LAS VEGAS — Chicago Bulls rookie Caleb Wilson scored 35 points in his summer league debut Friday night, the second most in a Las Vegas debut since the event began in 2004.<\/p>\n
It was Wilson’s first competitive game since Feb. 10, after his lone college season at North Carolina ended in February with a broken wrist, and he said he cried before the game because he was so emotional to be back on the court.<\/p>\n
“It’s been five months to the day since the last time I played,” Wilson said after Friday’s 97-96 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies. “I’ve just been really emotional because I haven’t been able to play.<\/p>\n
“I felt terrible because my team lost in the [NCAA] tournament and my coach got fired. It just was a lot for me at that point. So, coming out today, it just felt like I’ve been waiting so long for this opportunity. I’m just glad I got to come out here and play.”<\/p>\n
Wilson showcased his wide range of skills during Friday’s game. He knocked down seven 3-pointers, matching the total number of made 3s from his 24-game college career.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been working on it hard for a long time,” Wilson said. “I’m not shocked at all. I’ve been putting the work in.”<\/p>\n
Wilson also blocked three shots, collected two steals and grabbed six rebounds.<\/p>\n
At times, he was a little erratic, committing six turnovers, but Bulls coach Tiago Splitter said he was happy to see such an aggressive start in Wilson’s first game.<\/p>\n
“We’re getting to know him,” Splitter said after the game. “The first game, of course, he played extremely well shooting the ball and doing different things, but this is a long road. Repetition of everything. But I’m proud of the effort they put in. Boxing out, crashing every offense rebound.”<\/p>\n
When a reporter told Wilson after the game that his 35-point performance was one of the best in summer league history, he didn’t flinch.\u00a0His 35 points were second only to the 37\u00a0Marco Belinelli posted in 2007, according to ESPN Research.<\/p>\n
“We lost,” Wilson said, chiding himself for too many turnovers and some missed boxouts.<\/p>\n
Wilson’s first game also featured a matchup with another top player from this year’s draft class, Memphis forward Cam Boozer, who finished with 23 points, six rebounds and four assists.<\/p>\n
“He’s a great player,” Wilson said of Boozer. “One of the few guys I respect out of my class. He played a great game and he won. He did a great job. We have fun with each other on the court. We talk and stuff like that, but he’s a great player. I mean, I saw him make some tough shots today.”<\/p>\n
Boozer was complimentary of Wilson as well and said he was not surprised to see Wilson’s breakout performance Friday.<\/p>\n
“He’s a great player. Great players make a lot of shots,” Boozer said. “It was something maybe he didn’t showcase a lot in college, but he’s a great player and he started getting hot.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS — Chicago Bulls rookie Caleb Wilson scored 35 points in his summer league debut Friday night,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":794444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,280258,48,108667,459,82],"class_list":["post-794443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-caleb-wilson-sports-basketball-player-player-statscom-1605148","tag-canada","tag-chicago-bulls-sports-basketball-team-team-statscom-4","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/794444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}