The Ringer NBA Show - Impressions From Summer League | Upside High

Episode Date: July 14, 2022

Jonathan Tjarks and J. Kyle Mann discuss the players and performances that impressed them the most from their time at NBA summer league in Las Vegas. They begin their conversation by taking a close look at Jabari Smith Jr. (4:11) and Tari Eason (16:24) while projecting big things for their pairing in Houston. Next, they discuss Chet Holmgren (23:45), Jalen Williams (30:30), and Jaylin Williams (33:26) and make their predictions and examine NBA comps for them. They end the pod by debating the importance of the second-year players participating at summer league and talking about some impressive names coming into the league who may be flying under the radar (36:19). Hosts: J. Kyle Mann and Jonathan Tjarks Producer: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the icons club. Folks basketball is very, very good.

We're at a lull of the year on the basketball calendar for like official things. But we're coming back from Summer League. My name is J.com, man. This is upside high. I'm joined as always by Jonathan Charks, who is fresh back from Summer League as well. John, how was your travels? Are you feeling good? What's up, buddy?

Man, I felt like I just mainline basketball for four days. Just you're in that gym. Time is like very relative. It's like a casino, basically. You lose track of time when you're. there. It's like a casino in a place full of casinos. Yeah, I guess it's designed to sort of make you forget what time of the day it is. I definitely, there is a moment where you walk up those steps and you're getting ready to go out the front door and you're like, wait, what? Like, I don't know,

super, super hot. How did you adjust to that heat out there, man? You said it got especially hot before you left. I mean, the key is just staying inside. You just hunker down to that gym and you're just, you wait until the sun comes down for you go out. It's kind of live that. Vegas vampire lifestyle, I guess. Yeah, the Uber situation got me a couple times, like we said. I mean, because you can't, you can't drop a pin anywhere, like just anywhere in Vegas. They're very particular, but you know how they have like the snap thing? Like, you'll try to drop it somewhere and it'll like snap you to somewhere further away.

And I was coming out of somewhere and I just like needed a quick ride. And they couldn't pick me up where I was. So I ended up just having to walk like 10 minutes in the like 110 degree heat. I had like sweat through my clothes. It was it was horrible. But the basketball was not horrible. And especially, you know, a great time to just meet people that I've talked to online for like two or three years. You'd gotten to meet a lot of those people already. But we had a huge ringer contingency. I mean, how many people did we have nine or ten? It was something crazy. Well, it's not said publicly. So Spotify doesn't get to ask too many questions.

That was a work trip. I was going to ask you, what was your favorite thing? I mean, the food part of the trip is great. I was curious, did you have a favorite, like, food item from the trip, Charks that really stood out to you? Any of your meal experiences? We were out there with the gourmand, Rob Mahoney. That's true.

Who makes omelets in a kimono, I'm sure. But did you have a favorite food item or entree when you were out there? I was curious. You already know what I'm going to say. I mean, if I'm going to be on here, I'm going to plug best friend. Shout out Roy Choi. Korean-Mexican fusion. It's the park MGM.

If you're ever in Vegas, it's the spot. I love it. It's a good place. It is a good place to eat. I had some tacos there as well. And for everyone that I met at Vegas, or I got to see it Vegas, it was good to see it.

Oh, I mean, it was cool to see you all your adoring fans. Kyle was getting swarmed in Vegas. It was awesome. I don't think that that's the term I would use. You know, we got to talk to some people who were fans of the pod, and that was really nice.

I mean, seriously, in all seriousness. That means a lot, and I enjoy, I enjoyed meeting those people. But on to the basketball, which is why we're all here. You and I have kind of bounced around and talked about players on different pods. We did a long one with KOC, where we talked a lot about Palo. I think we both agreed that Palo was kind of far in a way, the most impressive player at Summer League. And we're going to be riding about that on the ring or some. We want to talk about the other guys in the top three. Palo's been kind of. of ad nauseum. Jabari Smith is another guy. You had some takes on Jabari. What was your general

kind of takeaway? Was this a good outing for Jabari Smith? Was this an eye opening? Like, oh, this is, what do you think Summer League did for the Jabari Smith discussion? That's a good question. I guess for me personally, I view it more as, man, I got to watch, I think I watched Jabari Smith three times in person. So that was like, when you get to see a guy, that many times up close, you just get to form a much different, I would say fuller opinion on him. I mean, in an NBA season, right, for me, not being in Houston, I'd probably take me multiple seasons to see Jabari that often in person and that many different games, that many different contexts.

So for me, it's just more about the evaluation and just the ability to see him in person, see him matched up with a lot of different kinds of players, see how the rockets were using him. as far as the broader conversation goes, it'll be forgotten in a couple weeks anyways, right? Like whatever he did in Summer League in terms of the quote-unquote narrative doesn't really matter. But I thought for sure,

it was very revealing to me to just watch him up close and personal that many times. Well, you talked about like the eval, you know, we've talked about Javario on this show quite a bit. Did anything stand out to you in terms of his game? Like in the way that he performed, was anything confirmed or did anything new pop up to you,

I guess, just from watching him in that setting. Well, the one thing that was cool. So after we did the pod with KOC, check that out on the on the mismatch feed, I got to see Jabari play again. And they played him at the five. So it was against the Spurs. And they started Jabari at the five, Tari Easton at the four, who'll get into a second.

