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Sekou on summer league
Summer league blues
By Sekou K Smith | Monday, July 9, 2007, 12:50 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It only took two summer league games for the legions to jump off the bandwagons of Greg Oden and Kevin Durant and hop over to passing ships of Marco Belinelli and Yi Jianlian.
The two American teenagers haven’t blown the world away in Vegas with their early performances. The international stars have been as good or better than advertised, which makes it a lot easier to see why certain people were so high on these guys.
One or two lousy outings during summer league play is not always a good indicator of who can or not play - I watched Qyntel Woods dominate in Salt Lake City a few years ago, and I mean dominate like an All-star would, and it never translated beyond summer league. The extremists are ready to redo the draft based on two games, of course. And that’s where the Hawks come in this week.
They’re off to Salt Lake City later this week for the Rocky Mountain Revue. The last MVP of the Revue [Marvin Williams] wont’ be with them this time. But Shelden Williams and Solomon Jones will be there and so will rookies Al Horford and Acie Law, the two guys everybody is really waiting to see in game action.
Neither of those guys needs to set the world on fire to impress me. They need to handle their business. But winning MVP honors isn’t necessary for me to stay a believer in either of these guys. Granted, I said the same things about Shelden last summer and then he had a really up and down rookie season. This time is a bit different.
I’m looking for other things from Horford and Law. With Horford, I need to see how strong of a post presence he is against professional players. I need to see if what he showed us at Florida translates. For Law, I only need to see if he can be the facilitator the Hawks will need him to be (in whatever capacity) this season. I know he’s a deadeye shooter and as clutch a college player as there has been in these past few drafts. But can he run the show?
I think that’s what we all need to see (and a little bit more never hurts).
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Sekou on summer league
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