Summer League: Blazers vs. Lakers 1

Notes from previous Portland Summer League games: here, here, and here.

We all know the quality of Summer League play can make things difficult to watch. We accept this, and enjoy it anyways to see glimpses of our unknowns, unprovens, and hopefuls. The basketball snob in me despises NBA Summer League, but the Blazer fan in me makes sure I don't miss a thing.

So tonight, we had Portland playing the L.A. Lakers. I have to say, the Lakers have the least sexy summer league lineup of any Blazer opponent. Their most anticipated rookie is Javaris Crittenton, lets leave it at that.

Of course I can't be too critical tonight, as Portland only dressed nine players, and none of them were LaMarcus Aldridge or Greg Oden. NBA.com didn't even bother blacking out this one. The good news is that means other guys would get some burn, which could be good.

PART 2 CLICK HERE

Summer League: Blazers vs. Lakers 2

To my surprise, NBA.com had the KXL guys doing commentary on the webcast. Of course the highlight of their coverage came during what the broadcast team must have thought was a commercial break after the first quarter, when the play-by-play guy (jokingly, I think) yelled "Turn down the commercials you asshole!" Awesome.

After the half KXL wasn't on the webcast anymore, I'm not sure if this was from technical difficulties or not, but still hilarious. Oh, and there was also some basketball played. Portland managed to lose this one 73 to 81, box score.

I was eager to see if Sergio Rodriguez could be the best pointguard on the floor tonight. To me, in Game 1 it was actually Taurean Green, and in game 2 it was Jose Juan Barea of the Mavs. Against Jordan Farmar and Crittenton, I thought Spanish Chocolate would finally assume the role. He decently ran the point much of the night, and was able to penetrate and use that creative play-making ability that gets us all giddy. Then you look up and realize Crittenton has 26 points. Farmar got 17 in only 13 minutes. Not all Sergio's fault, but its part of a weakness that becomes glaring when he logs major minutes. Sergio has scary defensive lapses.

PART 3 CLICK HERE

Summer League: Lakers vs. Portland 3

Something I hope everyone notices that happened as a result of Aldridge and Oden being out is this: the awfulness of Josh McRoberts has been greatly exaggerated. I can't figure out why so many Blazer fans have been sending so much hate to the second-round pick, especially with more disappointing players on the roster (see above paragraph). I feel an extended blog entry on this topic coming in the near future, but for now let's focus on this game. Remember, McRoberts is 6'10 and has skills. The game saw him catch the ball at the 3-point line, pump fake to get his man off-balance, cross-over dribble, and finish it up with a pull-up that snapped the nets. He had a couple of these plays where he got to string together his impressive skill-set, and also showed his passing ability. As a complementary player, which McRoberts will always be in the NBA, he looks to be solid. Ease up Rip City.

Martell looked at his best tonight, perhaps because he felt comfortable being the man on the reduced roster. As we've seen in the regular season, if you let Martell get comfy by giving him a few open jumpers, he'll be solid all night. He was in that comfort zone tonight, and showed flashes of impressive defense as well.

It won't show up in the box-score, but Freeland showed his scrappiness again tonight. He seemed a little off all night, but didn't let that reduce his surly play. Even when he's not playing well enough to entice us with highlights, I like what Freeland brings.

You can say the same for Taurean Green as well. Its always good to have tough, hardworking guys on your team. Taurean didn't blow-up by any means, but he runs the offense and makes his man work for everything he gets.

Koponen didn't put much in the box-score tonight either, but we got some good flashes. When he runs the point, he's fast with the ball. He pushes it up court and can make nice jumpers or one-handed passes. Unfortunately also saw him play off the ball much of the time. In this position he seems anxious, pacing back and forth and mostly just watching the play develop. Its tough to see him get a lot of play at point with Sergio and Green, but it would be fun to see what he could do with more minutes at his strongest position.

Mancinelli again gave us flashes of a solid all-around game, and you could tell Zendon Hamilton knows what to do as a veteran, providing Portland's only consistent low-post offensive threat. Sad to see Portland native Terrance Green leave the team due to a death in the family.

What I'm looking for: Portland vs. Dallas Summer League

As I'm waiting around for Portland's second Summer League game (schedule), I thought I'd post a few things I'll be looking for based off some notes I made from the first game:

• Oden showed some nice passes to Aldridge, and some that resulted in turnovers. This stuck out to me because we haven't heard much about Oden's passing ability yet. A post that knows how to pass to the other post is a huge asset, and indicates that Oden has a great feel for the game. It also shows he may be more comfortable deferring to Aldridge (who's future nickname I hope can be "The Big Truth") in the post. Some would say this is good, and assume that Oden will take more of the offensive load as his game develops. I imagine some critics would say this shows his lack of that "dominant mentality" thing. We'll probably know more as the regular season unfolds, but for me its showing he understands how to play basketball.

• Koponen more minutes. The Finnish Finagler got less than 3 minutes of playing time the first go round, which was a little disappointing. As a side note, about 15% of visitors to this blog over the last seven days have been from Finland according to statcounter, which I take to mean there's a country that wants to see more. Don't let Finland down! Play The Finnagler! Or else face accusations of being Anti-Finnites.

• Taurean Green's play. It was just one summer league game, but Green was Portland's best guard that night. I know its against the collective thinking, but if he turns out to be better than Sergio what will Portland do? Will Taurean become the go to backup? A trade?