That was really interesting. And it was like maybe it kind of like put the, I obviously at the back of my mind, like Jabari obviously played power forward in college. next to Walker Kessler. But seeing him at the five was just like, okay, he is really long. He's not super big.

But then you're thinking about the five conference finals this year. The fives were Dwight Powell, Maxie Cleaver, Kvon Looney, Draymond Green, Rob Williams, Al Horford, Bam, out of bio. Jabari could match up with those guys, I think, in a couple years at worst. Yeah, I think the positional thing, I don't know that he's quite the athlete.

I guess you see him as leaning more towards like the positional, like the talker. His defensive communication, I thought, was pretty solid, like from the first game. I mean, he's a big time like a talker. He's always kind of aware of what's going on. Seems like a bright, just like a high-motored thinker on the defensive end. Is he a little skinny, I guess? That's kind of the question, too.

He's going to get bigger. We expect his frame to fill out quite a bit, don't you think? Yeah, I don't think he's, that chat level where you wonder about that. I think he will definitely fill out. He's also younger. But for me, it was just seeing that in person

and seeing it play out. It was like, okay, if you play Jabari at the 5, it really kind of gives you an interesting identity as a team, right? You're going to have incredible spacing. You're going to have a lot of length.

I mean, even with a smaller player, you're going to have a guy with like, all of a sudden, we talked a lot about how he wasn't creating a ton of shots at the 4. His lack of ideal ball skills. But you play him at the five. I mean, all of a sudden, now he's very skilled for his position, right?

Now he's able to take guys off the dribble. And then I think your entire team, you can have a smaller team, but you have a very flexible team. You have a very fast team. And it's an interesting idea. I think I was so, like, locked into Shangun. I think Shangun is an important part of the Rock is going forward. But it just opened my eyes to the idea of, man,

maybe the future for the Rockets is Jabari at the 5th. If you had big defenders at the point of attack, what worries me a little bit about that is if you're going to lean in on Tai Tai, if you're going to lean in on Jalen Green, if you're going to put those guys on the floor together a lot, do you think that that is going to maybe put them in a vulnerable position if they're a little leaner, a little smaller, like at the 5 spot? because I just think that you would really need to have big physical wings. I know they have one that we're going to talk about.

What do you think about that balance between those like scoring kind of more slender guards and then putting him? And then also, I mean, that seems like possibly like a short-term solution, having him played defensively there or having him like attack fives. We want to get him to the point where he's handling the ball and expanding what he can do if he's going to reach that star potential. I don't know. What do you think defensively about that balance?

And then offensively, do you think that that's kind of the timetable or that would be the plan? Like, we would, is it better to have him attacking fives instead of wanting him to grow at attacking perimeter players? I think that's a great point, which often gets missed. It's like if you have a small five, you've got to have big wings in front of him. That's why kind of a small ball was always the wrong term, I think. It was always more medium ball, right? Like, when the Warriors were at their best, it was Draymond. But then they had massive wings in front of them at every position, basically.

And that for sure, we'll talk about us in a second, but it was Jabari at the 5, Tari at the 4. That combination looked really good in Vegas. And you're right, if you had smaller guards, maybe that's not the best fit. But no offense, but I'm not letting Tai Tai Washington impact how I use Jabari Smith. Like, I'm much more concerned about maximizing my number three. Is that why you said offensive? Am I offended by that? He's not my son.

I don't care. I love how he just slipped in, oh, well, if they're building around Tai Tai, then they got it. They're very happy to have Tai Tai. Sure. I know that. I think that he's somebody that got undervalued and you get him into the program here. I mean, I definitely think that he's going to be on their mind, whether or not he, like, has the same equal trade value as other guys. Or I think they're going to want to try to get those guys all on the floor together, at least have him in the rotation.

But I don't know. I think offensively behind Jalen, he's probably their most talented. You could do the KPJ thing. But just trying to figure out how to get everybody on the floor, I think Taitai is going to be a big factor on that front, I would assume. Yeah. And I want to go back to what you said before about it being a short-term solution. Maybe it's a long-term solution.

Do you think Jibari could be like the closing five for the rockets in three or four years? And that's their identity. That's a good question because the guys that do that, let's think about the smaller fives that aren't because he's not, he is long, but he's not crazy long. He moves well, but he's not like a rangey fly around guy that can defend the whole. I think he's probably best used as like a weak side help kind of guy. I don't know. You think Draymond is so hard to compare to because he has the long arms because he's pretty one of the more talented like anticipating to. fenders ever. Horford is a little, is Horford, they're probably about the same size, I guess, honestly, at the end of the day. Horford's built bigger than Jay. I don't know. I'm just trying to think of like, what are the qualifications for you to be that type of player if you're going to, if you're going to be a small ball, quote unquote five in the NBA. I wanted to ask you about that actually, Horford. Because that was a player I hadn't really thought much about with Jabari,

but it kind of seems like a potential path for me in terms of a really high IQ guy, spaces the floor moves the ball. Because that's what I noticed in Summer League 2 was that Jaya Jabari sometimes was like giving up athletically. He got beat off the dribble a few times. But a lot of times he's able to get back in position, use his arms to poke balls away. He was really good about very crafty.

