NBA Vegas Summer League Day 10 Review

by Jon L on Jul 19, 2010 10:00 AM EDT in 2010 Vegas Summer League Comment 0 comments

And so, Vegas Summer League draws to a close. Many of yesterday's games seemed like afterthoughts, as many of the team personnel and other scouts already had left or were leaving, and those teams that were playing rested most of their players already under NBA contract. There were still some fun moments and some solid performances, though. As with Saturday, the extended playing time given to free agents means that we have more free agent Monstars (and Nonstars) to talk about. I'll write about about the top free agent performers for the week overall at some point, but for today we're just talking about those who went out in style.

Since most people visiting Ridiculous Upside are probably doing so as a way to see who's looking good and bad at Summer League in lieu of a recap of each game, Scott has ~~saddled me~~ made the brilliant decision to bring back the lovely Monstars and Nonstars that we employed during the D-League playoffs. These are the three(-ish) best and non-best players of the day, again sticking with players you may not be familiar with. Hit the jump to see who they were.

Monstars

Gary Neal, SG, San Antonio Spurs - Neal was the talk of Vegas yesterday, as he scored 16 points in the first quarter on his way to 25, with two rebounds, two assists and two steals. Neal shot extremely well early on, making six of his 10 three-point attempts. He scored just two points in the second half, though he was on the bench for most of it in a blowout (a blowout that was such partly because of him), but his first half outburst was enough to solidify his standing as one of the top free agent performers of Vegas Summer League.
David Monds, F, Cleveland Cavaliers - Do you think Monds reads RU? (Probably not.) A day after playing his worst game of the week, Monds had his best by far. He scored 14 points and grabbed a game-high 15 boards, eight of which came on the offensive end. This was the kind of performance he was capable of all week (against Summer League competition, anyway). It looks like there were a lot of missed shots in this game, so there were a lot of rebounding opportunities, but he still did it against decent prospects on Milwaukee's side, so it definitely was a worthy opponents.
Sean Williams, F/C, Milwaukee Bucks - Williams closed out Summer League with his best game of the week, 16 points on 5-7 shooting and 10 rebounds. He also had nine fouls and five turnovers, so it wasn't an unmitigated success, but it was still good to see him work the boards; his previous high this week had been six, and he matched that just in offensive rebounds yesterday.
Morris Almond, SG, Chicago Bulls - Almond is still pretty much a scorer, but he's also not consistent. He has bad nights, or like yesterday, good ones. One thing Almond is generally consistent about is getting to the free-throw line, and he made 8 of 11 foul shots and six of 13 field goal attempts to finish with 22 points. He also had five rebounds, which is a nice bonus from him.
Mike Gansey, SG, D-League Select - Gansey has been shooting well this week, but hadn't yet shown much of his rebounding ability. That changed last night, though, as he had 10 rebounds along with 15 points. Gansey had a game-high six offensive boards, and had more total rebounds than anyone except teammate Curtis Withers.

Nonstars

Bennet Davis, PF, D-League Select - I mention this every time I talk about Davis now, but his offense really has improved by leaps and bounds over the last year or so, so it's unfortunate that he hasn't demonstrated it in Vegas. Davis shot 1-6 last night and just 20 percent from the field overall, never making more than two field goals in a game. Most of the D-League games weren't televised, so I didn't get to see much of them and I'm not quite sure what the problem was. He's 26, which still isn't that old for a prospect, so perhaps he can bounce back from this week with another good year in the D-League and work towards a call-up.
Jeremy Richardson, G/F, Los Angeles Clippers - Richardson, like Davis, has struggled all week, but without Davis' rebounding ability to fall back on. Richardson shot 23 percent over the course of five games, and 1-6 last night. Richardson also is 26 years old like Davis, but he already has intermittent NBA experience, and his offense seems to be declining rather than improving, so I'm not really sure what the answer is for him.
Jack McClinton, SG, Chicago Bulls - McClinton was an efficient scorer in college, but that went away at some point when he played in Europe this past season, and getting more playing time yesterday didn't change things. McClinton played 30 minutes against Portland after averaging 10 or so in the four previous games, and needed 13 shots to score 12 points. He has shot 32 percent overall from the field and under 17 percent from outside. His efficient scoring was his best (only?) attribute when he was drafted in the second round, and without that I'm not sure who'd be interested in his services.
Joe Krabbenhoft, SF, Portland Trail Blazers - Krabbenhoft has some versatility, being a decent rebounder and passer and an occasional scorer, but he didn't get much chance to display any of those abilities with an NBA contract-heavy Portland roster. So he really didn't help himself when he missed all five of his field goals while playing 20 minutes yesterday, twice as much as his previous high this week. He grabbed six rebounds, but his seven fouls negate those a bit.

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