Vegas Summer League Basketball

Although most people think that basketball is dead during the summer, it most certainly is not. First off, there's the draft, which, for an avid fan, presents an abundance of opportunity to cross your fingers, peruse through countless statistics and footage, and pay your team makes the right call.

For the Kings, we had a decent draft. Jason Thompson's profile reads like he might be a poor-man's Chris Webber (the good one, not the hobbled shell of his former self). A former PG who had a growth spurt in high school and ended up playing power forward in college. So he has some definite ball handling abilities, which he showed in summer league. He also averaged better than 20-10 in college, albeit at Rider. Still he's good. Also, we got Sean Singletary, PG out of Virginia. Singletary was an offensive nightmare for a while, and is definitely a good aquisition in the second round. He also can provide depth at the PG position.

This year was also not short on potential star tallent. Jerryd Bayless, Kevin Love, Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley, the list goes on. The NBA's future looks bright. However, what does annoy me is OJ Mayo getting so much love. He was crowned a future star when he was in sixth grade and has remained on the national radar ever since. Went to USC, and if you ask me was a complete bust. He was supposed to be, hands-down, the number one overall pick. Didn't quite work out that way, as he was drafted third, then traded around. Now, the kid can score, I will definitely give him that. But he's not a PG. He's actually quite turnover prone. Today, I ran across this lovely tidbit on Truehoop:

O.J. Mayo, Grizzlies (No. 3 pick): He had two signature plays -- the dunk and the buzzer-beater -- but he also showed he has the ability to play both guard positions; the game appears to come easy to him. He is a star in the making.

Can play both guard positions? The kid averaged 1-2 in assist to turnover ratios. That's right, for every one assist he dishes out, he turns the ball over twice. Ridiculously bad stat line to throw up there. Never, ever, ever should this kid be considered a guy who can play both guard positions. Unless you have a team running two shooting guards and no point guard. Maybe then, you can say he could play both guard positions. Now, it's just summer league, I know. But how did he do in his one season at USC? 3.3 assists per game, 3.5 turnovers per game. Ummm....yeah, so even in college, he still averaged more turnovers than assists. If nothing else, he did as much harm to his team as he did good, in theory of course (not all turnovers equal conversions by the other team).

I always lobby heavily against the hype train. And this is, of course, another one of those instances. So while Mayo might be a legit scorer in this league in the very near future, please, never, ever, ever say that he can legitimately play the PG role.