And it was like watching an almost watching an older player because he was making up for lack of elite athletic ability with craftiness. And I'm watching that at a 610 frame. And I'm thinking maybe there's some Al Horford. Yeah, are you shifting the star discussion, though? I know we kind of feel similarly about him and, like, his challenges. You, like, naming this or, like, pointing to this pathway for him, is that in your mind, like, cementing, like, okay, well, I mean, like,

these aren't superstar players that you're talking about. Like, are we moving away from the idea of him being on ball and, like, growing into that? Like, is that kind of where your mind is? Because, like, Draymond, Horford, great players, but they're not like superstar franchise level players. I mean, I don't want to put a ceiling on a guy as talented Jabari at his age. You know, that seems a little silly to do this early in his career. Well, you just did.

So, uh, also don't tell Rob Mahoney, Al Horford's not a superstar. Like, I'll have to make sure I'd listen to this pot. I'll tell Rob Mahoney whatever I want. Okay. I'm just thinking like potential developmental pathways. And I think when you're as young as Jabari, there's a lot of them. And I think kind of like

this idea of star, not star, it's a little reductive, especially for an 18, 19 year old. Like, let's just try to maximize his game, right? He's a pretty unique player.

Let's add different elements to his game. If you want to throw out a star, right, maybe the star idea is maybe could he be Chris Bosch in Miami? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

Let's not boil it down to semantics and be dismissive. You want to say star? You're saying, I'll say potato. I'm talking about a certain type of value level for a player. If you want to, if you want to reduce it to stun. I'm not, I'm not dismissing him. I'm just saying we can agree that there are different types of players in the way that they are used, right? So like, let's say, is a Kevin Durant more valuable than an Al Horford? Both guys are kind of playing similar

spots. They offer different things. The value levels are just different. So I think you're smiling. I don't know. I'm just I'm not saying he can't become a star. I'm just, I want to have some clear. All right, but I guess like my saying is, okay, to maximize Jabari, I was just saying like Chris Bosch in Miami

as like the smaller five. I think that gives some more room to create against bigger defenders. And then you're trying to like leverage his defensive chops to maximize his offensive ability by moving him to the five. Like who's the most elite players in that role?

I guess Bosch is a really good example. Bosch could attack some off the dribble, though. He had some of that post-sk, it was like, Bosch was never like a straight line, like close-out driver, although the NBA is kind of different now than it was when he was playing, even like 10 years ago. I'm trying to think of, like, the most elite offensive players who've served that role, right?

I mean, he's one. I don't know, off the top of my head, I can't think of another one. Like the players who produced the most, like, Gellinari is a bit. kind of a big time score in that role when he was in his prime. I don't know. Can you think of any others? I'm thinking it. I mean,

let me get a list going and take a poke around. Because I think, as you were talking about in terms of his limitations, I would think Jabari would struggle if he was asked to be Chris Bosch in Toronto, where he's playing the four. He's the hub of the offense. He's living in the midpost, going for like 25 a night,

kind of creating everything. That's not the path. I think Jabari's on right now. I wouldn't really want to build that way. But I do think Chris Bosch at the 5 in Miami, where now you're spreading the floor, a more willing shooter, you're going to have big close-out lanes,

and you're going to have a faster team in front of him. That I think might maximize whatever he does have. If I was Houston, I would be thinking a lot about, I want to build the kind of team that gives me the flexibility to play Jabari at the 5. So speak, this is a great segue, Charks.

This is a great segue. for for you to play that way. I mean, heavily personal dependent. This is a time for you to take a lap, I think. I think that's kind of a, that's a theme of this pod. After the draft, after the draft, it always makes me laugh when people, I'm not going to name any names, but it just, it does make me laugh when people are like really quick to wave their receipts around. and I have witnessed some people waving their receipts, whatever, we're not going to go there.

It's just going purely by Summer League here. Tari Isson looked great. I think the early returns are good for you. Maybe I'm being hypocritical turnaround saying that you should take some credit here. But Tari, wildly impressive, I think, in Summer League. And if you were looking for a player that fits the mold of what we were talking about, a big athletic wing who has switchability. Tari's switchability. What would you say it from where to where? What do you think based on what you saw in Summer League? One to five.

Truly. I guess the question is like foot speed wise, we think he can stay with smaller guards on ball. Agree, disagree? Yes. Long enough to bother big perimeter shooters. He's a gap closer like we talk about a lot, lunges towards the ball quickly, just blocks. He has that like thigh bowl kind of quality. Like he blocks jumpers without fouling. And he's strong. I mean, bodies, bigs, seems like the perfect guy to pair with a guy like Jabari, don't you think? Yeah.

And I appreciate you. Let me do the victory lap. It's because it's better when someone else gasses you up. So I'll gas you up in a second and you can be your own little lap. So I don't, you're right. I hate that. it's so ridiculous. Like, for one thing, real quickly,

for I going to, it's not about you as a quote-unquote analyst. Wait, what? Like, life, I know on Twitter, it's like, everything has to come back to me. And it's almost galling.

Like, I'm going to watch the NBA draft where all these guys' lives are changed. There's so many interesting that thing happened. But the main thing I'm going to focus on on my own takes and whether they're validated. Like, come on, guys. Like, let's, come on.

Are you saying there's narcissism out there on the internet charts? I don't know, man. I don't know. And as far as Tari goes, a couple things. Number one, the most important rule about Summer League is that if it's something you already believe, then it means something. And if it doesn't, if it goes against one of your takes before, well, then it's just Summer League.

