- LARRY KUZNIEWSKI
- Tony Wroten Jr. has gotten off to a rough start at the Las Vegas Summer League.
A surprisingly anticipated back-to-back pair of Grizzlies games at the Las Vegas Summer League last weekend turned out to be something of a dud, with two of the three players on the summer roster that are basically guaranteed to be on the regular-season roster — Jon Leuer and Jamaal Franklin — both sitting out with sprained ankles.
That left only rising second-year point guard Tony Wroten, destined-for-a-return-to-Europe late-second-round rookie Janis Timma, non-guaranteed incumbents Donte Greene and Willie Reed, and a handful of non-roster hopefuls to see.
Across two losses featuring miserable shooting, here are a few takeaways:
Tony Wroten: Wroten’s stat line across two games is u-g-l-y: 24 points on 5-23 shooting, with more turnovers (7) than assists (6). This is discouraging considering Wroten faired pretty well in his Summer League debut last year, but it’s slightly less depressing than it seems.
It’s very much an open question whether Wroten’s enticing blend of size and skill suggests true NBA potential or merely “Strotential.” But, for me, two games in Vegas didn’t really move the needle much on that uncertainty, for better or worse. We still know what we knew: Wroten is a big, athletic point guard who is aggressive and can get into the lane and to the line (25 free-throw attempts over two games, that’s good), but has to get better from the line (56%, that’s not) to take advantage of this attribute. He’s a good passer, but is playing without shooters or finishers in Vegas so far. He can’t shoot (0-7 from three) and needs to develop more consistency and modulate his tendency to go for the highlight play. Can he put his size and athleticism to the service of sound NBA defense?
Hopefully Wroten will settle down and show better as summer league progresses, but I’m especially interested to see him with the real team, where his passes will find better targets and having other viable scorers on the floor will hopefully make him more judicious in calling his own number. New coach Dave Joerger has talked about picking up the pace and trying to generate more lay-ups and free throws (including in this in-game interview from last night). That’s Wroten’s game. Whether he can translate it to the NBA level remains a mystery for the moment.
