I learned two players that will play for the Bulls this season looked pretty good. Tomorrow is another day
I thought the game was really interesting from a learning standpoint. My takeaways: I fucking love summer league. If you carved thirty games off the regular season and dedicated them to other types of formats I'd be a happy man. I know it might mess with cumulative stat records but who cares about those in basketball? I'd much rather have a mid-season single elimination tournament, extended summer league, and games against teams from other countries than the last third of the regular basketball season. I thought McDermott looked a step slow and I wasn't crazy about his shot selection. It looks to me like he's still using a lot of vocabulary that won't work in the regular season, let alone the playoffs. He had a really weak summer league debut last season, if I remember correctly, so maybe it was just a bad game. My biggest concern about Portis was whether his funky jump shot would be too slow for the NBA. I think it's going to be fine. If you use Carlos Boozer's shot as a comparison (and he intermittently had trouble getting his jumper off) I think Bobby Portis is a little bit longer, his release is a little bit quicker, he has a similarly high release, and perhaps most importantly, Portis is a threat to take it off the dribble so people won't be able to crowd him the same way. He also has a broader vocabulary for getting his shot off than Boozer. I think Portis's jumper is going to fine, provided he can hit with consistency when open. I view that comment about how Thibodeau would have liked Portis on the boards against Tristan Thompson as the classic overvaluing Summer League type stuff. I love Karl-Anthony Towns as a prospect but he's rail thin right now. There's still going to be an adjustment period for Portis on the glass and on defense when matched up against average NBA front courts, and an even longer adjustment period before he can begin to handle guys like Thompson who are transcendent at what they do. I thought both Portis and Bairstow struggled a little bit on defense and the boards against Adreian Payne, who looks like he's turned himself into a serviceable, replacement level big who will have a long career in the NBA. I think it's just a question of how long it will take for Portis to make the adjustment. Making a very broad observation: Portis looks every bit like an NBA player. He's smart and makes great decisions, has a really good handle and passing ability, is athletic and long enough to play at least one position, and has decent touch inside and out . . . I think he's going to have a long NBA career and is a significant upgrade over a guy like Cameron Bairstow, who probably will struggle to consistently stick on rosters. I'm not convinced that Portis is going to be able to play center yet. He has a really long neck which I think makes his height somewhat deceptive. Again, he got moved around pretty good by Adrein Payne, who is a more conventional sized NBA center. I wouldn't be shocked if Portis is a one-position player like Mirotic appears to be. I've been under the impression that Hoiberg was going to institute a different offense than he used at Iowa State. I noticed on the first handful or so plays of the game though, the team was running something similar to what he instituted there. It's a lot of dribble handoff stuff around the three point line, often with four players outside of three point line and one in. It's different than what I've seen run before in the NBA and I'm not exactly sure if I like it. It reminds me a little bit of some of the structures I saw Real Madrid use a couple of years ago. I was under the impression that Hoiberg was going to institute the same stuff everybody else uses, but hopefully teach it a little bit better. I don't think that's the case. I thought Hoiberg's comments about how he wanted to give the ball to Portis against Towns, and let them battle it out showed that Hoiberg has a meatball side. It reminded me of Thibodeau.
One last thing: I was very surprised that Gar Forman said at half time that the team anticipated being in the tax. That means to me that either Noah or most likely Gibson is dead man walking this upcoming season, and that the franchise is going to make a trade at the deadline that puts them back under the luxury tax threshold.