Like, don't worry about it. It doesn't mean anything. So, like, I always say Summer League is two weeks. of confirmation bias, number one. And number two, the things for me, like we talked about on KOC's pod, is physical tools really stand out in this setting. When you're seeing so many players, you're seeing the entire league, and you see those like 1% guys, and you're like, dang, I just watched like the best athletes in the world

and this guy, even in that setting, is different. And that was Tari Isam. But my favorite play, like a summer league maybe, I think we were both at this game. he went up for a dunk and someone tried to block him and he just refused to be blocked and he dunked it again. Like the guy like grabbed his wrist almost and he powered through him and finished dunking.

And Tari was just everywhere in Summer League. Like he was like 6-8, 215. And what you were saying about strength really stood out too. Like he bullied Chet a few times. Where he was like, give me that ball. And he's just pushing guys around. Guys are bouncing off him. He high pointed Chet at one point.

He did. I went to try to finish over the top, and Tari gave him a little look like, nah, that's not happening here. He's a special athlete, man. Yeah, and they were throwing oops to him. Like, they were already, like, trying to give him the ball as many different ways as they could.

And I guess, yeah, to go back to what you were saying, the combination of Jabari and Tari was like, wow, this just works so well together. Because, yeah, if you have a guy like Jabari at the 5, you want a big physical point of attack defender in front of them, as you were saying. And it's like, I can put Tari on anyone. Like he can be my, I think that's the idea in Houston is this guy's going to be my stopper.

Like I'm throwing him on the big wings. I'm throwing him on a smaller guard and a switch if I have to. Shoot, like I can play Tari at the five, Jabari at the four in certain matchups. Yeah, you definitely could. And he definitely did some things. I mean, he's not perfect. I think the offensive game, we love the defense. Like it's incredible.

It's just his floor, I think. The ceiling is really high. The floor is impressive. The offense is interesting because you're kind of wondering what's his upside as a shooter. He did some of the stuff that we laughed about before the draft where he would just kind of wildly drive to the rim and people just bounce off of him. It's like he's made of rubber. I went back and watched one clip where a dude bounced off of him and I looked to see if Tarie extended his arm and he didn't. He just kind of had his arm up.

What do you think about him as a finisher? kind of noticing he's a little bit like he's a little chaotic sometimes his craft as a finisher he'll miss bunnies but he's also finishes through contact pretty well what do you think he needs to work on to become like a consistent offensive player to balance things out i mean and you can say that's about a lot of guys at summer league is playing under control and that's a skill not a lot of younger guys have and when you do see it's very impressive it's like okay you can go full speed at the basket, but sometimes you only want to go 60% at the basket.

Sometimes you got to pull it back, even though you can go faster. And that's where I think having the other side of it is important too, because when you have Jabari Smith spreading the floor, that makes it a lot easier for a guy like Tari to bully his way of the basket, right? Because you've got much better spacing with the five-man like Jabari shooting it. And then obviously, too, you're going to need both Tari and Jabari need to get set up.

I guess that brings us to your boy, Tai, what did you see from him in Summer League? He was good. I don't think he was like mind-blowing. I think he looked comfortable most of the time from what I watched. There are a couple games I didn't get to see absolutely everything of Tai Tai Tai.

But yeah, I mean, he looks like somebody that is offensively has a modern game. I think he's going to be able to grow into some playmaking chops. I think that he and he and Jalen together are an interesting pairing. because I do think that, like, Tai Tai has a little bit of that. Like, he has some ability to defer in him. He's a little older, though, like we talked about on KOC's pod.

I don't know. Nothing really changed dramatically for me on the Tai Tai Tai front, honestly. He's one of those that, like, he wasn't, like, explosive and loud. Like, he didn't have huge outbursts. He was a little more subtle. So I kind of come away from Summer League not really having, like, dramatic change of thoughts on Thai. tie, honestly. So the other big storyline here, we're talking about the top three is, honestly,

the Thunder at large, but Chet Holmgren. Chet has played a lot through Summer League. Basically, I think he missed what one game. Did he miss? Has he missed any games? I'm not sure that he has. Not the ones I saw in Vegas. I mean, he might get sitting out now. You never know anymore at this point in Summer League. Right. We're getting to the dog days of Summer League here now. Chet has had some pretty remarkable moments. He had some high moments where he looked like he had the Orlando Magic fans like cowering and worrying about making a huge mistake. And then it kind of, it leveled out a little bit.

He didn't stay at that. That was not his cruising altitude throughout Summer League, I wouldn't say. Chet's strength throughout Summer League, did you see anything? You know, people have had questions about his, what his challenges are going to be. You kind of hear that over and over again, the body, the body, the body. What do you think showed up

just through this sort of limited prism of NBA action? What do you think showed up as a concern or something that surprised you about Chet here in Summer League? I would say the strength thing. Not that it's very surprising, but like when you first see him,

you're kind of odd by his length. But then the more you watch, like, okay, you do see he is getting pushed around some especially in the Orlando game, I thought. There was also a couple sequences. Not only does like, he gets bumped off his spots. Guys do take the ball from him sometimes.

And it's like he gets pushed to the perimeter. But it also felt like with smaller defenders, I noticed that they really, sometimes he's dribbling, he's just dribbling in circles. Because a smaller guy, he's not beating the smaller guy. He has to put the guy on his back, basically. And that's something for me, too, as I was thinking about with Chet, So I'm only 6'4, so it's not quite the same.

