Marty Burns (SI)> Think it's (summer league) easy?

[sturt]

Think it's easy?

Summer-league competition can be quite a challenge for rookies seeking to get their NBA careers off to a good start. They must adjust to a new coach and new teammates, as well as to the speed of the game. Perhaps most difficult of all, they must learn their team's plays in a few days.

"That's definitely one of the toughest adjustments," said Warriors forward Ike Diogu, a second-year player who made his NBA debut in last year's Vegas summer league. "We had plays in college but they weren't too sophisticated. Here the playbook is much bigger, and you have to know all the plays. You might not use them all, but you've got to know them."

"The hard part is you've got to learn all the plays in about a week," echoed Clippers guard Shaun Livingston. "If you're a point guard, you really have to know them."

Rockets assistant coach Tom Thibodeau, who coached Houston's team at Vegas this year, said rookies usually have three or four days to learn the plays before heading to the summer league. He said most players are familiar with the basic sets from college but might need time to learn various wrinkles. He also noted that rookies must learn to adapt to the NBA's unique defensive rules.

"It's all part of the process," Thibodeau says. "In the fall these guys will be going up against regular NBA players, and it will be even more physical, more intense and at a higher skill level. But I think [learning the plays] is part of why summer league is a great step for them in terms of preparation."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/writ...gas.wrap/1.html

[Diesel]

I think SL is a slightly advanced form of practice. I have noticed that the guys who excell at SL are those guys who play well one on one. There's usually very little teamwork in SL because guys are too busy trying to make a team.

I would love to go back and see what guys like Jason Kidd did in SL.

[vdunkndunk]

Summer league games are some of the hardest games to watch I've ever seen. It's just a mess of fouls and stagnant offense. There's no flow. But still, if Shelden is a great rebounder why can't he come up with some boards?

[Diesel]

The first game, he had 5 rrebs. He also had a lot of touches in scoring position.

The second game he played significantly less minutes.

[KB21]

He had a lot of fouls in the second game, which shows that he is having to adjust to not getting the Duke calls in the NBA. He's also having to adjust to the defensive style. At Duke, they pretty much zoned around Shelden and funneled everything towards him. Now, the Hawks aren't zoning things around. Playing the power forward position, Shelden is also having to make an adjustment because there are times where he isn't playing as close to the basket as he did at Duke.

With all that said, from what I have heard about his play so far is that he gets offensive position very easily.

[Diesel]

I don't think you can really analyze SL that hard. Have you even watched a SL game before. The structure of most SL teams is really bad. The only thing he is learning right now is offensive plays and they aren't really doing that. The only thing that one can do in SL is play with pro players and be aggressive. That's it. If he came out tonight and scored 17 wth 17 reb, I wouldn't expect that he had learned anything new. SL is really not the teaching tool that many people here makes it out to be... It's far to unorganized even with coaches and refs.

[Yeti]

Any idea how the players Shelden was guarding did? If he was shutting them down then maybe he did his job. (Just looking for that silver lining.)

[DJlaysitup]

Tough to analyze what we can't see. Good news from the Hawks website though:

"The Hawks are 0-2 so far in the Rocky Mountain Revue, with play resuming tonight at 5:00 ET against the Spurs. If you have NBATV, you can catch all the rest of their games in the summer league, starting with tonight's game. "

They better be right about this - gotta leave work early to see the start.

[DJlaysitup]

...hold the phone (again)...previous quote was directly from Hawks website - but NBA TV programming guide on the new doesn't show the game as being part of their schedule tonight.

This is frustrating!!