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Hey, its Las Vegas Summer League, where NBA futures bets swing from bull market to crypto and besides, weve seen all of three games.
Remember Henry Ellenson? He once dropped 29 points in Vegas.
Set Pistons Twitter aflame.
Led the Detroit Pistons to the Summer League championship while dropping 3-pointers from all over the gym.
The 2017 first-round pick is now playing in Korea.
Hes been out of the league for half a decade.
OMARI SANKOFA II: 4 Summer League thoughts on Pistons: Ebuka Okorie has vast toolkit Keep that in mind when watching Ebuka Okorie, the Pistons' most recent first-round draft pick taken 17 th last month out of Stanford, where he played for a season and scored 23.2 points a game to lead the ACC in scoring.
The rookie, listed at 6 feet 2, struggled to shoot again Monday, July 13, in Las Vegas, but mostly, he struggled to finish.
Actually, it was more fundamental: He struggled with shot selection, because he struggled against length and physicality.
What worked at Stanford doesnt work in Las Vegas.
Which means the dribbling into traffic and slow-release 3-pointers wont work back in Detroit, either or in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Indianapolis, Toronto and all the other Eastern Conference cities with teams that have seemingly rocketed past the Pistons ..
on paper, at least.
Now that I think about it, why even play this winter? Its pointless.
The Pistons are toast.
Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren yes, hell be back are as good as theyre ever going to be, and new additions John Collins and Isaiah Joe wont make a bit of difference, and why is president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon destroying this franchise and why are all the general managers in this town so afraid to take a chance.
Dont they want to win? Nah.
Of course they dont.
Why would they want that? Sorry, back to the observations at hand, and to Summer League, where futures, and fortunes, are set in concrete after a few games in the desert.
Like Ellenson.
Or Cooper Flagg, who couldnt make a shot in Vegas last summer.
It's not that were comparing Okorie to Flagg.
But shooting for players who will have the ball in their hands can be a chore in Summer League as they adjust to the jump in speed and athleticism and pace.
Yaxel Lendeborg, the former Michigan basketball star, talked about struggling to find his wind after a couple of games playing for Golden State.
The speed wore him out.
For Okorie, its not the speed as much as its the beef.
And the length.
And the speed attached to that length.
He missed 13 of 18 shots Monday against the New York Knicks, a day after missing 12 of 17 against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Most of those misses were because he either got knocked off the ball or because he drove into the paint without a plan.
The rookie clearly needs to get stronger.
He wont disagree.
In fact, his college coach, Kyle Smith, said as much when he joined the Prime Video broadcast Monday and was asked what Okories biggest weakness would be.
Its gonna be the strength, Smith said on the air.
In fact, that was my argument to stay.
..
Smith smiled as he said this.
Okorie may be relatively slight 186 pounds but he isnt skinny.
Remember, Cunningham needed to get stronger, too.
Most college players do.
Just a matter of time That lack or relative strength is clear so far in Summer League.
So is his handle, his quickness and even his deceleration.
Twice in the first half against New York, he got to the paint and hit the brakes as he gathered his dribble and then finished over the off-balance defender.
He can finish with either hand, and the burst after a couple of lull dribbles is elite.
So is his hesitation dribble, which he flashed in the second quarter when he beat his man, touched the paint and looped a lefty pass out to Chaz Lanier on the wing for a 3-pointer.
(Lanier, meanwhile, is shooting well in Las Vegas.
Maybe itll transfer back to Detroit.
Maybe not.) Okories ability to get where he wants will make it to the Motor City.
And as he gets stronger, the number of untenable spots he finds himself in, as he did the past two games, will shrink.
No projection is certain, obviously, but there are traits that pop immediately, and Okorie's handle and sense of space are among them.
That was evident minutes into his first NBA action, like it was when Ausar Thompson took the court in Vegas a and jumped twice for a rebound before some jumped once.
Some things are easy to see.
And some things will take time.
Okorie has much to learn and much to work on in the gym, the one with hoops and the one with weights.
But the vision is clear, and so is the fit with the Pistons.
Its likely just a matter of time.
Contact Shawn Windsor: [email protected].
Follow him @shawnwindsor.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Ebuka Okorie has promise for Pistons, but he needs to get stronger.