In a loss last night against the Bobcats they let BJ Mullens score 33 points

Wes Johnson was the 2nd leading scorer with 24 points. The sentences I just wrote prove how meaningless summer league is.

Anyways, you can check out the box score here:

nba.com/summer-league/games/20120717/MINCHA/gameinfo.html

(I would link it but because of that stupid forum bug that they're apparently never going to fix, it keeps making my post dissappear.)

They won their 1st game on Monday, but I can't remember who they played. Has anyone been bored enough to watch either of these games? Give us a scouting report.

Candid Adelman comments from Summer League:

www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/On_the_Wolves.html

Great...The Caged Lion still sucks. aghhh.

Developing him as a 3 is a fool's errand. Keeping him as a backup 4 is a fool's errand.

I just don't understand the plan with him. While I presently was not in favor if trading him for Batum, I think down the line it will be viewed as an opportunity missed.

WallyWorld wrote:
You/we know for sure they refused to put D-Charge on the table?

Yes, I've been bored enough to watch.

Game 1 was against the Clippers. Everyone else besides Wes and Derrick are irrelevant so I'm not going to comment on them. Wes: had the most points but missed a lot of shot. Still cannot finish at the rim, he missed a wide open layup, was aggressive in trying to drive to the basket but would miss the close shot because is out of position when up in the air.

Derrick: played pretty well. Made most of his shots. His dribbling was better. Was aggressive at attacking the rim, but like last year he would be out of position when he jumps to make the layup or shot. Got his shot blocked a lot. Like 4 times I think. To me, he looks awkward trying to be a SF, just doesn't look natural out there.

Fyck jamming this square pegs into round holes. 1) Convince the Celtics to do an Avery Bradley/Derrick Williams switch and 2) Turn Wes Johnson into Hakim Warrick and start playing him off the bench opposite tweener/smallish power forwards like Warrick, Ryan Anderson, Bosh, Beasley, Jeff Green, Odom, Marion, etc. Hell, Dirk isn't going to overpower him, either. Change his entire mindset. Have him just start working out with Ben Wallace, start practicing on ONLY shooting in the paint with Pek, and get him a bit thicker, boom - bench tweener who can jump over most of those guys for 15 minutes a game. There is his role. 15 minutes a game against non-power front court players.

Derrick Williams...whatever. Pair him with Sullinger and Fab melo or something.

Game 2 vs Bobcats.

I saw mainly the 2nd half. MKG didn't play. I want it to see him play. But on to Wes and Derrick.

Wes: played well, was attacking and making buckets. Actually, dribble by a guy and lay it in. I had to check my vision to make sure I wasn't just seeing things. His jumper was smooth also.

Derrick: Played horrible, looks awkward in the 3 position. Like I said before, his dribble looks better. At one point he dribble through a couple of guys to get to the basket. Ran the fast break a couple of times, at the end of the game he was channeling his inner Ricky Rubio and on a fast break made a nice no look dish to Wes for a dunk. The good thing that I saw from him is that he got to the line a lot.

9Deuce wrote:
So play Derrick Williams at the point!? I like it

daddyfatsax wrote:
No one knows for sure. I trust Doogie Wolfson and his sources who say they didn't. Portland says they did. Kahn ovevalues guys he acquired.

What I do know is if Portland turned down D Will and a 1st round pick for Batum they are bigger idiots than Kahn. Batum was never worth $12 million per year. My current defense mechanism: this contract was a bullet dodged. We should now have little difficulty keeping Pekovic long term (more important than Batum) while still have room to fart around the rest of the summer and improve the SF position.

roundhouse wrote: For the record, it's not our fault. We don't own or develop the forum software.

P.S. Summer league is worthless. All it tells you is who REALLY SUCKS. Remember when McCants and Foye did well and Stephen Litel and MWithers tried to tell us that they would be super epic studs in the NBA because of it? Yeah... that worked out really well.

WallyWorld wrote: Agreed.

Too late to trade him for top value now, such failure. I wish we would have just traded that pick before drafting him. #@$)(*@

WallyWorld wrote:
It sounds like Portland tried to include him and the Wolves said, "sure, we'll part with him if you take on our bad contracts and also we won't give you any firsts in that case." And Portland balked.

Batum is good. Whatever, if he's a solid 2 way player then $11.5M is not tons for us since he would make 4 of 5 starters that are "plus" guys. Instead we settle on two average starters and three plus guys.

If we overpay for a 3rd big man, it really needs to be a shot blocker.

Also- and I am not saying this will happen, but I am just pointing this out- the crazy thing about Wes Johnson's skill level is that if he managed to do like 1 or 2 things better (i.e. play more physical/nasty or attack the basket more, or both) he could be a really solid player. He's just so athletic and has a really good shot. The reason his percentages are awful is because he hamstrings himself into never doing anything besides shooting outside jumpers, which always results in bad shooting percentages.

If he got to the rim 3-4 times a game, he could easily be a 16-20 ppg guy. If he were meaner, he could be a lockdown defender. The tools are there. Just pointing out how tenuous the line between good and awful can be at the highest levels.

College Wolf wrote:
Comment of the day right there. So true. I watched it last night while multitasking. Some of these guards can't even dribble the ball up the floor and start a possession. Sikma's kid also looked terrible.

One guy who looked decent and tough was Prestes.

WallyWorld wrote: Exactly. You know who sucks balls because the competition is nothing special. And if a guy DOESN'T dominate in Summer League, then he basically has zero chance in the NBA.