The Summer League Effect: 27/08/2021

 

This years NSL draft was unlike any draft we had seen before, and hopefully will see again, in which the scheduling simply fell that it mean the NBA Draft was significantly before our draft, to the point that even Summer League was complete by the time we drafted. The normal order of things is:
- Finals finish, trading opens.
- 1-2 weeks, NBA Draft occurs.
- Couple of days to 1 week later, we draft.

 

For this reason, I believe we can see a marked difference in draft positioning from our draft compared to the NBA draft. In some cases, not huge and maybe summer league solidified guys who went 1^st round in the NBA as actual 1^st round picks here too. But in other cases, we saw some wild �reaches� along with the usual, typical, predictable falls based around age and high floor/low ceiling combination.

I thought it would be fun to break that down.

 

Picks 1-7:

No real surprises here, nothing much changed. Picks 1, 2 and 3 were identical, which admittedly might not normally occur, but there was quite the outlier up top in this draft and summer league only bolstered the 2^nd and 3^rd guys. Picks 4, 5, 6 and 7 were all the same players, just in slightly different order. You could argue that Suggs� summer league showing endeared Gav to him over Barnes, but Suggs was always Gav�s guy and Barnes was a surprise #4 in the NBA. Kuminga could argue leap frogged Giddey because of summer league, but then Giddey probably also was selected slightly higher than expected on NBA draft day. Verdict: No real change/effect.

 

Picks 8-early 20s:

In this range is where we really saw some variation and I think while there is some outside factors at play here too, a lot can be put down to summer league action.

-         Mitchell jumped up one spot, which is minor, but that was in place of Franz Wagner who plummeted down from NBA 8^th to NSL 16^th. He�s white and projects as your consummate role player, which automatically doesn�t project you very well for the NSL and 2k, but his summer league did nothing for him also and he was leap frogged by a swathe of summer league show outs and upside guys.

-         Sengun was the big riser from NBA 16^th to NSL 9^th after questions about how he could translate were drastically answered by summer league play showing he could be a monster down low, step out for 3, and block shots (3 per game).

-         Ziaire Williams too a slight tumble, which doesn�t all together fit with his summer league showing even dropping below Kispert the shooter who struggled shooting in summer league. However Williams, Bouknight, Moody and Kispert all were in the same ball park.

-         Jalen Johnson went big in summer league and earned himself a spot as NSL 12^th versus NBA 20^th, taking the NBA 12^th Josh Primo�s spot as he went down to NSL 18^th. Johnson dominated, and lived up to his original mocked position and went as such. Primo was projected even lower than 18 in the NBA, so it�s not so much a surprise he dipped out here.

-         Chris Duarte was a big faller going NBA 13^th to NSL 23^rd despite projecting in the similar range to his NBA slot. His age is the issue in NSL world being 24 already. But his summer league sure didn�t back that up where he put up 18/4/4/2/2 as a shooting guard�but still the age was an issue for the NSL.

-         Murphy, Kai, Keon and Garuba all went about the same spots, with summer league either being inconclusive or solidifying to each of them.

Verdict: Big swing effects!

 

Picks 18-30:

In this range, it�s not unusual to see some solid variation between the NBA and the NSL even if it�s simply because we have our guys, we like the upside, we decide eyyyy why not reach down a bit here? I don�t know the numbers, but on average I feel like we get 3-4 NBA 2^nd round picks selected in the 1^st round in the NSL a year. This was not the case this year. In fact, only 1 lone 2^nd round pick went into the 1^st round here and he was pick 31 in the NBA!

-         Isaiah Todd the only 2^nd rounder picked in the 1^st round. I believe this is due to some outstanding performances by most of the late 1^st round which simply solidified in peoples minds that they actually belonged as 1^st round picks, instead of our egos taking over. The only one who fell out was Santi Aldama, who was a �questionable� NBA selection at pick 30 anyway. He was replaced by Todd who made his way to pick 25 which is more than respectable by his scout card and summer league.

-         Tre Mann dipped out from NBA 18^th to NSL 28^th on the back of NO summer league action to solidify his 1^st round selection, while Cam Thomas went from NBA 27^th to NSL 19^th on the back of winning NBA summer league MVP pouring in 27 points a night.

-         I mentioned Duarte already, he went 23^rd, and his spot in the top 20 was taken by Keon Johnson going 20^th in the NSL (after Jalen Johnson leapt from 20 to 12).

-         �Bones� Hyland was someone I had my eye on for the 2^nd round but he eventually went too well in the combine for that and finished up 21^st in the NSL versus 26^th in the NBA after dominating summer league also.

