{"id":33319,"date":"2025-07-24T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/33319\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:46:09","slug":"youngblood-headlines-former-tide-hoops-rookies-making-nba-summer-league-debuts-the-crimson-white","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/33319\/","title":{"rendered":"Youngblood headlines former Tide hoops rookies making NBA Summer League debuts \u2013 The Crimson White"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Alabama<\/a> <\/p>\n

Alabama guard Chris Youngblood (#8) shoots a 3-pointer against Mississippi State at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, AL on Feb. 25, 2025.<\/p>\n

Alabama men\u2019s basketball made up a strong contingent of the players in the NBA Summer League, which took place in Las Vegas, Nevada, July 10-20.<\/p>\n

The Crimson Tide had four undrafted rookie representatives from last season\u2019s team. Here\u2019s how each player performed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chris Youngblood, guard, Oklahoma City Thunder<\/p>\n

Basketball fans outside of Tuscaloosa may have not been familiar with the game of Youngblood prior to his NBA Summer League debut, as he wasn\u2019t invited to the draft combine and went undrafted.<\/p>\n

The Thunder gave Youngblood a glimmer of hope by offering him a non-guaranteed Exhibit-10 contract, which granted him the opportunity to play in the Summer League.<\/p>\n

He took that opportunity and ran with it, making almost an immediate impact by scoring 19 points in Oklahoma City\u2019s 90-81 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers in Game 2 of the tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Youngblood continued to impress throughout the remainder of the tournament, shooting 45% from 3 and scoring 12.4 points per game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Youngblood] can really shoot,\u201d said <\/a>Thunder Summer League coach Connor Johnson. \u201cIt kind of helps everybody out to create more space. He had a bit of a challenge, too, guarding bigger players on the other end. I thought he did a good job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n

His surprise high-level performance presents the Thunder with a difficult decision in trying to decide who to give its final two-way NBA contact to; however, Youngblood has solidified himself squarely in the race.<\/p>\n

Mark Sears, guard, Milwaukee Bucks<\/p>\n

One of the best to ever don the crimson and white will have to wait a little longer to take the court in an NBA contest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The undrafted rookie suffered a calf strain that kept him sidelined throughout the Bucks Summer League stint. No timetable has been outlined for his recovery and it is unknown when he will make his professional debut.<\/p>\n

Grant Nelson, forward, Brooklyn Nets<\/p>\n

While Nelson didn\u2019t provide any eye-popping statlines throughout his first NBA Summer League, he did play meaningful minutes in all five of the Nets games, making defensive stops and proving to be an impactful rebounder.<\/p>\n

He averaged 6 points per game, 4.4 rebounds per game and scored 11 points in the team\u2019s final game.<\/p>\n

After making his debut, Nelson talked about the goals that he and his team had for him ahead of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said my role going into the game was have my motor that I\u2019ve played with my whole life, and then just do things to help the team win, whether it\u2019s crashing the glass or getting stops defensively,\u201d Nelson said<\/a>. \u201cI think really just stepping into that, doing what the coaches ask of me and then just going out there trying to do whatever I can to help the team win, I think that\u2019s what\u2019s going to be the best for not only this team, but for myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clifford Omoruyi, center, Toronto Raptors<\/p>\n

Alabama\u2019s starting center from a year ago had limited participation for the Raptors in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

He appeared in three games, playing more than five minutes just once and scoring 4 total points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Omoruyi had his most impactful performance in his last appearance on July 19 versus the Sacramento Kings. He had 2 points and brought in three rebounds in 5:48 minutes played.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alabama guard Chris Youngblood (#8) shoots a 3-pointer against Mississippi State at Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa, AL on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-33319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}