But I'm a 6'4 guy who likes to dribble. I always prefer taller guys guarding me. Like, I hate having a smaller guy get in my dribble, get under me, push me off, use a center of gravity. And I saw that summon summer league where when a smaller guy was switched on him, it was a little tough for him sometimes. It's unrealistic to expect a 7-footer to be attacking off the bounce consistently against NBA guards. I don't know that people, I've heard people criticize Chet on that front. the percentage of guys who are that size who can attack legitimate NBA defenders and can get low enough. Like, it's like Janus and who else?

I mean, not many guys can do that consistently and create. I don't think that I don't think that Chet needs to be able to do that, honestly. I think he needs, he just needs to be able to kind of alternate between, like, getting guys on his back attacking. He's not like a blowby perimeter player. in my opinion. You know, I don't think that he's going to just cook people off the dribble. His handle does need to improve a little bit if he's going to, if he's going to be a primary ball handler. I've been paying a lot of attention to, you know, we saw him at Gonzaga take these kind of short trips in transition where he'd like drive three point line to three point line.

Didn't get all the way to the rim. I was trying to pay attention to him like, how well did he get into traffic, how well did he get into the middle of the floor and then make a decision? because that's the kind of stuff that we didn't see at Gonzaga. Yeah, and I think that'll be huge for him. As you were saying, the short trips, it's those one to two dribbles, then make the next pass. I think that will be one of the strengths of his game. But I do think that's also where the strength is an issue,

where he's getting pushed. And, I mean, you do see it when you see him out there. He doesn't have super broad shoulders. He's just a super skinny guy. I think he will get stronger, but I don't know how much more. how much more weight he's really going to add? Yeah, and I've talked with people about this.

I'm like, I don't think he needs to get huge. It's just he's going to have to add lean strength so he can take those hits, and attacking closeouts. I've always kind of thought that he needed to be more of like a pace player who just like slowly takes his time. If he shoots the ball well, he should be okay on that front. His defense, I thought, was pretty impressive. He had some closeout moments.

he was flying around. It seemed like he earned the respect of some guys. Defensively, what did you make of Chet in Summer League? Did he live up to the reputation that radicalized you before the draft? For sure. He looked great. It's funny because he was so aggressive on defense. He was just always in the mix.

So he got dunked on at least once or twice that I saw. But he blocked a billion shots. And it just felt like he was challenging guys. Guys were challenging him. There was just a lot of action when Shet. that was involved in the defense. And obviously the biggest thing is just covering up space. This is the ability to cover up space with his length.

And I think that's ultimately why I'm not too concerned about whatever struggles he might have had in Summer League. It's just you saw what that length can do on both ends of the floor, where when he is able to get to a spot and elevate, it's unguardable because he's just so long. He can always shoot over guys. and he's covering up so much space on the defensive side. If he's just going to be like a dependable catch and shoot player

and provide that level of defensive impact, that's a good player already. I guess the question is, and we've talked about this a lot, like is he going to, it's the same thing with Jabari, is he going to be able to cross that bridge into like, okay,

we can have this guy carry a big load, we can have this guy facilitate offense from the elbow, things like that. Like, I don't know. We're still not sure about that. strength is going to be a big part of that. And is he going to be able to pass over the top and set guys up?

Luckily, he's playing with the guy who's going to be his point guard. It's been fun to kind of watch them work their chemistry out over Summer League, honestly. Josh Giddy. Yeah, I mean, I think that will be Chet's role in year one is kind of moving the ball, playing off guys. I think that's what's kind of encouraging, too, is cutting, passing, shooting. And Chet can be just part of the offense. He's going to be able to kind of walk into a bigger role over time because they do have Josh Giddy and, you know, Shagg, Gilles,

Alexander once the NBA season starts. And they have another guy who has, is a ball handler, who can shoot the ball, was very impressive getting to the rim. And that's Jalen Williams. Speaking of victory laps. Am I taking a lap? Here we going on. He's one of those guys that like, one of my main.

main things about like waving receipts is that like there's some people you just shouldn't take credit for. I mean like Jalen Williams is good. It was clear. He was ranked. He valued highly. I didn't see anything that other people did see. It's just I do personally value that skill set higher than others. Like I do I do value guys that can handle the ball at that size. Like we've said before, came to college as like a point guard at 6-2, grew to 6'6 with 6. So now OKC has this guy. Do you think, Do you think, does Jalen Williams start for the Thunder? I mean, what do you think? Or has he come off the bench?

He'll come off the bench. I mean, they just gave Lou Dort 90 million dollars. That's true. I don't expect. Key variable. But they're going to be able to put some ball skill. You hit it, I think, with the Chet thing. They're going to be able to put some lineups on the floor with a lot of ball skills at different positions.

And there's not going to be tremendous pressure on Chet. but Jalen really around the rim, I think, is where he was the most impressive during Summer League. Yeah, and kind of what we've been talking about, how physical tools stand out in the setting. And really, physical tools are what don't always stand out on TV and screen. They don't always necessarily pop we can do in person. And I didn't watch a ton of Jalen Williams,

but he was a much better athlete than I had in my head coming into this. I was very impressed. Because you're right, the skill level was always pretty clear. But the way he was finishing a traffic, the way he was jumping in there and moving, it's like, man, this guy's got almost all of the pieces. This is a really impressive prospect. Yeah, it could be a, I mean, pretty decent size. He's right at about 6.6, 7, 2, and a quarter wingspan.

