Ian just does not come off very physical to me. This worries me...
Ian's softness doesn't really mean that he can't be a significant player..he'll have to be a finesse player, which suits his game very well..he clearly has some nice moves and touch around the basket, and he's athletic..
I would have liked to see Haislip play in the SL, but I guess we'll have to wait..
Ian has a reputation? He hasn't played long enough to have a reputation.Ian Mahinmi, although very talented, has a reputation for being soft. This afternoon, he didn’t do much to dispel that reputation.
I disagree with the take that Mahinmi is soft. He's actually pretty damn physical -- too physical in fact and struggles with foul trouble. He has skinny legs and he's top-heavy but his style of play is the opposite of soft. It's true he can get rooted out of position, however that's more just due to how he's built.
Thanks for the game thoughts.
Missed the 4th quarter. Sounds like I missed some of Blair's best work but I loved what I saw before that.
Here's hoping Gist and McClinton have better outings next time.
Cool little interview with George Hill from ESPN today
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGF2EJIaw40
Interesting to hear him say he's been working with Chip alot
Appreciate the recap, timvp.
First off, I'd encourage my Spurs brethren not to jump to any conclusions one way or the other after one SL game. This a talented collection of individuals, for SL standards, but it's definitely a work in progress. Players haven't much of a clue for each other's tendencies or abilities and players dependent on others, (usually bigs) are going to have a harder time than most starting off.
With that said, a couple thoughts from what I've been able to gather.
George Hill- Glad to see my boy Havoc doing his thing and starting to reward all the faith I've put into him. He's got a year under his belt, knows what's expected and looks to be going out there and playing his game; not the game he feels he's supposed to be playing. It's amazing how much better someone can look when there not thinking about how to play a position, but just going out there and being the player that got them drafted.
DeJuan Blair- Has there ever been a more expected impressive outing by a 37th overall pick? Some things just don't need to be over-thought. What Blair does he does extremely well, and what he does well is probably one of the easiest things to translate at the next level. The Beast can rebound, folks. He carves out space, uses his body, and is going to make some guards think twice about running too hard through a screen. The defense is going to be a work in progress but it's hard not to get excited about the type of player the Spurs added with the 37th pick.
Malik Hairston- Good to hear that Malik's stroke seems to have been found and maybe even improved on. I think it's pretty well do ented the type of player I think he is, and can potentially be, but I'm glad to hear he's gotten off to a pretty nice start. I'd like to see a better effort on the boards and hear that he's making more significant strides as a primary defender, but I'm pretty confident it'll come.
Ian Mahinmi- Sounds like a mixed bag from what I've gathered. On one end, he has all the tools and shows the flashes of a player that could be extremely helpful. On the other end, he's a foul-prone awkward athlete who's thought to be soft or at least a little too light in the ass. I've never thought of Ian as soft in terms of his play, light in the ass and capable of being taken advantage of in the post, but not soft, really. He does tend to look like some awkward newborn deer that lacks the requisite coordination in it's limbs but it's not something I'm extremely worried about. The guy has to be rusty in his game after this much of a layoff and the confidence in his body can't be exactly where it needs/should be at the moment. Hopefully, the guy can get the needed time to knock the rust off and gain the confidence back in his body, health-wise, to begin to fulfill the potential no one disagrees is there.
Jack McClinton- As for Jack.. I tend to agree with coyotes_geek. (good post.) Having said that, let's not see this board go all George Hill on Jack after one, and his first, SL outing. I still remember defending Hill on this board, even after I was one of the first to target Chalmers in the draft, by pointing out the type of percentages he shot for his career and the paralysis by analysis that was seemingly taking place having to play out of position against a much better athlete. I'm not going to compare the two's game, but lets not understate the difficulty of being an undersized 2 trying to make your way in the league. I'm sure Jack knows that he's not being asked to be a full-out point, but any indecision for a guy with his measurables is going to make him look a lot worse than he should. It's the kind of thing that may start with a couple of missed shots, turnovers, or blown assignments but quickly snowball into every other aspect of the game. Hey, he might not be the next Eddie House (apparently Thornton is now getting a more favorable comparison
) but I'd preach patience with a player like Jack.
Jack McClinton is this year's Anthony Tolliver.
Not so much..
If so, McClinton better heat up. Tolliver was Larry Bird last year in summer league.
I mean from a Pop-crush standpoint.
There's no doubt Pop wants his own E. House, just look at the Salim Stoudamire experiment, and I do get the feeling Jack will get the opportunity to fill that role if he exhibits any type of game during SL.
I was expecting more defensively from McClinton. The poor offense I can understand and maybe its just rookie jitters but he has to be able to hold his own defensively otherwise he'll just be one in a long lkine of great shooters who couldn't make the grade. His defensive skills were what was said to have caught Pop's eye.Hopefullfyhe picks it up at the defensive end in the coming games.. Pop could care less if you're a great shooter but you give it up and possibly even more on the defensive end.
Pop has a blind spot for the defensive inadequacies of guys who like to jack up threes.
Maybe not of a typical NBA point guard but he showed more than enough to handle the backup duties. Pop would be thrilled if Hill played like he did tonight more often. It's all about energy, aggression and attacking with Pop and his point guards -- especially his backup point guards.
Hill definitely has room to improve but this was a great start. Massive improvements from years one to year two. If he can keep it up, he will fill his role well.
