After four days of practices at their facility in Tualatin, the Las Vegas Summer League edition of the Portland Trail Blazers will depart from PDX Wednesday afternoon with plenty of time to spare before their 2022 opener versus the Detroit Pistons Thursday at 9 p.m. But before they get underway in “Sin City,” some notes from their now-completed summer league mini camp…
• While the overarching goal at summer league is to show improvement, the Trail Blazers have not been shy about stating their desire to win in Las Vegas. The goal of any game is to win and professional athletes tend to be rather competitive, so it’s not as though it’s a surprise to hear players and coaches talk about bringing the Las Vegas Summer League title home to Portland. But with so many players on the summer league roster who played significant minutes during the 2021-22 regular season, they probably figure there’s no reason not to set their sights high.
“We’d like to win,” said assistant coach and acting summer league head coach Steve Hetzel. “Anything that you do competitively, you want to win the game first, but we want our guys to grow, we want them to learn how to win. That’s a really important thing to us is not to just go out there and try to have an individual goal, we want to learn how to win games and execute both offensively and defensively.”
However, that doesn’t mean they’re going to the mat in order to win the championship. If they get off to a good start in Las Vegas, they’ll ride that momentum as long as they can. But if not, it’s possible they’ll reassess their approach in the second half of their summer league schedule.
“Right now our goal is to enter Vegas and try to win games,” said Hetzel. “And we want everybody to play well and as the week continues, we’ll sit down with Joe (Cronin) and Chauncey (Billups) and decide where our guys are at, so we’ll either pull back or push forward from there. But right now, our mindset is to go to Vegas to win a game versus Detroit.”
• The Trail Blazers, since they don’t bother with the scrimmages in southern California and Salt Lake City that precede the Las Vegas edition, might enter their schedule in Las Vegas having had a bit more practice time than some of their contemporaries. And by all accounts, those practices have been productive.
“I’d say we’re coming together pretty good,” said Trendon Watford. “Today was better than yesterday, each day we’re trying to build the chemistry back. Having a lot of guys that played minutes at the end of the year last year, including myself, we’re just trying to refresh some things and get our chemistry back together. So it’s going good.”
The combination of young players, such as Watford, Greg Brown III and Keon Johnson, who also have some NBA experience, has made for summer league practices that are both competitive and collaborative. The coaches coach, but the returning players are also able to provide direction to their new, temporary teammates, which improves everybody’s understanding and contributes to a positive atmosphere.
“It’s been good, lot of learning,” said Greg Brown III. “Just everything is starting to click for me, just trying to find my NBA game, find what works for me in this league. So it’s been going pretty good. Great energy, great vibes all around.”
• Rookies tend to be the most important players at summer league. There are usually a few players entering their second or third seasons who pop, same with undrafted internationals and players who have been plying their trade in the G League, but it’s the recently drafted who are the main attractions. Interest typically wanes as the summer league goes on, but the first opportunities to see the next generation of NBA players is always the top draw in Las Vegas.
And that’s especially true for Shaedon Sharpe, who Portland selected with the seventh overall pick of the 2022 Draft and who is playing on their Las Vegas Summer League squad. The 6-6, 19 year-old shooting guard sat out his first and only season at Kentucky, so no one other than those who were in attendance for his pre-draft workouts have seen him on the court. And only those who have watched the Trail Blazers’ summer league practices have seen Sharpe play five-on-five, making something of a mystery heading into Portland’s summer league opener on Thursday.
But the few who have seen Sharpe play the last week in Tualatin have been impressed.
“I think (Sharpe) has a bright future,” said Trendon Watford. “Kid is good and it just looks effortless to him. A lot of the stuff he does just looks sort of effortless to him. I love playing with him and I think our chemistry is building day by day. I got a rebound today, pushed it in transition -- something I like to do -- I caught him on the backside lob and he did what he likes to do. I think we’re just building our chemistry together and I think it’s going to be great.”
“It’s almost unbelievable,” said Brandon Williams. “For a guy who hasn’t played in so long -- I can relate to that, not playing in a while -- it looks like he hasn’t missed a beat. I watched some of his high school clips, the guy is very explosive, you can definitely see that. And he’s really young and humble so I think just little stuff like that is going to carry him a long way.”
However, Sharpe’s fellow 2022 draftee, Jabari Walker, is also drawing praise from his teammates. Walker, the son of 10-year NBA veteran Samaki Walker, is much more of a known quality after playing two seasons at Colorado, and is further along at this stage of his career than at least one of his teammates.
“Shaedon and Jabari look really good for rookies,” said Greg Brown III. “My rookie year I was very confused, lost. But they’ve been picking up the stuff really good, really fast, being vocal, showing great energy. I’m really proud of the rookies coming in and doing their thing.”