Summer League Coverage Question

yet 37 votes for Bayless.

Ben, is that you?

The person who said “other” didn’t explain in a comment below!

I want to know why he was such a big target to trade up to get him.

A little bit of Cunningham. i am curious as to why they got him when they just traded up to get a guy with similar skills.

Is it really too much to ask for Rex + the 3 rooks?

I want to know if he really can be a true find, if he has the potential.

Then maybe we won’t have to sign another 4, and get Pendy a decent rookie deal

yes.

I want to hear how rex compares to the rooks and if there’s improvement to his game. If he’s NBA quality he should come out dazzling people when next to the rookies.

I want to hear about his leadership quality or lack of it.

Then I want to hear about the rookies. Do their talents indicate a fill for needs the blazers have? Are that at, above, or below expectation? Do they compliment or conflict with others?

I’d love an indepth of every player. I’d then love a fit or no fit analysis.

The one game I watched Mills play I wasent sure if the other guys had been diped in frozen molasses or if he was really the fastest guy I had ever seen on a court.

You should work a Bayless vs. Mills death match angle.

can you reference everything about Mills in terrible Australian stereotypes and movie quotes??

“You call that a drive to the hoop? That’s not a drive to the hoop…this is a drive to the hoop!”

Would love to hear of him improving his PG skills. And some tri-rook news would be welcome too, of course.

The more face the better.

70% Bayless
20% P-Graph
10% Mills and Cunningham

1. ) It’s hard to get an idea of a guy’s ability to see the floor when most of the players on the floor don’t know what they’re doing and have only practiced with each other 5 times.

2.) Bayless is a score first driving PG. He dominated the summer league last year. I have a feeling it is going to be more of the same this year.

Most of it is a gut feeling, but I’d love to see Patty turn into the biggest draft steal since Ginobili. He hasn’t shown evidence that he could do that, but if he can develop some control to go along with his breakneck pace I could see him being great.

Former University of Portland Pilot and NBDL All-Star!!!

I remember him saying, when they announced that he wouldnt be coming back for the playoffs, that he would be playing in Summer League to get ready to go full strength this season. Maybe we need to hire Phoenix’s magical doctor staff because ours dont seem know what they are doing and Phoenix is dumping everyone else not named Nash so I think we can get them for cheap.

I want to see a comparison between Pendergraph and Cunningham. We know that the Blazers were high on Pendergraph during the draft but we don’t know anything about Cunningham. After that, lets compare Mills to the prodigal son Bayless.

Pendergraph is more interesting since we haven’t seen him play in a Blazers uniform.

Patty Mills intrigues me, but give me Pendergraph!

Is one of them good enough to be this year’s Steven Hill, and be invited to training camp as the third center. Akindele had very good games in France and Italy (and a high PER above 20), and is drawing comparisons to Sam Dalembert.

And do the Blazers see Cunningham has a SF or a PF.

I’d enjoy seeing how Joe Prunty handles his first Summer League head coaching assignment. (It’s his first, right? I thought I read that).

Everyone sleeping on Dante… summer league is perfect for his skill set, he’s gonna win you all over!!!

Weight your coverage of each player by how well they are performing. If Mills or Cunningham is looking unexpectedly good, then I want to hear a lot about it. If they don’t look likely to make the team, then they won’t need as much coverage.

Hopefully this will mean a lot of Bayless.

I want to hear about everyone on the squad. First I want to hear about Bayless and the progress he is making – then I want to hear about the three draftees – then I want to hear about Pooh and Bobby Jones – then I want to hear about all the other guys too.

Hey! I’m not asking for much! – Elgin

I need to see more of Mills. I’m looking down the line, and wondering if he can hang as Bayless’ backup. He won’t be able to play his natural position during the games, so the practices will be a good opportunity to see how he plays with the ball, then the games should demonstrate what he can do without it.

I am very excited to watch Bayless’ development, but I think that will be documented pretty well by the mainstream media outlets, so Blazers Edge has a good opportunity here to tap into a player that has generated a lot of attention overseas, but is yet to draw the spotlight here in the States.

All the same, the vote total at the time of this posting is pretty heavily stacked in Jerryd’s favor, so I’ll happily read along when the time comes, but I(and many, many, Aussies) would appreciate a little attention paid to Mills.

Go Blazers.

I would like to see penetration by JB and then dish to the bigs when he’s doubled (tripled). Also see him work on his pick and roll and post entry passes. I think that would be a good indication on how he’s progressed.

because I really want to see if he will be able to man the back-up 4 spot. But of course we also want to know how well Bayless is doing running the team. I want to know if he’s making the right pass, regardless of whether it ends up with a basket.

We’re counting on you Ben….

All right, that’s enough Husky homerism from me.

for long enough to even tell who else showed up! Really. I’m serious. I don’t think I have to worry about hearing if Jerryd is making progress. Ben is going to be there right? Lucky guy.

Let’s hear from one of the “filler” guys. I want to get a realistic take from a filler guy who knows he’s not going to make the team, and how he approaches the summer league, in the mold of a David Halberstam “Breaks of the Game” style piece.
Chances are, all you’ll really get are practiced “I’m hoping to get a spot on the team” speeches, but if you’re really persistent/lucky, you could get someone to really open up about an uncertain future.

1) Don’t look now, but we have one (1) PG under contract.

2) The buzz around Mills has me totally jazzed that he’ll wow everyone and save our butts this offseason by turning out to be a straight robbery in the second round.

3) I like Bayless, but I’ve already seen him look good in the summer league. Either he’ll do it again and we won’t know whether or not to extrapolate anything positive from his performance, or he’ll be mediocre and it will cause a lemminglike exodus over the Fremont Bridge. I would much rather see Mills and Pendergraph.

if he’s excited to be on a team whose second option isn’t Omar Samhan. He might get a kick out of it.

i.e. your objective view of Bayless’ play :))

Bayless and Pendergraph are really the two guys I want to know the most about, but this is one of those times when any of the four could provide real insights and/or surprises about what we’re going to see in the future.

As such, I’d like to see a team-level approach to practice coverage, visualizing these guys as the unit that they will actually be during the summer league games. Bayless, the “grizzled veteran” of PTB Summer League, is he ready to dazzle at the 1 like he was at the 2 last year? Will we see the beginning of the Pendergraph/Cunningham battle royale for floor minutes? Will Patty do something to steal the limelight from B-Rex? Yeah, even Pooh is interesting, with his hometown roots and euro perspective.

I just think this year’s event calls for more of an Ocean’s 11, ensemble cast kind of approach.

Bayless for the obvious reason of his maturation at the point.
Pendegraph and Cunningham simply because I want to see which one has more promise to be that backup PF that we’re needing.

Other than that, this Summer League roster doesn’t seem all that promising to me.