Summer League Rosters: Yesterday, the Grizzlies announced their full roster for the upcoming Las Vegas Summer League. The only significant unreported name is the newly re-signed Jon Leuer, who begins his quest for a more regular rotation spot here. Joining Leuer among the regular-roster participants are rising sophomore Tony Wroten Jr., rookies Jamaal Franklin and Janis Timma, and non-guaranteed forwards Donte Greene and Willie Reed.
Non-roster hopefuls are: Vander Blue, Laurence Bowers, Jack Cooley, Darington Hobson, Matt Howard, and Gerald Robinson.
I’ll be surprised if any of the non-roster guys end up figuring in the Grizzlies’ plans, but the three definite (Wroten, Franklin, Leuer) and three potential (Timma, Greene, Reed) roster players should make this a particularly interesting and worthwhile summer league.
Play opens this weekend with games at 7 p.m. (central) both Saturday (vs. Chicago) and Sunday (vs. Cleveland), both televised live on NBATV. Look for notes and observations from those first two games here on Monday.
Coaching Changes: Incumbent assistant Bob Thornton will lead the summer roster, with fellow incumbent assistant Lloyd Pierce also on the bench. It’s unclear at this point who else will be joining Thornton and Pierce on new head coach Dave Joerger’s regular-season staff. But take note of one new face on the summer-league coaching roster: Duane Ticknor, a minor-league veteran who was recently a head coach for the D League Dakota Wizards and someone who has a close relationship with Joerger. I was told a while back that Ticknor would likely be added to Joerger’s staff and this looks like a step in that direction.
