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Jazz vs Nets. Hot Summer League action, Today @ 15:00 MDT

MY thoughts from todays game:

Hayward - really nice bounce back game. More aggressive today. Took it strong to the rim. Hit a shot off of a curl. Had one really nice fake at the rim followed by a nice fade away.

Sundiata - struggled again today. Had a stretch in the 3rd where he hit two 3's and a FT area jumper, otherwise struggled mightily. Dont think he is helping himself.

Kosta - another solid effort. Gaining confidence.

Othyus - made some nice hustle plays.

Evans - matched up against Favors for much of his time. Did well. Showed nice athleticism. Has nice touch on his FT's.

Dominic Waters - liked what I saw from him today. Played really hard. Hit some tough shots. I like him better than Tyrese Rice. I wish he was getting more time.

Rod Benson - was pretty good today. Hit some shots, thought he hustled better today than his previous games.
 
I like Waters a ton more than Rice. Neither are better than Gaines though, despite being better shooters.

Agree.
Gaines has some good qualities. And his weaknesses are lessened when he plays with real NBA talent. Yada has the edge right now to make it as the 3rd PG. Jeffers, due to his defense and hustle, probably makes the team if Brewer is not brought back. None of the centers, including Kosta, have done anything defensively. KOC HAS to bring in someone else or we're in deep $%$&.

And Hayward will be just fine. Shooting off the curl, cutting to the hoop, hitting almost all his FT's...add to that his ball-handling abilities and the way he fights for rebounds and I think Sloan will give him around 15 mins/per.
 
Gaines gets into the lane at will which is not easy to find in a PG. He is absolutely fearless. Of course he makes some bad decisions but he'll be a better choice than Price quite easily.
 
Just finished watching this game.

I think people are reading into Hayward whatever they want to see. It's the ultimate in confirmation bias. I'll be honest, I just don't think we saw him do much of anything in this game. Outside of the "dream shake" bucket I didn't see him do anything that a replacement level player wouldn't have done.

Derrick Favors is just awful. I understand why his agent didn't like letting him work out against Cousins now.

I liked Rod Benson a lot. Nice touch around the basket.

Koufos looks like he needs some burn this year. But then again, I've been wrong before and default to a preference of developing Fesenko at Koufos' expense.

The player I was most impressed with: Damion James.
 
Just finished watching this game.

I think people are reading into Hayward whatever they want to see. It's the ultimate in confirmation bias. I'll be honest, I just don't think we saw him do much of anything in this game. Outside of the "dream shake" bucket I didn't see him do anything that a replacement level player wouldn't have done.

Derrick Favors is just awful. I understand why his agent didn't like letting him work out against Cousins now.

I liked Rod Benson a lot. Nice touch around the basket.

Koufos looks like he needs some burn this year. But then again, I've been wrong before and default to a preference of developing Fesenko at Koufos' expense.

The player I was most impressed with: Damion James.

If you were most impressed with James, you obviously didn't watch the game. Terrence Williams. ;) Also, Hayward had something like 17 minutes or so, and didn't do to bad. He wasn't amazing, but I still strongly believe players can't prove they can't play in the NBA by playing mediocre in the summer league.
 
If you were most impressed with James, you obviously didn't watch the game. Terrence Williams. ;) Also, Hayward had something like 17 minutes or so, and didn't do to bad. He wasn't amazing, but I still strongly believe players can't prove they can't play in the NBA by playing mediocre in the summer league.

T Williams hit that ridiculous circus shot at the end of the first half and had a nice dunk but it looked to me like he was pressing and trying to get all his own offense while his team was 20 points down. Damion James was the only reason the Nets were within shouting distance in the first quarter. He cooled down in the second half and got less aggressive (I think this was due to his wrist injury) but in the first half I thought he was clearly the best player for either side on the floor.

Hayward's time was limited, but the reality was that he was unremarkable. He got some buckets off of pin-downs and a transition bucket. The rest of his points (outside of the dream shake play) were instances where he got fouled and went to the line. The foul numbers in summer league games are higher than normal (David Thorpe talks about them being parades to the free throw line because of the newbie refs) and I question how many of those plays will get Hayward to the line in the regular season. Certainly I'm worried that so much of Hayward's offensive value in these summer league games hinges on an ability to get to the line when it's not like he's powering his way into the paint or using some sort of unique shifty driving game. In any event, I regarded his performance as relatively efficient but not easily duplicatible under NBA game conditions. I'm recording tomorrow's game as well. I keep waiting for evidence of his supposedly otherwordly basketball IQ. I haven't seen anything like AK's passing game out of him yet.
 
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