2009 NBA Summer League round-up: New Jersey Nets/Philadelphia 76ers

July 13th, 2009

To save money, and to add purpose, the Nets and Sixers agreed to share a summer league team this year. It’s not a practice I’m keen on, because I think the more spots given out to random nobodies, the better, and by having only one team that makes 12 less spots for random nobodies. So that’s a shame. But at least they bothered at all, unlike some teams.   – A.J. Abrams: Abrams’s college career consisted of three things – decent defence for his size, running around endlessly trying to get open, and then shooting jump shots. And a really bloody college career it was, too. However, Abrams is only 5’11. There are plenty of 6’6 guys who spend their entire careers trying to get NBA teams to notice that they specialise in exactly the same things, and (Kyle Korver excepted) they usually fail. So how likely is Abrams to do the same with his half-a-foot height disadvantage? He isn’t, really. He’s small even for a point guard, but the fact that he’s an off-ball guard counts heavily against him. Heavily. Abrams’ only chance to become an NBA player is to develop his ball-handling ability, and rework himself into a crude Jannero Pargo imitation. But Pargo isn’t exactly a regular rotation player in the NBA himself, so A.J’s chances are very slim.   – Jeff Adrien: Adrien was covered in the Grizzlies round-up. It’s pretty industrious of him to have wriggled his way into the summer league rosters of three teams, which really maximises his options. It was also a damn good idea to get onto the Grizzlies and Nets rosters, the two teams with the worst power forward rotations in the league last year. That’ll help his limited chances a bit. And, despite Adrien’s limitations and damaged prospects as […]