fact, his entire game reminds me of rondo now that I think about it. The jumpers are identical, the speed, the athleticism, decision making when coming into the league. It's like 2 clones.Comment
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Cousins' Play In Summer League A Refreshing Revelation In NBA’s Offseason
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Posted By Eric Freeman 3:32 PM
The story of this week, apart from the ongoing Miami Heat saga and the recent sale of the Warriors, has been the brilliant play of Kings rookie DeMarcus Cousins. Over the course of his first three games, he has averaged 18.3 ppg, 11.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 2.0 steals per game, and 1.0 blocks per game. If that's not enough, he also hit the game-winner in last night's contest against the Timberwolves and has proved himself to be a funny, engaging, and confident presence on the court and in interviews. He's been so fantastic that Tom Ziller, the Internet's top Kings fan, is getting worried that it could all be too good to be true.
This was anything but guaranteed. Heading into a draft with two assumed sure things in John Wall and Evan Turner, Cousins was perhaps the class' biggest enigma. At Kentucky, he was an excellent scorer and rebounder with soft hands rarely seen in a man of his size. However, he also appeared to have a poor work ethic, attitude, and a propensity to act as a black hole in the post.
No matter how many times Cousins and his crew (including John Calipari, who said his big man was a joy to coach at Kentucky) said those shouldn’t be concerns, they still lingered. Because even though Cousins’ camp swore that those issues were behind him, it's hard to get a read on those types of personality traits in the run-up to the draft. Sure, there are interviews, but no one can know how someone will handle a difficult situation in an NBA environment until it happens. Plus, it's hard to get a read on someone's passing abilities in the bizarro world of pre-draft workouts.
In summer league, though, Cousins has shown skills we hardly knew existed. He's found the open man regularly out of double teams. His face up game is streets ahead of most young big men. And his apparent mean streak suggests that he won't just be content to put up solid numbers for a losing team.
In other words, he looks like someone who never should have fallen to fifth in the draft. Everyone except the Wizards can be faulted for passing on Cousins -- especially the Timberwolves, who should have snatched him if they were always planning on trading Al Jefferson for any offer that came their way. Players with these kinds of skills who can play either power forward or center come along all too rarely. It's why everyone drafts athletic big men who don't turn into anything in the first place. The promise and potential are simply too tough to pass up.
Cousins is far from a sure thing -- he's yet to face the likes of Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan in real-life NBA games. But considering that most rookie big men pick up instant fouls and look out of sorts in Summer League, his performance over these first few games has been something of a revelation. Sure, players have blown up in SL before and turned into nothing -- remember Marco Belinelli? -- but Cousins seems different. He still has a long way to go in proving himself as an NBA star, but the foundation for greatness has already been put into place.
Summer League is commonly looked upon as something of a joke, more an on-court diversion from the silly season of summer than a reality-based form of basketball. It's often preached that you shouldn't take too many lessons from Summer League, but the play of Cousins shows why it remains a notable event for NBA fans. In an instant, all the speculation and hearsay of the draft becomes reality. You can learn things about players, even if they're not final assessments. And fans get to see the strides that young players have made since the end of the college or pro seasons.
It's a portal into the next NBA season. During a summer in which off-court decisions have received more attention than ever before, the realities of basketball as it’s played on a hardwood court have never been more welcome.
Read more: http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/The...#ixzz0tuCBRBrfComment
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Dominique Jones continues to play well. #4 in the rankings now.
Cousins got the Rookie of the Month award then went 1-12, :laugh:Last edited by Point Blank; 07-19-2010, 09:39 PM.Comment
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