Summer League feels different this year. It\u2019s the first year the San Antonio Spurs haven\u2019t had a lottery prospect to watch since 2019. There won\u2019t be that eager anticipation of watching a Victor Wembanyama or Dylan Harper-level player suit up in the Silver and Black for the first time. With their most hyped-up draft pick, Jayden Quaintance, missing the summer games with an injury, the team is filled with depth players, two-way guys, and G Leaguers. Until Carter Bryant joins the team in Las Vegas, there isn\u2019t really a player on the roster who is likely to factor into the Spurs\u2019 regular-season rotation.<\/p>\n
If anything, it makes this summer more interesting. We\u2019ll get to see first-round pick and likely third-string center Tarris Reed Jr. get a lot of playing time. Ja\u2019Kobi Gillespie and Maliq Brown, who just signed two-way deals, should play most of the summer and have plenty of opportunities to get accustomed to the NBA game. There will be room for a G League player to make a name for themself, just like David Jones-Garcia did last year.<\/p>\n
Like it is every year, the first game of the Summer League was ugly. Neither of these teams has played together before, which led to 36 combined turnovers in the game. There was aggressive defense and sloppy offense. It\u2019s more of a showcase for talent and a way for prospects to get used to the NBA game than a place where you are looking for a winning team. San Antonio\u2019s team has an interesting collection of talent this summer, and they showed it in the 88-87 loss to Miami.<\/p>\n
San Antonio has two open roster spots and no open two-way slots. Two-way contacts can come and go. Summer League this year is going to be about the Spurs\u2019 draft picks showing they can contribute as depth pieces, and G League players trying to prove they can earn a two-way deal, either in San Antonio or elsewhere. Plenty of players got off to a good start on Friday toward achieving those goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer League feels different this year. It\u2019s the first year the San Antonio Spurs haven\u2019t had a lottery…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83,20636,11430],"class_list":["post-361434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-spurs-analysis","tag-what-we-learned"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}