In the first game of the knockout round, the last-seeded (#24 to be precise) Minnesota Timberwolves won their first game in the Summer League led by Zach Lavine's 20 points, defeating Phoenx, 86-77.
The NBA Las Vegas Summer League entered its championship round, a single-elimination, 24-team tournament. The first eight seeds get a bye. Losers will still play a consolation game. See here for details.
In his best game to date, including a monster dunk on a dribble penetration, LaVine played 30 minutes, went 9-19 with two assists and four turnovers. Shabazz Muhammad, also playing 30 minutes, added 16 points and 9 rebounds
As an interesting aside, the whole Minnesota squad had 9 assists for the game. Zach had two (along with 4 TO's), and Shabazz had one. Clearly, this isn't a league where passing is on display. I guess that wouldn't get you into the NBA (according to AAU urban legend).
It was all San Antonio as Kyle Anderson's #12 seed Spurs defeated Jabari Parker's #21 seed Milwaukee Bucks, 100-79. The Spurs continued to challenge Kyle, giving him the defensive assignment against Jabari Parker. In a twist, it was Parker who was moved off Anderson. Kyle at 11 at halftime, and ended with 14 only playing 19 minutes in the romp.
Anderson's points mainly came from mid-range along with two 3's as Parker was no where near him. That said, the eye test tells me that Parker is NBA-ready, albeit shorter than advertised, while Anderson appears too low energy for the league at this moment. I will have to walk back my statement that Parker will be the Rookie of the Year. Wiggins looks very good.
I guess it's summer league for the announcers too. They've been terrible. In discussing the hapless Bucks, Matt Devlin read his notes and said Milwaukee won a championship faster than any expansion team in the big four American sport leagues. True -- they won the championship in 1971. They drafted Kareem Abdul-Jabbar the season before (of course, known as Lew Alcindor out of UCLA then). Devlin proceeded to have a five minute discussion about Oscar Robertson then, who joined the Bucks in the twilight of his career. Finally, he mentioned that Kareem was on the team too. Oy!