Scratches scrawled across one arm, ice pack on the opposite shoulder, no shirt in sight, Philadelphia 76ers rookie Ben Simmons approached the media scrum in the bowels of the Thomas & Mack Center looking like a young man already mangled from a long summer.
Simmons' play spoke just as loudly. He finished with eight points on 3-of-8 shooting (2-of-5 on free throws). He dished out six assists, including this dime to Richaun Holmes early...
...but wound up with nearly as many turnovers—five in all.
He used his 6'10", 240-pound frame to corral eight rebounds, with none more emphatic than this first-quarter putback...
...but struggled to keep that effort up for four quarters and finished with seven fouls.
"I think everyone's ready to get to the tournament and play," Simmons said, looking ahead to the summer league playoffs. "It's kind of been dragged out a little bit, but that's what we're here for, to play in the tournament."
All eyes will be on Simmons to see if he can lead the Sixers to victory. Philly has yet to win a game in Las Vegas after finishing 1-2 in Salt Lake City.
The journey from draft day to the cusp of summer league's conclusion has been a whirlwind for this year's No. 1 pick. But that exhausting schedule will pale in comparison to what lies ahead for him when his rookie season gets underway this fall.
"Sustainability to do it for 48 minutes for 82 games is going to be a challenge," said Sixers summer-league coach Lloyd Pierce. "We want to see...can he continue to bring it every night because a lot of people are going to be looking at him to do something?"
That something: making the rest of the Sixers' youngsters better and, in the process, lifting Philly out of the NBA gutter in which it's wallowed over the last three seasons.
It's a lot to ask of any teenager, even one as clearly gifted as Simmons. He'll have some better players to work with in the City of Brotherly Love than he's had in Nevada—Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid and Dario Saric, to name but the most highly touted.
In the meantime, he'll have to figure out how to win with the Sixers' other young constituents (i.e. Holmes, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, T.J. McConnell, Christian Wood).
"I've heard summer league is completely different from the NBA," Simmons said. "I guess I'll have to see once I get to the real thing."
Suns Struggle Sans Booker
Nate Bjorkgren, the Phoenix Suns' summer-league head coach, insisted his squad's 80-71 loss to the Miami Heat at the Thomas & Mack Center wasn't the byproduct of Devin Booker's absence.
"It wasn't as much of an effect of everyone saying, 'Where's Devin? Where's Devin?'" Bjorkgren said afterward. "I just thought our pace was slow. We play much faster. Our transition points were way low. That has nothing to do with who's on the floor. The five that we put on the floor are going to play our style of basketball."
The remaining Suns struggled to find that characteristic rhythm through a chorus of whistles. The two teams combined for 69 fouls and 68 free-throw attempts.
"It slowed the game down for us," Suns rookie Tyler Ulis said. "We'd like to get out and run, but it was hard today."
Even harder, perhaps, without Booker. There's no easy way for Phoenix to make up for the departure of their stud wing, who was arguably the best player in Las Vegas. During his two summer-league games, he averaged 26 points, 6.5 assists and five rebounds while shooting 60 percent from three.
Booker's dismissal, then, was well-deserved. So was Ulis' promotion following his former Kentucky teammate's departure. Through his first two pro games, Ulis logged just one turnover against 12 assists. On Tuesday, his numbers were once again stellar: 16 points, seven assists, one turnover and five steals in over 35 minutes of play.
"He controls it. He's got a great feel," Bjorkgren said of Ulis. "I really love talking to him out of free throws and huddles. He's smart."
For all of Ulis' steady direction, though, the Suns still struggled to keep the ball moving and the offense humming. Phoenix totaled 11 assists, turned the ball over 20 times and struggled to generate good looks against a physical Heat defense.
"I thought we were playing a little bit slower on offense, not getting to our spots," Bjorkgren said. "It wasn't due to a lack of effort. We'll get back to snapping that ball in 0.5. Our guys learned a lot. We're going to come back tough."
There will be many more lessons ahead for these young Suns. Dragan Bender and Marquese Chriss, Phoenix's top additions from the 2016 draft, combined for 20 points and 11 rebounds on the one hand and 13 fouls and 10 turnovers on the other.
"Pretty much everything is different on the court with these players," Bender said. "Trying to adjust myself to this, learn the pace of the game pretty much everything as quickly as I can."
Bender seems to be adapting to the longer three-point line, at the very least. After hitting just two of 11 deep attempts through his first two games, the 7-footer from Croatia nailed three of five from downtown Tuesday. Chriss, on the other hand, has yet to make one in seven tries.
With the Golden State Warriors set to reign over the West for the foreseeable future and the Suns knee-deep in rebuild mode, there's no great rush for the 18-year-old Bender, the 19-year-old Chriss and their green teammates to get themselves up to NBA speed. But if Booker's impact is any indication, Phoenix could be due for a rapid rise from the ashes once its promising future finds footing in the present.
Lyles Is Miles Ahead
Trey Lyles did everything he could to be "The Man" for the Utah Jazz on Tuesday. He hit five threes, grabbed nine rebounds and scored his 29th and 30th points on a post-free-throw putback that extended Utah's game against the Portland Trail Blazers past overtime.
"Never been involved in that before," Lyles said of his tip-in, "but there's a first time for everything."
Lyles was even Johnny-on-the-Spot to nab possession at the start of the second extra period. But Quincy Ford fumbled the ball away to Portland's Pat Connaughton, who tossed the ball in for a sudden-death bucket that gave the Blazers a 92-89 win, leaving Lyles with little to show for his monster effort.