If I'm not mistaken, he had something pushing a 40-inch vertical. It could be an example of he's in a system with a little more space, a little less pressure on him because when he was playing at Santa Clara, you know, when he had the ball in his hands for longer stretches, all eyes were on him. And it could be an example now of the eyes aren't all on him because Giddy's such a steady, you know, can have the ball in his hands and make good decisions. He might just feel liberated right now that he is being able to cut.

And that's the advantage of having a player like Giddy. And then when you add Shay to it, it gets, I think it's going to allow those guys to touch into the other parts of their basketball IQ in ways that maybe they haven't had the opportunity to in the past. Yeah, I mean, this OKC's team all of a sudden has got super high skill level. So the other Jalen Williams, which we have to figure out how we're going to talk about this, because it is kind of weird. They've done it. It wasn't it like J. Dub and J. Will is the thing that they came up. Is that what they're doing? Yeah. And what's funny is I can't even remember which one is which from that.

But we're talking about the guy from Arkansas, a big guy who, very crafted. We talked about him a little bit after the draft. What's your take on Jalen Williams? Jay with a Y. Well, I was a big fan. I always love Biggs who can defend and pass, and that's what he can do.

And he was pinging the ball around. And you think about the two Jalen Williams, Chet, Shea, Giddy, that ball could ping and fly around the floor. You've got five guys who can really move it. pretty high-level decision-makers. And all of a sudden, it kind of feels like the pieces are starting to fall into place. It feels like there's an identity for this team, like with the kind of guys they've drafted

this year. Or now it's not just like a massive canvas, but all of a sudden, it's like you can kind of see the outline of a pretty good team pretty quickly. And that's the most exciting part. It really feels like they had, I think, four draft picks in the top 35. and it looks pretty good. Obviously, Usman Jang is his own thing. I'm still learning about him.

But, man, he was interesting to look at physically, just seeing him out there. He's freaking huge. Yeah. He just seemed like house money out there. It was hilarious to watch O'Casey's roster. And granted, they brought six guys, I think, to Summer League who started at least 10 games.

So they kind of had a cohesion that popped, that stood out. Zhang, yeah, is interesting. He's got kind of similar shooting issues to Tari, like shoots the ball low, has decent touch, but he shoots it low. That's going to have to come around. But off the dribble, I thought he looked pretty competent. Like we've said, 100 times, he's really young. Jalen, I think, is interesting in terms of, like, next to Chet.

I think there's a real opening for Jalen, Jalen with a Y to play minutes next to Chet next year because he's the type of defender I think that they're going to need. We talked about having connective tissue the way the rockets needed up front. I think that Jalen is the kind of guy who can maybe body bigger players. It's funny that we talked about this on Kevin's pod, and it never occurred to me that, like, oh, like, what kind of player would you put next to Chet? Like, what kind of body type? Jalen seems, I mean, positionally, we know he's super, super clever. He, like, led the NCAA in charges, which can be, you know, whatever your opinion is on that.

he seems like the type of player that would fit perfectly right here. I think so. I think the other options, I think Jeremiah Robinson Earl, a little more offensive-minded. I'd probably prefer Jalen in that role. Yeah. And I saw J.R.E at a restaurant. I just wanted to say that also. We were at a restaurant called Foohoo, and he was there.

Before we move on and talk about some of the other guys who stood out and we round out our thoughts on Summer League 2022, We are going to take a break. So something that I wanted to ask you about Charks, this has kind of been in the air in the discussion around Summer League. One of the big things is who plays, who doesn't play? Because if you notice, there's some second year guys out there getting reps, you know, and I'm going to tie this part of this discussion, you know, our guys Zaire that we've talked a lot about was out there basically running.

We saw some points at year, which is a chaotic proposition in and of itself. We saw Josh Giddy out. there basically playing every minute of every game or not every minute but he played every game he played a lot and okayc brought a lot of players do you think what do you think about second year guys playing in summer league who should play why why not um do you think there's any value for guys like that to play in summer league it's hard because there's value for me selfishly right made me laugh some of like the ESPN guys were blasting the guys not playing. It's like, well, you do work for a TV company that wants to get ratings. So I'm sure it's in your best interest for sticking your guys to

play also. I didn't take it that way. I thought it was just legitimately like they were annoyed by it. I don't know. Do you think Richard Jefferson was thinking about it on that level, on a programming level? I mean, it might have come up in a meeting, is all I'm saying. Possibly, possibly. Yeah. I'd prefer guys play. I mean, why not? They're already out here, right? They're already out here practicing. It's always valuable to get more opportunities.

I mean, always risk of injury, sure, but you're playing all summer anyways. It does feel like more and more guys aren't playing, but I'm looking at this list in the 2021 draft. It's really the top guys who didn't play. Most of the late first round picks were out there. Yeah, and my question just is, do these top guys have nothing to gain by being there. I mean, Giddy was picked what, he was top 10, wasn't he? I mean, Giddy. He's sixth. Yeah. Why should Giddy be out there and these other guys not? I'm not saying,

I'm not criticizing anybody specific. I'm just saying, I do think that these reps, my thought process on this is specifically the G League and it's hard, in this setting in Summer League, it's hard to get these low-consequence reps against an unpredictable defense. There's a difference between being in practice and growing your decision-making skills, I feel like, against your teammates or things like that. When you're out here with some of these guys

who are fighting for their basketball lives, I think that this is just a great context. Say you're somebody that's not a primary on-ball player, it's a good opportunity to get out there and grow those decision-making skills, in my opinion. Yeah, I think you're right. It's that if you're a guy who's not going to get a ton of reps during the season on the ball, then you want to maximize any on-ball reps you can get.