Speaking of Hill, I'm glad that he finally saw him drive the lane and dunk in traffic. As a rookie, he'd often go up weakly when driving down the lane. If he starts using his athleticism to finish, he'll really start being a headache. Plus his free throw attempts will shoot skyward.
And it's odd that it took this long for the Spurs to include that backpick for the alleyoop to Hill play. IUPUI ran that play all the time and it worked well. I'm going to guess that we see that quite a bit this year.
In the upcoming summer league games, I want to see Hill run as much point guard as possible. It's a waste for Newman to play him at shooting guard. Let him run the show and get the valuable experience.
http://www.nba.com/video/games/spurs...009_recap.nba/
Video game recap on the NBA website. I love the final stats at the end. Apparently Romel Beck had 13pts and 10 rebounds. Who knew?
I'm sorry if I missed out on this info, but why is Haislip NOT playing in the summerleague?
Apparently, Romel Beck was mistaken for being Dejuan Blair. Those s.
McClinton is a shooter. SL isn't the best situation to show his skills but he had to take more than 2 shoots.
I quite expect to see Spurs' coaching staff asking him to shoot more in the second game, even if it means taking bad shots.
My write up:
Ian:
Ditch Ian, no I'm serious the guy has nothing going for him, he doesn't look like he has any part of the game that he excels at. I've watched him this year and last, and while I think he has slightly improved. The guy is never going to be a legitimate nba center. He lacks focus and he has never imposed himself on a game in a meaningful way. The few minor flashes that he shows are only the delusions of spurs fans hoping he's another diamond in the rough. To be perfectly honest there is not a single moment I wouldn't want a different player on the court over Ian. I would love to love this kid, he has all the capability in the world, but none of the winning drive that makes a good player in the nba. The first word I think of when I think of Ian- tentative. Tentative is the death nell of an nba potential. This is my prediction- he will never average more than 5 minutes a game for any team in the nba.
McClinton- Here's a guy who looked a lot worse than he is. He looks like someone who absolutely depends on a structured offense. Someone who would make a killing on a team with someone like John Stockton. That being said, he's going to have to find a way to put it together to warrant a long term investment. But I sure as am not going to count out the best shooter in college last year on one SL game.
George Hill- The guy is a stud. I don't care if he's not a pure point guard. The Spurs don't need a pure point guard. They've won most of their championships with a scoring point guard. One of the worst decisions the Spurs ever made was to give up Antonio Daniels because he was not a pure point guard. Daniels would have made a more dependable backup to Tony than anyone we've put in that role since then.
Blair- My god man. Whoever so appeased the basketball god's with whatever sacrifice it took, I can't help but sing your praises. This guy fits our deficiencies so well, it's as if we had the number 1 pick in the draft. It's early yet, his knees did look a little less stable when you actually stared just at them, and the spurs will have to retool their transition defense or something for him, but I can't say I am anything but impressed by our luck at drafting this kid.
Hairston/ Gist- What a role reversal from a year ago. Gist looked lost and Hairston was the man. I can't help but wonder if the Spurs knew what they were doing when they kept what appeared to be the lesser of the two players last year. That said Gist can take his time to work on his game this year because I don't think they will make a decision about either of them until after camp.
That's all I've got for now. Feel free to eat me alive on the Ian thing, but I stand by it until proven otherwise. I'll gladly eat the Crow if need be, but I really doubt I will ever be in any danger of that.
1 real game in 1 year.
Ian was injured all season.
Seriously...
Damn Ian is so disappointing... I really hope he can make the team the next season, but now it seems like it could only be a dream.
I only got to catch the first half in the gym, some obligations popped up and I had to step out for the 2nd.
I think most everything has been covered. McClinton struggled, but that was to be expected. Being a 6'1" gunner, he was going to have problems when everyone got bigger, it's all about how he adjusts now. I thought he was game chasing Thornton thru screens. Even if he makes the roster, I can't imagine him contributing much this year. He's at least a two year project.
The good thing I saw from Mahinmi that I haven't noticed anyone mention is his mobility. He showed flashes of being able to jump the P&R, and completely deny the PG any sort of path. If he can consistently bring that to the table, while being passable on the boards and protecting the rim, he may have some value yet. Offensively I thought he was a train wreck, and out of nowhere he pulled out the dribble drive right, spin left, left handed hook shot. If only he looked that comfortable all the time I'd feel much better about his chances, really hoping the 1st half was just rust.
George Hill really did make an effort to run the team. He was calling out plays, talking on defense, and even did a little bit of coaching from the bench. He had the two highlight plays of the portion of the game I watched (the aforementioned back-pick alley oop, and a play where he was trapped on the sideline, didn't panic or pick up his dribble, split the defenders and went hard to the rim for a dunk) as well as several more very solid plays. Had a few sloppy turnovers or near turnovers in transition, but at least it was from him being aggressive. I really liked what I saw from him, and I'm looking forward to seeing him more in the upcoming season.
DeJuan Blair. It's all been said, so I'll just say this. At times it looked like you would need a crowbar to take the ball away from him. If he decides the rebound is his, it's best to just nod and let him have it. Doing anything else might get you hurt.
Bummed that this was the only Spurs game I got to attend while in Vegas, but it was an interesting experience. It was a pretty good sized crowd in the gym, much bigger than I expected. Next year I'm definitely going to attempt to stay a bit longer.
Agreed. A big difference (one of many) between NBA and summer league is that guys do not understand how to space the floor. It looked like there were 20 guys on the court at any given time.
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