Tulsa 66ers report; White and Weaver recalled

Reader Kev was at the 66ers game last night and had some great comments about D.J. White and Kyle Weaver’s performances. I thought it needed to be bumped up to maybe catch some more eyeballs.

Actually, White was not that good on the boards – he had seven boards – four were offensive and three of those were attempted tip ins – come on, if you’re 6-9 you should be able to get more than 3 defensive rebounds in 36 minutes of action. I didn’t see the aggressiveness from White that you need at THAT level to warrant time in the NBA. He was very good at jump shots, as he put in at least four of those from 15 to 19 feet. Sadly, he did very little post up work. In fact, he got the ball in the post TWICE all game. The first time he turned and faced immediately after catching it (he hit a jumper from about 12). The last time he fumbled the ball after starting to dribble, and almost turned it over in the process. He offered little defensive resistance inside all night, so (based off of one game I know) it doesn’t look promising.

Weaver looked okay at the point. He registered 11 assists, but when you play in a game in which transition and rotating defense is almost non existent, you can rack up the assists if you are a willing passer (which he is). He did okay at ball handling, even though he had two bad passes out of traps. With Livingston on hand, I don’t think he will be seeing the point with the Thunder anytime soon. Still, it was fun to see him take his “demotion” in stride – he was in a good mood the whole game, and even gave a fist pound to all the statisticans before gametime.

Great stuff. I’m a little disappointed about White’s post game. At Indiana he was lethal in the post. I hope he’s not trying to be a jump shooting big man. Been there, done that (Johan Petro). Also, you can check out last night’s 66ers box score here. Weaver played all 48 minutes and had 24 points (11-17 shooting), 11 assists and seven rebounds. White had 28 points and seven rebounds in 37 minutes of run.

Both players have been recalled and that’s the last time White is going down for the season. Under league rules, a player can only make three trips down and up between D-League and NBA. Hopefully White can get a little burn in these next seven games.

Also, Darnell Mayberry had an explanation as to why Weaver was sent down:

“He’s going to be able to play there two games and only miss one game here,” said Brooks, indicating Weaver is likely to be recalled prior to Sunday’s game against Indiana. ”I like what he has done for us, and he will continue to improve because he is a great worker. But he’s getting minutes down there and it helps when you get minutes. I know he was getting 16, 17 minutes up here, but he’s getting 40 minutes down there. I thought he did a good job. He was filling up the stat sheet. They didn’t win the game, but I thought his numbers and his play was pretty good. So he’s just getting an opportunity to play extra minutes.”