But, I mean, a guy like, you know, Jalen Green or Jalen Suggs. It's always the first one to go about Jalen Green. Like, they're going to get plenty of on-ball reps next year. So to me, it's not a huge deal. Obviously, I'd rather watch these guys play than not. But I'm not sure it really matters. I think it matters more for guys like our guys Zaire who aren't going to get very many reps on the ball on the season

but want to still expand their games. Well, what's the difference between the mentality of Josh Giddy, who is a good passer? What is he out there working on? I guess I'm trying to get to the bottom of what's the... Because it's like we've seen a guy like Cam Thomas who Steve Nash came out and said, I want to see him grow as like a decision maker.

We saw him play every time down he was like, I'm going to score this ball right now. I mean, and no one could stop him. Why not come into a setting like this and have the mindset of I need to grow in this particular way? I don't know. I'm just trying to see the difference between somebody like giddy and somebody like green or on and on. Why be out there? Why be out there if you're just giddy?

I mean, I don't think he had to be. It helps them work, you know, work with chat. he actually struggled against Xavier Simpson. Not that it really matters, but Xavier Simpson gave him the business in the game I watched. Yeah, I think being a little older and like, I don't read a ton into that. There are definitely going to be guys out there that are going to want to tee off

and like make an example or come at you. Maybe that's a challenge. You don't want to get embarrassed. It was nice for me to see guys like Zaire, out there playing point. Zaire still has a long way to go as a passer and decision maker. He looked good in his like pull-up game. He had a couple good games.

But Quentin Grimes is a guy who really benefited from going out there. I don't know. I guess I'm just seeing the difference. Is there really a huge difference between a guy taking top 10 and a guy taking in a late first round? I guess the risk is money at the end of the day. Maybe the risk of the investment. I think I would like to see more guys play. It just seems like a good opportunity.

Sure. Maybe they just don't feel like it. I don't know. They're in Vegas, you know, they had a long year trying to relax, hit the tables. Well, Cummina was out there. Cummina was out there, getting some on-ball riffs. Anyway, we could go on and on. Is there anybody else just kind of off the radar, like somebody that you thought

maybe deserve some credit for playing well that didn't get enough credit? Was there somebody? I don't know about credit's the right word, but a guy that stood out to me in this setting, Blake Wesley from Notre Dame. He was drafted by the Spurs. and his speed, seeing that in person was really impressive. This is a guy, people are going to have a hard time staying in front of him. He can get to the rim like that.

And that is a great start. Like, that's something to build on as a foundation. And you're watching the Spurs and it's like, this guy's going to play a lot next year probably, right? Like, why not? They got nothing going on anymore. Just throw him on the pile of athletic, you know, six, five guys that the Spurs have, that they just keep rattling through. Yeah, Wesley,

Wesley somebody, I just like his energy that he plays with. He always brings it. It seems like you never have to kind of worry about him getting motivated to play hard. I think that the Spurs, although they did just lose Chip England, as we saw,

but I think that the Spurs are a great setting for him, similar to kind of the way Kelden was. If you get these guys in here who have specific kind of skill set challenges that they can guide you in a better direction. I think Wesley fits that bill. I wanted to give a shout out to Namais, Kata, for the Kings. The Kings overall, feel-good Summer League, I think.

Did you get to see any of Kada? Yeah, I mean, he was impressive. Yeah, the bill on him coming out of college, just great rim protector. I think his body looks better. He's moving around. Something that was cracking me up was during these broken plays, it happened a few times.

He hit some face-up jumpers. I don't know. It seems like he he is on a trajectory to contributing at some point. Did you have anybody else that you wanted to shout out? I was going to say, Kada, he's an example of second round pick, but he really feels like a legitimate NBA, maybe even starting center, just in terms of he's got the size, obviously. He's freaking huge. And then I feel like when you're as big as Kada, the bar is lower across the board. okay yeah if you're that big and okay now you're reasonably fast and you're reasonably skilled

then like all of a sudden the pieces fall in the place where if you're in the pick and roll and you're anchoring the defense it's pretty easy for you to be a productive player I mean it kind of reminded me a bit of Damian Jones a guy the Kings had last year who was back at the Lakers

who's bounced around the league a lot but it feels like it's starting to put it together in terms of a solid NBA career and like it seems to me like Kita is going to play 10 years in the league. I bet he starts at some point somewhere if it's not Sacramento. I see Sacramento might be tough considering their personnel, but somewhere. Yeah, and it just seems like this is an example of why you can find centers later.

If I can get into Maas Kita at 40, it just makes, that's what makes the bar so high for these traditional centers who are gone going in the mid-first rounds. It's like that skill set I can find later. Josh Minot is a guy who produced some. Buzz. Josh Minot was somebody that you were really high on. Victory Lab. As we were saying, why not my not, baby? Like, love it. Not my not. Yeah. What did you like about Josh Minot? I mean, just the activity. It was funny. One game I was at, you could clearly see he'd run out

of gas by the end of the game because he'd been like flying around the court. And that was funny too in person. You get a really good sense. You're sitting right there at court side. And you can really see, oh, this guy's tired. right now. Like that's something, it doesn't always come across on TV, but man, no, he's fatigued. Like, oh yeah, he's not going to do anything next two minutes because he's really tired. He's just trying to stay on the courts. That happened a lot. Yeah, mine was a good pickup. Kendall Brown is another guy that you were thinking about. What about Kendall Brown? Well, kind of thing where in this setting, a six-eight wing who can move is like, he jumps off

the screen. And because a lot of times, too, in Summer League, what'll happen is, especially on most of these teams, there's like one or two guys you're watching, and then they'll go to the second unit. And that's when it gets pretty brutal. It's like that stretch where the top two picks are not playing. And it's just 5G league guys out there. But the Pacers do was nice because they had Mathrin and Brown.

