Summer Thoughts: Thunder 103, Heat 98
Seventh place! The Thunder wrapped up their summer campaign with a win over the Heat with a solid 103-98 victory. First LeBron, then losing the seventh-place summer league game. Tough day in Miami. Thoughts and ideas:
- No Steven Adams, no Jeremy Lamb. The Thunder went 2-0 this week in games those two sat. IMPORTANT?
- Mitch McGary is the Thunder’s best player already. THERE I SAID IT. The Michigan man put together another strong performance with 18 points on 8-16 shooting plus five rebounds, two assists and two blocks. His final summer league averages: 14.8 points on 50 percent shooting plus 5.8 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.8 blocks in 26.0 minutes per game. Not bad.
- Perry Jones was a wave of emotions this week. He started well, then fizzled, then finished strong with 20 points on 7-11 shooting (4-6 from 3) plus eight rebounds. You almost see it in Jones right away with how he’s asserting himself. He hit a couple early looks and immediately flipped on his “Hey I can play!” face.
- Maybe Josh Huestis isn’t a complete novice on the offensive end. He showed a few things today, scoring 17 on 6-8 shooting, hitting one 3 and knocking down all four free throws. There was more aggressiveness to his game, but it also helped that the Thunder offense opened up with Christon attacking and creating plus other guys hitting shots.
- Semaj Christon shook loose and showed some of what he can do with his best performance — 17 points on 7-8 shooting (2-2 from 3) with five assists. Probably helped that Shabazz Napier was guarding him.
- Rick Kamla was really reaching asking if the Heat players might’ve been affected by the LeBron news.
- Quietly, Andre Roberson had himself a solid summer league. He scored 12 on 4-5 shooting, and could’ve had a bunch more if he could hit a free throw (I mean, COME ON). Roberson went just 4-12 from the stripe but did continue his encouraging trend of attacking the basket. He was his typical self on the defensive end, picking up four steals and while he got ran off some screens as Andre Dawkins got loose for seven 3s, but overall, good week. Roberson finished third in rebounding in Orlando (8.3 a game) and averaged 9.5 points on 48.3 percent shooting. He only hit a couple 3s, but his willingness to cut hard and aggressively attack the paint were nice to see.
- Bold take: Fuquan Edwin won’t be on the Thunder’s roster next season.
- Overall, I wouldn’t say it was an especially great week for the Thunder. Jeremy Lamb was way inconsistent, Huestis was meh-ish and Jones was up and down. But Steven Adams looks even stronger and more confident in his skills, Roberson seems a bit better and McGary showed he can definitely play some. It should go without saying to forget the wins and losses and final scores, because so much of what decides these games are D-Leaguers.
