Thought this was worth a thread if you missed the game: [video=youtube;-VhoO2iDFv4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VhoO2iDFv4&playnext_from=TL&videos=3YSDEkRMLhI&feature=sub[/video]
Thanks a bunch for posting the highlights! Keep it up my man! Living up here now in British Columbia - starving for Summer League updates! And to have these highlights was more than one could ask for! I like Babbit. I really like Mills (I think we should keep him around) I'm thinking we can trade Bayless and Rudy (perhaps with Prz) and get us an important piece.
Babbitt is looking just as slow as I feared he would be, hopefully we see more as the week rolls on, but I'm afraid may have just traded Martell for Luke Jackson. I hope I'm wrong.
I made this same comparison (and was fearful) after he was drafted... I will say however, Chris Mullin wasn't uber athletic either. It appeared to me yesterday as Babbitt seemed to posses a high "offensive" basketball IQ, so I hope he'll learn to adjust his game to put him in the right areas to be succesful. I do think his shot will need to become a little quicker.
Highlights? Ekene Ibekwe fights Dante Cunningham!! Demetris Nichols beats the Blazers! My favorite player Krazy Krabbenhoft almost makes the Blazer team!! http://www.nba.com/summerleague2009/games/boxscore.jsp?gameId=1520900015 Why hasn't a team picked up Ibekwe before? http://www.nba.com/summerleague2009/players/index.jsp?player=sl_ekene_ibekwe
I wish we had a spot to stash ibekwe. He looks like a promising backup PF -- great for a 2nd unit that wants to run.
He did not look slow to me. Is his quickness his asset? No way. He is not going to blow by people. But he doesn't need to be if he has skills. And he did show he has skills. Especially for his first game.
Last year he played only 3 games because he fell, hurt his neck, was cleared of serious neck damage, but was held out of remaining games. We do have room for him if we get rid of Howard or Przybilla. Since it looks like Howard will go, it looks like we'll add a forward from this camp. But we've only seen 1/5 of the games, so that player may change from Ibekwe.
Ibekwe is quick, agile, blocks shots, and has trouble gaining weight. He is Outlaw without the shooting ability, so he is forced to play inside, and accomplishes what Outlaw should have--rebounds and blocks. He is what people hoped Outlaw would become when Travis was drafted. He gets pushed around due to his coat hanger skeleton, but unlike Outlaw, in 4 years of college plus 3 years of international experience (compare to Outlaw's 7 NBA years out of high school) he has learned to slither through the trees under the basket. In other words, he would be about as good as Outlaw, but quite different.
Jesus Christ. The guy has a sore Achilles, he wasn't drafted for explosiveness, and he is a MUCH better shooter than Luke Jackson. Jackson, btw, was shelved by his back injury, not how "slow" he was. He scored 30 points in the final NBA game.
The Oregonian is framing this series as a survival camp for PGs, Mills vs. Johnson. I think both will make the team and 2 SGs will be out, since I call Bayless a SG. Supposedly, Paul Allen prefers Mills because he kept Mills over Udoku last preseason. But it was also Allen who paid $3M to get the Johnson draft pick. So Allen has a dog in both hunts. Both will stay and the Oregonian is wrong. Probably, a Vulcan wanted to add motivation to the camp, so he leaked to the paper that it's one PG or the other.
