{"id":376270,"date":"2026-07-17T01:19:46","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:19:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376270\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T01:19:46","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T01:19:46","slug":"mavs-thunder-summer-league-takeaways-dallas-becomes-lob-city-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/376270\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavs-Thunder summer league takeaways: Dallas becomes Lob City and more"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday’s summer league game between the\u00a0Dallas Mavericks<\/a> and Oklahoma City Thunder was initially scheduled to be an intriguing matchup between former Michigan teammates Morez Johnson Jr.<\/a> and Aday Mara.<\/p>\n

However, both lottery picks were held out of a game that resulted in a 97-87\u00a0win for the Mavericks, who improved to 2-2 in Las Vegas. The Thunder dropped to 0-4.<\/p>\n

There were plenty of positive developments to take away from Thursday’s victory. Dallas will conclude its five-game summer league slate with a quick turnaround against the New York Knicks on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Here are the biggest takeaways from the victory:<\/p>\n

The all-around leader for the Mavericks was Vsevolod Ishchenko,<\/a> who finished with 12 points, seven rebounds, three assists and two steals.<\/p>\n

The 6-8 guard had his best scoring game of the Las Vegas summer league after failing to score in double figures in his previous three games. He’s done an admirable job of getting to the rim throughout the first three exhibitions, a credit to his strong handle and ability to absorb contact.<\/p>\n

On Thursday,\u00a0Ishchenko showed off his perimeter shooting. He nailed both of his 3-point attempts, one with separation from his defender and the other through a contest. It was a sign of improvement after he missed all\u00a0three of his previous attempts from beyond the arc in the Mavericks’ first three games.<\/p>\n

Of his three helpers, his most impressive was an ambitious heave from halfcourt to a soaring Kaodirichi Akobundu-Ehiogu. The pass was high risk, but resulted in one of the most exciting plays of the game.<\/p>\n

A glimpse of Masai Ujiri and Mike Schmitz’s vision for Sergio De\u00a0Larrea <\/a>as a future NBA point guard was apparent on Thursday, as he showed off his vision and accuracy throughout the game.<\/p>\n

De Larrea only scored two points, but he maintained control of the game because he perfectly orchestrated the offense with a game-high 14 assists and nine rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Spanish point guard turned the Dallas Mavericks into the summer league version of the “Lob City” LA Clippers with timely alley-oop passes throughout the game. It didn’t matter if it was in a\u00a0halfcourt set in the pick-and-roll or a transition opportunity, De Larrea threw a perfect pass to his teammates. As a team, the Mavericks had 26 assists and De Larrea accounted for more than half of those dimes. He also made his presence felt by helping out on the boards, falling one rebound shy of a double-double.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks’ vertical game vanished last season since Dereck Lively II was sidelined for the majority of the season<\/a>, but it didn’t help that they were also\u00a0without a viable playmaker available to throw lobs to Daniel Gafford. That critical aspect of\u00a0the game should return if De Larrea earns a rotation spot and figures out how to replicate the success he found on Thursday.<\/p>\n

There weren’t any lottery picks available for Thursday’s game, but that didn’t take away from the excitement factor.\u00a0Akobundu-Ehiogu created his own highlight reel by catching three lobs in his first two minutes of action off the bench.<\/p>\n

The Mavericks trailed by as many as seven points, but Akobundu-Ehiogu was the momentum shifter and provided a much-needed spark off the bench with his high-flying dunks and interior presence on both ends. He finished with 12 points, five rebounds and three blocks. Three of his boards were offensive rebounds created because he tapped the ball out back to his teammates following misses.<\/p>\n

The 6-10 center went undrafted in the 2023 NBA draft and doesn’t have a clear pathway to make the Mavericks’ roster, but he could join the team on an Exhibit 10 contract that allows him to participate in training camp. That’s only if he doesn’t receive interest from a rival team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thursday’s summer league game between the\u00a0Dallas Mavericks and Oklahoma City Thunder was initially scheduled to be an intriguing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,102,104,103,3080,88840],"class_list":["post-376270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-nba","tag-tp-dallas-mavericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376270","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=376270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}