-         Jaden Springer jumped from NBA 28^th to NSL 24^th, probably on personal preference more than anything

-         Isaiah Jackson dipped from NBA 22^nd to NSL 27^th despite showing out in summer league, but not as much as others.

Verdict: Massive effect from jumps and drops to simply locking in the belief that the NBA had it right despite some great second round pick performances too.

 

Second Round Picks 31-50:

The 2^nd round was where the magic happened if you ask me. Where we usually have a bit of cross over for 2^nd rounders into the late 1^st round, and vice versa, we saw literally only pick 30 fall, and pick 31 rise this year with an added look to solidify the 1^st round stock. But, the 2^nd round got a real shake up where we got to see who was worth selecting, who wasn�t, and the order I think played out in that image.

-         We kicked things off by instantly seeing Sharife Cooper jump from 48^th NBA to 31^st NSL because he showed that despite small, he should have been selected higher in the NBA. 17 spots, largest jump ever? Possibly, until�

-         Pick 32 followed suit where Brandon Boston jumped 19 spots from 51^st NBA to 32^nd NSL. This was the perfect combination of finally seeing what he could do (he refused all workouts that weren�t 1V0 pre-draft), his 19 year old status, and his pre college hype. Also with so many 2^nd round picks in hand, I could swing for upside here and think later.

-         33 then saw Jared Butler move from NBA 40^th to NSL 33^rd, but this is less summer league related as he didn�t play because of red flag health concerns, which saw him slip to 40^th in the first place.

-         The next few were a shuffle of the NBA until pick 38 where Santi Aldama, the final 1^st rounder, was finally taken. Personally, this still felt high given the level of reach that supposedly occurred for him to go 30^th in the NBA and his poor summer league.

-         The next �faller� was Herb Jones, who went NSL 41^st but NBA 35^th, mostly because of his role player upside status.

-         Stashes always fall in NSL. I was surprised to see Rokas at 43^rd NSL when he went 34^th NBA�but I shouldn�t have been. He was off to Spain for a year. Similarly, Juhann Begarin who was there at 48^th when he went NBA 45^th.

-         Jericho Sims was nearly Mr. Irrelevant in the NBA at 58^th, but he leapt up to 44^th NSL after a strong showing of athleticism at Summer league.

-         Perhaps the largest surprise, and the biggest fall we saw here of the drafted guys, was Jason Preston who went 33^rd in the NBA but fell to 50^th in the NSL, looking like the reach he was suggested to be in the NBA during Summer league and his small size.

Verdict: Large effect on some big ups and downs, but the middle was mostly solidified again.

 

Pick 51-60:

The final stretch of the draft followed fairly closely to what we actually saw happen in the NBA except that we saw a couple of undrafted guys creep in to the mix while the guys that showed little to nothing in the Sumer league, while also already being late picks, fell out of the draft all together.

-         The largest fall out was Marcus Zegarowski who went 49^th NBA but undrafted NSL. Buried in the NBA Nets, older, and looking starved of opportunity you can see why.

-         The first undrafted guy taken was Aaron Henry at NSL 54^th, by myself. I swung at Henry because he had a 2way deal already and looked great on both ends in the Summer League, with lots of praise from his new home in NBA Philadelphia.

-         Matthew Hurt followed at NSL 56^th which was probably on the back of Gav having seen how well he played as a stretch 4 in college, and that he then also earned a 2way deal already with Houston, as his summer league play was minimal.

-         Vrenz Bleijenbergh was the man a couple of us wanted late, with Laddas going at 58^th as he is a 19 year old point forward who apparently had 2way offers, but no guaranteed money meant he couldn�t opt out of his Euro deal. His upside was enough, compared to the guys left in the draft.

-         Duane Washington Jr was our 60^th pick, Mr. Irrelevant, here. He balled out scoring 10 points per game in 16 minutes a game as Summer League and already had a 2way deal in place in NBA Indiana, so he was a solid pick above someone like Koprivica and Gray who don�t have deals yet, and Kalaitzakis who has a guaranteed deal, which might not be suited to the NSL situation.

Verdict: Moderate effect. Guys who showed out in this range went far earlier, others who had deals and showed solid game were drafted, and those that showed nothing were ousted for upside and guys that had shown something at Summer League.

 

We likely won�t be drafting after the NBA Summer League ever again, but it was definitely an interesting study to see how it effected our draft. Maybe next year, I can do a piece comparing how many leaps and falls there are without a summer league? Thanks for reading!

 

- NSL Insider News.