Not that a big game in summer league would've done much to change things for Lyles either way. As a second-year player and former lottery pick, he's all but expected to dominate the ragtag competition in Las Vegas.
It wasn't all that long ago that Lyles did just that while loading up on accolades—from high school All-American games to Indiana's Mr. Basketball—as a senior at Arsenal Tech in Indianapolis. Since then, he's been the sixth-leading scorer on a Kentucky team that featured three other lottery selections (Karl-Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Devin Booker) and no better than the third or fourth big in a crowded Utah Jazz frontcourt.
Even so, Lyles managed to shine at times during his rookie season in Utah. He parlayed Derrick Favors' midseason injury into significant playing time and turned those opportunities into 18 double-digit scoring efforts over his final 45 games.
Likewise, the 20-year-old forward has done well to turn summer into an audition for a return to stardom down the line. He averaged better than 20 points per game in Salt Lake City and has since poured in at least 28 points each time he's taken the floor in Sin City.
Lyles, though, has gotten more out of his summer than just shots and points.
"Everything from being a leader on the floor to being the main option to being a vocal guy," Lyles said. "I think the guys look to me for answers and stuff like that. So all around, mainly confidence."
Lyles still has a long way to go on the road to top billing, but if he can carry that confidence into his sophomore season, his Jazz might have no choice but to see if the young big can bring it in a more substantial role.
What Can Brown Do for You?
Jaylen Brown's long summer nightmare might be nearing its end—and not just because the Boston Celtics are nearing the end of their July schedule.
The No. 3 pick out of Cal was by no means perfect during the Celtics' 88-82 win over the Dallas Mavericks at Cox Pavilion. He missed most of his field-goal attempts (4-of-11), misfired on five free throws and racked up as many turnovers as assists (two).
On the whole, though, Brown played much better than he did during his first two games in Las Vegas. He was alert, engaged and aggressive, as his 20 points, 10 rebounds and 17 trips to the stripe will attest.
Prior to that, Brown's summer had been marked by disappointment. He injured his knee during his lone outing in Salt Lake City, shot 3-of-13 during Boston's Las Vegas opener and went 0-of-6 from the floor against the Phoenix Suns on Sunday.
As CBS Sports' Matt Moore wrote of Brown's first outing in Sin City, "Brown looked like he could be a rebounder, but had one rebound. He looked like he could be a slashing attacker, but couldn't finish. He looked very much like the jack-of-all-trades that landed him in the lottery, and the master-of-none that had him much lower than his No. 3 spot on draft night."
Brown still has his work cut out for him to turn "could" into "is" and "will be." But hobbled or not, he's clearly capable of being a beast on the basketball court.
End-of-Game Eddie
Kelly Oubre Jr. is the Washington Wizards' summer-league star and was basically that once again Tuesday. His 16 points, six rebounds and three assists helped the Wizards hang tough in what turned out to be an 87-85 win over the Brooklyn Nets at Cox Pavilion.
But it was Jarell Eddie, a veritable Las Vegas veteran, who came up biggest for Washington. During the third game of his third tour of duty at summer league, the Virginia Tech product came through with the winning layup at the buzzer for the Wizards.
As CSNmidatlantic.com's J. Michael noted, Eddie's impressions at summer league should earn him a spot somewhere in the Association this season:
— J. Michael (@JMichaelCSN) July 12, 2016
Eddie's evolution makes him a bargain at $980,000 for the 2016-17 season, but there hasn't been any indication given that he'll be kept around just yet. That decision should come soon, but he's a shooter who's getting better and could be adding more layers to his game. If the Wizards let Eddie walk, he won't remain a free agent for very long.
Big News from the Board
While the NBA's youngest (and cheapest) constituents were duking it out on the court, the owners who sign their checks were busy sorting through their own agenda at the annual Board of Governors meeting elsewhere in town.
The biggest item: addressing the plague of intentional fouls that's befallen professional basketball. Rather than ban hacking whole cloth, the owners decided to nibble away at the problem around the edges. Here's a look at the changes in writing, coutesy of SB Nation's Harry Lyles Jr.:
— Harry Lyles Jr. (@harrylylesjr) July 13, 2016
And here's NBA commissioner Adam Silver explaining them at the Board of Governors meeting:
"In looking at the data and numerous potential solutions to combat the large increase in deliberate away-from-the-play foul situations, we believe these steps offer the most measured approach," said Kiki VanDeWeghe—the NBA's executive vice president of basketball operations. "The introduction of these new rules is designed to curb the increase in such fouls without eliminating the strategy entirely."
According to Bleacher Report's Howard Beck, the league expects a 45 percent reduction in hacking calls under these new rules.
Whether those projections hold won't be known until well after the 2016-17 season tips off this fall. By then, the league should know the fate of the 2017 All-Star Game, which is currently slated for February in Charlotte. The NBA could consider moving the midseason showcase elsewhere in response to HB2—a controversial North Carolina law that the league and some of its corporate partners view as discriminatory toward the LGBT community.
"We're not prepared to make a decision today," Silver said, per the Charlotte Observer's Rick Bonnell and Katherine Peralta. "But we recognize the calendar is not our friend. February is quickly approaching, especially in terms of big events like the All-Star games if we're going to make alternative plans."
Barring a sudden and unforeseen change to the law, don't be surprised if the NBA ultimately yanks the All-Star Game—and breathes new life into the Crying Jordan meme.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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