• I'm hoping to see more of Oden, Freeland, and McRoberts and less of Mancinelli. Terrance Green actually getting an opportunity wouldn't be bad to see either. Should be interesting. I'll be watching and hopefully have a post up soon after.

Oden's Debut: Portland Notes

I just finished watching Portland kick-off their summer league in Vegas against the Boston Celtics. Oden's debut will obviously command much of everyone's analysis, but there was quite a collection of young talent on both squads to be excited about.

(Because of blogger length limitations, I've broken my Portland and Boston notes up into two separate posts: Boston Notes are here. Also, read why David Stern wants you to hate him.)

The Celtics won 74-66 (boxscore). It wasn't as close at the final score, Boston was comfortably in control a majority of the time.

Notes from the game:

Oden: Lets just say he took full advantage of the generous foul system in place during Summer League. He collected 10 fouls in 20 minutes, and was far from dominating offensively in the post. He is pretty unselfish with the ball, he gave a few nice looks to Aldridge when they ran high-low. Even while struggling, it was hard to ignore his presence. He changes games just by being on the court. Him and Aldrige showed they will play well together on both ends, it will be great to watch this dynamic develop.

Taurean Green: Sergio is obviously going to get the minutes this summer as they try to raise his consistency, but Green was no doubt Portland's best guard tonight (not bad for a guy taken #52 in the draft). He plays hard and showed his toughness getting numerous steals and rebounds. Plus its always fun to watch players that are that fast. Just like the scouting report says though, the jumper is a little shaky.

Lamarcus Aldridge: He is the truth, and it was all on display tonight. With his array of jumpers, post moves, blocks, rebounds, and ability to run the floor, Aldridge is on another level than the summer-league competition. He won't have any problems shouldering the offensive load this season down low if Oden needs time to develop.

Sergio Rodriguez: The Blazers are playing him a lot in an attempt to raise is quality of play when logging big minutes. Rondo was on his hip all night, and although Sergio managed to shake free on several occasions his teammates were often ill-prepared to do anything with his passes. A little disappointing tonight.

Joel Freeland: Gets a bullet point just because I've been hyping him up so much lately. Sadly, we didn't see much of Freeland (the pattern continues), but he had one very nice play on defense where he blocked a Leon Powe dunk attempt. I yelled, "White Keon Claaaaaarke!"

Martell Webster: Don't let the stat line fool you, Martell was mostly a non-factor until the fourth quarter when the outcome had been determined. He managed to show his potential with his athleticism and beautiful shot, but still didn't really seem like he has put it all together. He had some success when Portland would run him off of screens for catch-and-shoots (as opposed to what we saw all last season-Martell standing in the corner), maybe they'll explore that route more in the future.

Stefano Mancinelli: Wow, anyone predict this guy to get so much burn? Despite almost 20 minutes of PT, Mancinelli didn't do much. I spent the whole game wondering why he was in instead of forwards like McRoberts (4:32) or Freeland (9:46).

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see much of "The Finnagler" Petteri Koponen or hometown guy Terrance Green. Terrance is in the impossible position of needing desperately to impress to get on with an NBA team, but not getting an opportunity to play. Hopefully that will change, but as a 4th pointguard on the roster, isn't likely.

Overall the game was typical Summer League in that the quality of play pretty much sucked. The tempo was disjointed and there was a whole lot of fouling going on. With all these talented young players it would have been great if the teams could have gotten out and ran more, but this happened rarely. It was still nice to see how players are developing, and let us all pray for the end of internet blackouts.

NBA Summer League Kickoff

Can you smell it in the air? Might wanna crack a window.

The NBA Summer League is starting today (schedule). The turnovers, the lack of organization, and the bricks, oh the bricks. This can make the action difficult to watch.

Even with this in mind, I still get excited. Maybe I'm a basketball masochist.

Or maybe its still fun to see how the draft picks look. Also, you can't be mad at the fringe-NBA Players giving it everything they've got in an attempt to beat the odds and secure a spot on a team's final roster. Plus I'm not that into baseball.

As a Portland fan, I've came up with a few things I hope to keep tabs on during my team's Vegas run:

• Oden: Everything Oden.

• Joel Freeland:How can you not be curious about the white Keon Clarke? Blazers drafted the mostly unknown young Englishman in 2006. He played ball in one of the top Euro-leagues last season (Spain's ACB League) and averaged 15 and 7 in 26 minutes per. Oh ya, and he's still new to the game.

• The Oden/Aldridge dynamic in the post (oh my god!)

• Spanish Chocolate

• Terrance Green. A recent addition to the roster. Terrance Green is a Portland product who played college ball at Nevada and then for The Guangdong Southern Tigers in China with Yi Jianliang. There's a big shortage in roster spots this year, but I'm really hoping he will have an opportunity to show himself enough to catch on with someone.

• Martell Webster. Does he get it yet?

• Josh McRoberts. His plummeting stock in the draft was a popular joke at the local sportsbar. I had a big hand in that, but I'm glad he dropped low enough for Portland to pick him up. He reportedly is best as a complimentary player (which is how he got famous in highschool-playing with Greg Oden), he always will be that in Portland.

• Petteri Koponen. The work-out wonder from Finland that we know so little about. He'll probably stay in Europe for a while, so this is a rare opportunity to get a good look. I want to nickname him "The Finnish Finagler," but Casey Holdahl of the Blazer's Blog told me its "The Finnisher." I'm not sure if he's badass enough for that nickname yet, but we'll see.