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Hey, it’s Las Vegas Summer League, where NBA futures bets swing from bull market to crypto and besides, we’ve seen all of three games.
Remember Henry Ellenson? He once dropped 29 points in Vegas. Set Pistons Twitter aflame. Led the Detroit Pistons to the Summer League championship while dropping 3-pointers from all over the gym.
The 2017 first-round pick is now playing in Korea. He’s been out of the league for half a decade.
OMARI SANKOFA II: 4 Summer League thoughts on Pistons: Ebuka Okorie has vast toolkit
Keep that in mind when watching Ebuka Okorie, the Pistons' most recent first-round draft pick taken 17th last month out of Stanford, where he played for a season and scored 23.2 points a game to lead the ACC in scoring.
The rookie, listed at 6 feet 2, struggled to shoot again Monday, July 13, in Las Vegas, but mostly, he struggled to finish. Actually, it was more fundamental: He struggled with shot selection, because he struggled against length and physicality. What worked at Stanford doesn’t work in Las Vegas.
Which means the dribbling into traffic and slow-release 3-pointers won’t work back in Detroit, either – or in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Indianapolis, Toronto and all the other Eastern Conference cities with teams that have seemingly rocketed past the Pistons ... on paper, at least.
Now that I think about it, why even play this winter? It’s pointless. The Pistons are toast.
Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren – yes, he’ll be back – are as good as they’re ever going to be, and new additions John Collins and Isaiah Joe won’t make a bit of difference, and why is president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon destroying this franchise and why are all the general managers in this town so afraid to take a chance. Don’t they want to win?
Nah. Of course they don’t. Why would they want that?
Sorry, back to the observations at hand, and to Summer League, where futures, and fortunes, are set in concrete after a few games in the desert.
Like Ellenson. Or Cooper Flagg, who couldn’t make a shot in Vegas last summer.
It's not that we’re comparing Okorie to Flagg. But shooting for players who will have the ball in their hands can be a chore in Summer League as they adjust to the jump in speed and athleticism and pace. Yaxel Lendeborg, the former Michigan basketball star, talked about struggling to find his wind after a couple of games playing for Golden State.
The speed wore him out.
For Okorie, it’s not the speed as much as it’s the beef. And the length. And the speed attached to that length.
He missed 13 of 18 shots Monday against the New York Knicks, a day after missing 12 of 17 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Most of those misses were because he either got knocked off the ball or because he drove into the paint without a plan.
The rookie clearly needs to get stronger. He won’t disagree. In fact, his college coach, Kyle Smith, said as much when he joined the Prime Video broadcast Monday and was asked what Okorie’s biggest weakness would be.
“It’s gonna be the strength,” Smith said on the air. “In fact, that was my argument to stay. ...”
Smith smiled as he said this. Okorie may be relatively slight – 186 pounds – but he isn’t skinny. Remember, Cunningham needed to get stronger, too.
Most college players do.
That lack or relative strength is clear so far in Summer League. So is his handle, his quickness and even his deceleration.
Twice in the first half against New York, he got to the paint and hit the brakes as he gathered his dribble and then finished over the off-balance defender. He can finish with either hand, and the burst after a couple of lull dribbles is elite.
So is his hesitation dribble, which he flashed in the second quarter when he beat his man, touched the paint and looped a lefty pass out to Chaz Lanier on the wing for a 3-pointer.
(Lanier, meanwhile, is shooting well in Las Vegas. Maybe it’ll transfer back to Detroit. Maybe not.)
Okorie’s ability to get where he wants will make it to the Motor City. And as he gets stronger, the number of untenable spots he finds himself in, as he did the past two games, will shrink.
No projection is certain, obviously, but there are traits that pop immediately, and Okorie's handle and sense of space are among them. That was evident minutes into his first NBA action, like it was when Ausar Thompson took the court in Vegas a and jumped twice for a rebound before some jumped once.
Some things are easy to see. And some things will take time.
Okorie has much to learn and much to work on in the gym, the one with hoops and the one with weights. But the vision is clear, and so is the fit with the Pistons.
It’s likely just a matter of time.
Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ebuka Okorie has promise for Pistons, but he needs to get stronger
Continue reading...
Remember Henry Ellenson? He once dropped 29 points in Vegas. Set Pistons Twitter aflame. Led the Detroit Pistons to the Summer League championship while dropping 3-pointers from all over the gym.
The 2017 first-round pick is now playing in Korea. He’s been out of the league for half a decade.
OMARI SANKOFA II: 4 Summer League thoughts on Pistons: Ebuka Okorie has vast toolkit
Keep that in mind when watching Ebuka Okorie, the Pistons' most recent first-round draft pick taken 17th last month out of Stanford, where he played for a season and scored 23.2 points a game to lead the ACC in scoring.
The rookie, listed at 6 feet 2, struggled to shoot again Monday, July 13, in Las Vegas, but mostly, he struggled to finish. Actually, it was more fundamental: He struggled with shot selection, because he struggled against length and physicality. What worked at Stanford doesn’t work in Las Vegas.
Which means the dribbling into traffic and slow-release 3-pointers won’t work back in Detroit, either – or in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Indianapolis, Toronto and all the other Eastern Conference cities with teams that have seemingly rocketed past the Pistons ... on paper, at least.
Now that I think about it, why even play this winter? It’s pointless. The Pistons are toast.
Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren – yes, he’ll be back – are as good as they’re ever going to be, and new additions John Collins and Isaiah Joe won’t make a bit of difference, and why is president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon destroying this franchise and why are all the general managers in this town so afraid to take a chance. Don’t they want to win?
Nah. Of course they don’t. Why would they want that?
Sorry, back to the observations at hand, and to Summer League, where futures, and fortunes, are set in concrete after a few games in the desert.
Like Ellenson. Or Cooper Flagg, who couldn’t make a shot in Vegas last summer.
It's not that we’re comparing Okorie to Flagg. But shooting for players who will have the ball in their hands can be a chore in Summer League as they adjust to the jump in speed and athleticism and pace. Yaxel Lendeborg, the former Michigan basketball star, talked about struggling to find his wind after a couple of games playing for Golden State.
The speed wore him out.
For Okorie, it’s not the speed as much as it’s the beef. And the length. And the speed attached to that length.
He missed 13 of 18 shots Monday against the New York Knicks, a day after missing 12 of 17 against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Most of those misses were because he either got knocked off the ball or because he drove into the paint without a plan.
The rookie clearly needs to get stronger. He won’t disagree. In fact, his college coach, Kyle Smith, said as much when he joined the Prime Video broadcast Monday and was asked what Okorie’s biggest weakness would be.
“It’s gonna be the strength,” Smith said on the air. “In fact, that was my argument to stay. ...”
Smith smiled as he said this. Okorie may be relatively slight – 186 pounds – but he isn’t skinny. Remember, Cunningham needed to get stronger, too.
Most college players do.
Just a matter of time
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That lack or relative strength is clear so far in Summer League. So is his handle, his quickness and even his deceleration.
Twice in the first half against New York, he got to the paint and hit the brakes as he gathered his dribble and then finished over the off-balance defender. He can finish with either hand, and the burst after a couple of lull dribbles is elite.
So is his hesitation dribble, which he flashed in the second quarter when he beat his man, touched the paint and looped a lefty pass out to Chaz Lanier on the wing for a 3-pointer.
(Lanier, meanwhile, is shooting well in Las Vegas. Maybe it’ll transfer back to Detroit. Maybe not.)
Okorie’s ability to get where he wants will make it to the Motor City. And as he gets stronger, the number of untenable spots he finds himself in, as he did the past two games, will shrink.
No projection is certain, obviously, but there are traits that pop immediately, and Okorie's handle and sense of space are among them. That was evident minutes into his first NBA action, like it was when Ausar Thompson took the court in Vegas a and jumped twice for a rebound before some jumped once.
Some things are easy to see. And some things will take time.
Okorie has much to learn and much to work on in the gym, the one with hoops and the one with weights. But the vision is clear, and so is the fit with the Pistons.
It’s likely just a matter of time.
Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected]. Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ebuka Okorie has promise for Pistons, but he needs to get stronger
Continue reading...
