Las Vegas Day One - Summers Time

Summers was hot and efficient Friday. 

Las Vegas, NV. ...DaJuan Summers led the Clippers NBA Summer League entry to a win over the summer Hawks, 90-83, Friday in the opening day of play in Las Vegas. Summers, a 6'8" small forward from Georgetown, earned the nod as our most efficient player who played on a winning team. Summers scored 15 points (6-11 FG, 3-5 3-pt.) and grabbed five rebounds in just 20 minutes of play. 

Austin Rivers scored 24 points (8-15 FG) with seven assists and six rebounds in the Pelicans 77-72 win over the Knicks. ...Carrick Felix was the standout performer in the Cavs 70-62 victory over the Lakers. Felix, a thin framed shooting guard from Arizona State had 14 points (5-9 FG), six rebounds and two blocked shots in 25 minutes. ...Jeff Taylor scored 24 points in a losing effort for Charlotte's summer entry. They fell to the Spurs 69-68. 

Our All-Vegas Summer League Team for day one... Point guards: Shelvin Mack, Austin Rivers, Matthew Dellavadova. Shooting guards: Felix, John Jenkins, Michael Snaer. Small forwards: Summers, Marcus Landry. Power forwards: Samardo Samuels, Tyler Zeller. Centers: Eloy Vargas, Jeremy Tyler. 

We are hearing that Portland offered Wes Matthews (pictured at right) a five-year contract at close to 34 million dollars. We were ahead of the game on Matthews when we listed him as a draft pick on our 2009 Big Board. He went un-selected but made the Utah Jazz team as a free-agent. 

The second day of the Las Vegas Summer League was forgettable with three of the four games being blowouts. It also was a bummer for Brian Butch. The former Wisconsin BIG suffered a graphically ugly knee injury that was initially diagnosed as a dislocated patella tendon. Butch was taken off the court on a stretcher.

Our Player of the Day for Saturday was NBA veteran guard Bobby Brown. His summer Raptors dismantled Phoenix 103-69. Brown had eleven points (5-6 FG), six assists, and three boards in 21 minutes. He looked totally at ease with ball in his hands and he did whatever he wanted to do against the hapless Suns. It says here that as long as the summer Suns keep featuring Earl Clark - they will not win a LV Summer League contest. In hindsight, Steve Kerr’s draft that yielded Clark, and Taylor Griffin was pretty much a waste of two picks.

Our “All Day Two Las Vegas Summer League Team” (their game efficiency rating). PG: Ty Lawson - DEN .741, SG: Brown - TOR .857, SF: DaJuan Summers - DET .640, PF: Othella Hunter - DEN .750, C: Ed Davis - TOR .800. Bench: Guards: Roddy Beaubois - DAL .676, Devin Ebanks - LAL .428, Forwards: Kim Tillie - GSW .700, Ronald Dupree - TOR .600, Andre Brown - GSW .523, Centers: Joey Dorsey - TOR .684, Omar Samhan - DAL .666.