So there's always somebody to watch. And Brown looked great. Brown was flying around the court. He made a lot of really nice passes. And it just felt like for where he was taken at 50, that's a heck of a great value. to get a guy with his kind of physical tools and with a developing skill set.

Like that, I think we talked about this after the draft, but there's this bucket of guys. My not Kendall Brown, Peyton Watson. I'm forgetting some, who's the other, there's a fourth guy too,

but like these six, eight wings, freshmen who came out with not a lot of experience, but have incredible upside. And it's like, whoever hits on that guy is going to be, that's going to be huge for whatever. every team that is. Yeah, and he's going to slot in with other guys who are like have playmaking

mindsets. He'll be able to do the things that he does well. You always going to kind of chart the RSCI like we talked about like guys that come in and maybe have a weird year with their usage. 48 is where he ended up getting picked. That is a great value for somebody like Indiana. Indiana who if he had played well, maybe not wouldn't have had the opportunity to draft him. So I think that that's a that's a great pickup. Any other observations from from Vegas, Charks. Any other thoughts? Oh, the other guy in that list, I was thinking it was Caleb Houston at 32.

Same kind of thing. And he's shown some stuff. Yeah. Playing off, playing off Paulo for sure. Yeah, big, big spacer, which really, I think in the short term is all he really has to, I mean, obviously has to play defense, but I don't think there's going to be a ton of pressure on him to do a whole lot on ball

based on who they have. We had a period of time there where it was like the young cores in the league where like the kings and then the grizzlies. Who do you think is the most impressive, like, really young core at the league right now? Based on which, did Summer League change you, anything for you on that front? I guess it's my question. I mean, that is the question, right?

Like, that is the one we're all kind of trying to figure out right now after these last couple drafts. We talked about it after the draft. There's a lot of really good young cores out there all of a sudden. I said OKC after the draft, and I'll stick with that. To me, OKC in Orlando. Yeah. just the Paolo Franz thing. I could not be more excited about that.

Yeah, it's the same discussion like you and I talked about young cores, I think at the beginning of last season, and we were ranking them and just I was, or maybe it was me and you in KOC, but I kind of feel like if you can get that, you know, four quarters don't always add up to the dollar, basically in the NBA, as we've seen. And if you can get that dollar, that one, that bill,

that's hard to do. And it seems like Orlando got one of those guys. And I think that that obviously is harder. That's why I was going to say any young core that has Luca in it could be argued that it's the best young core, in my opinion, because they're just such value-elevating players. Paolo's so, so impressive. Summer League, great time.

It was good to see everybody. It was good to get back out there. We're going to have some more writing coming up on that. I was going to say I saw Jeremy Sohan walking in the cosmopolitan. Very tall, very stylish young man. Just wanted to just wanted to throw that in there. Did you tell him that you were a big fan? You should have said, hi.

I supported you on my podcast. I was afraid to speak to him. I was. I like to leave them be out in public. Yeah, we're going to have some writing coming up on that. I know K.O.C. You have a notebook, right? I have a notebook.

When's that coming out? Dahlinger and I were talking about when we're going to fire that. Maybe Monday, actually. So we will see. Uh, Charks, it was good to see you. Good to see everybody. Yeah, it was fun. I mean, I love Summer League.

It's a great way to kind of wrap up the year, especially for us, the kind of part we did here at Upside High is always, obviously about those kinds of players. It's awesome to see them in person. And like you said, it was cool to hear from people about the pod, people who liked it. We really appreciate that, obviously. Appreciate all the support this year. It's been super fun. I think we're not quite sure what the plan is.

We'll be around those off-season at a certain point. maybe not as regularly, but we plan to be around to talk some more about this stuff. I also, I meant to say also I found out I'm an untapped golf talent. I think we didn't talk about that. Really? Yeah, I'm apparently a golf savant. I've never swung a club. Couldn't hit the ball at the beginning of the night.

And you can ask Jomey, I had this confirmed. Dollinger pushed back and acted like this didn't happen. But they have that big screen at the end of the net. It's like 220 something you are. I was hitting balls with your boy Ethan Strouds, apparently. And yeah, apparently I hit the back screen. So I was driving 220 by the time we left. So I've been encouraged.

I'm not going to act like I'm, you know, the chosen one, but I'm not going to say I'm not, you know, that kind of thing. So anyway, it's- Well, Kyle, you're getting to that age where you're going to start learning golf for sure so you can stay active physically. Yeah, or cycling. Like I always joke. That's what I feel like I'm destined to do. Or swimming, you know, whatever. So, all right, sharks.

Good to see you. Yeah. And we'll be back. soon. We're not sure exactly when, but we're going to be doing some stuff, hopefully coming up here soon on this feet on upside high. Charks, it was good to see you. Yeah, it was great as always, man.