LAS VEGAS — The second day of NBA Summer League featured pretty the same things as the first — random cameos in the crowd by established NBA like Baron Davis, J.R. Smith and David Lee; a lot of less than stellar basketball interspersed with jaw-dropping highlights and 32 quarters of players most of the crowd in attendance has never heard of fighting to better their basketball careers.
Not everybody in attendance was able to dominate like they probably planned, but plenty of players put together solid enough performances to be included in our Day 2 bullets featuring the best — and some of the worst — players for packed house in Las Vegas.
- The entire Memphis Grizzlies team played well to begin things on Friday afternoon against the New York Knicks. The team’s last two first-round picks and seemingly career combo guards — Josh Selby and Tony Wroten — played stifling defense while combining for 39 points. They weren’t the only standouts, though, as current free agent Matt Janning also played very well with 13 points, four rebounds and even a block as he looks to once again parlay a successful Summer League performance into an NBA contract as he did his rookie season with the Phoenix Suns.
- Josh Akognon has been tearing up China since leaving Cal State Fullerton, but there are very people in NBA circles familiar with his game. He showed quite a bit on Saturday, though, as he scored 25 points and nailed four 3-pointers … though the 5-foot-9 guard failed to record an assist.
- Bradley Beal is the player most people figured would be a standout for the Washington Wizards’ Summer League entry, but it ended up being second round pick Tomas Satoransky stealing the show on Saturday night. Satoransky’s Wizards would go on to win a blowout over the Houston Rockets, but the young point guard played very solid on his way to 10 points — including a pair of dunks that would dispell some of the criticisms that he’s not athletic enough to play in America’s top league. Beal still finished better than him in the box score, however, scoring 14 points to go with five rebounds and four assists.
- The Rockets-Wizards game was a blowout, but the two team’s young power forwards didn’t make that evident over the course of the game. Marcus Morris and Chris Singleton had to be separated at one point after a war of words and then later rookie Royce White and Singleton also exchanged some words. None of the three turned in particularly incredible performances, but it was fun to see some passion in Vegas.
- Jeremy Lamb wasn’t overtly-amazing considering he made just two of his seven 3-pointers — and one of those misses was an airball — but he finished with 23 points in the points column. Fellow rookie Terrence Jones was quite a bit more efficient with 13 points on eight shots in 18 minutes.
- Donatas Motiejunas didn’t look nearly as good on Saturday as he did on Friday. The Rockets big man of the future finished his second game in America with just one point after missing all five of his field goal attempts — and getting abused by Garret Siler a few times on the defensive end.
- The majority of the Knicks looked like they had less than NBA talent, but former Memphis wing Wesley Witherspoon was able to put together a solid game with 15 points and five rebounds off the bench. It was more than most expected following a disappointing college career, but he did have one major blemish in the game — an air-balled 3-pointer that drew just the faintest chants of “Airball!” from a still-building crowd.
- Klay Thompson got off to an impeccably-hot start on Saturday as he seemed to be on his way to cementing a Summer League MVP performance with 12 early points as he nailed the first four 3-pointers he attempted. The second-year pro for the Golden State Warriors wasn’t able to sustain that success, however, and finished with just 17 points to go with six turnovers and five fouls — though his 4-of-6 performance from beyond the arc didn’t hurt. Charles Jenkins was probably the best player on his team as he scored 24 points whereas Harrison Barnes took a stepback in scoring just 13 points on 5-of-17 shooting.
- The Denver Nuggets look like they brought a Summer League All-Star team to Vegas, but they weren’t able to play like that for the majority of Saturday’s game. Jordan Hamilton had an amazing second quarter on his way to 18 points and a huge dunk (that led to him saluting opponent Draymond Green), but the remainder of his performance wasn’t quite as impressive. His veteran teammates weren’t all that impressive, either.
- Kenneth Faried scored 10 points and had a series of three huge blocks, his 4-of-15 performance from the field can’t be sugarcoated while former first round picks Solomon Alabi and Gani Lawal combined for just six points and six rebounds in 20 minutes of playing time.
Games will continue to get more interesting on Sunday as games start to be played at both the Cox Pavilion and Thomas & Mack Center leading to even more possible standouts at NBA Summer League — and we’ll have a recap of all of them available for you right here at Pro Basketball Talk.
