What We Learned from the Summer League

After a fun Summer League week in Las Vegas that ended with a thrilling 95-93 loss to the Spurs, the Celtics youngsters showed a lot of things that many people weren’t anticipating when the games began. After a fun 8 games, here’s what we learned.

1. Marcus Smart is becoming more of a point guard

Last season Celtics fans were infuriated by the lack of aggression we saw from Marcus Smart. As a 220 lbs point guard, Smart seemed more content lounging by the perimeter and launching threes instead of using that huge frame to bully smaller guards. This summer he revealed that his ankle was still bothering him throughout the year, and now healthy we should see more attacks to the rim. This summer league he did a good amount of driving, and making better use of his drive and kick ability. Another nice wrinkle in his game was his added passing creativity that wasn’t there before, plays like this were really impressive:

Though his Summer League was cut short after the gruesome hand injury, Smart showed enough growth as a point guard to warrant some excitement for this upcoming season. It’ll be interesting to see what this means for Evan Turner’s future who got a lot of his playing time due to the fact that Smart couldn’t make these plays.

2. RJ Hunter is more than a shooter We already knew that RJ Hunter could stroke it. What we didn’t know is that Hunger is a nice all-around player. Throughout the summer Hunter has used his IQ, lateral quickness, and wingspan to hold his own on the defensive end. Even when he gets beat on a play, he shows great effort to recover and makes a great play.

Another area where he showed a lot of promise was his passing ability. His court vision looked advanced, and he constantly made the right reads whether in transition, driving to the basket, or running the pick and roll.

At times he’ll have trouble breaking free from really good defenders, but because of his big time shooting ability he’s able to get guys to react more to pump fakes and is able to drive and kick. And to top it all off, the man has unlimited range:

That’s called range @RJHunter22 pic.twitter.com/4MuNqZjtXs

— Nick Gribble (@_nickgribble) July 18, 2015

I think in a few years we’re all going to be wondering how Hunter fell to 28th.

3. Jordan Mickey has potential to fill a big need 

Most people were lukewarm about the Mickey selection because they made the mistake of generalizing him as just a “undersized shot-blocker.” Not to get too off topic here, but when it comes to defensive potential, the most important thing is wingspan and athleticism. NBA players are never really as tall as you think. Dwight Howard is 6’9, Kevin Love is  6’7 3/4, Al Horford is 6’8 3/4, and Blake Griffin is 6’8 1/2, but yet all of these guys are listed at 6’10 or above on ESPN.

Although Mickey isn’t a full 6’10- 7’0, he can still hold his own down low thanks to a 7’3 1/4 wingspan (same as Karl Anthony-Towns) and a 37 1/2 vertical (which is better than Towns).

Now that we got that out the way let’s get into some of the positives we saw. Mickey led the NCAA with 3.6 bpg and flashed those skills  in the Summer League (2.5 BPG), showing great lateral quickness and timing.

One of the best ways to get in transition is running off blocked shots, which Mickey created a few times with his elite rim protecting.

He also did a great job showing off a nice mid-range touch. The development of this shot will be interesting because as an ideal pick and pop candidate, the ability to knock this shot down consistently can make for a deadly pick and roll tandem for an explosive guard like Isaiah Thomas. With our loaded frontcourt, Mickey’s best case to get rotation minutes is to out play Tyler Zeller for the center position where he can get paired with one of our offensive minded power forwards. Overall, his skillset was refreshing to see on a roster that featured some of the softest frontcourt play in the league.

4. Terry Rozier isn’t a reach

We’ve all heard the criticism about the pick, but most of it circulates around the overcrowded backcourt, and not the actual skill of the player. I’m here to tell you that Rozier has skills. What separates him from other prospects who were available at his position is simple, the ability to create for himself. Because of his elite speed, Rozier can get by his man without the use of a pick and create for himself or others. Besides shot-blocking, one of the Celtics biggest needs was a player who could create. That’s why they had to start Turner, and acquired Isaiah Thomas at the trade deadline. But the need is still there, and at #16 the Celtics had a chance to address that need, and did just that.

On the court Rozier’s speed was evident, he got by his defenders with relative ease, but had some trouble finishing when he got to the rim. In an interview with Brian Robb, Rozier indicated that his knees still weren’t at the best of shape which is probably hurting his finishing ability quite a bit. However, his jumpshot hasn’t looked too bad, and the ability to hit the three ball off the catch and shoot was a nice surprise. Defensively, he’ll need to work on how he gets around screens, but for the most part he did a great job staying in front of his man, especially when paired with Marcus Smart. And just to top it all off, he looks like he has that clutch gene that will help Celtic fans fall in love with him soon enough.

 (Image courtesy Boston Herald)