NBA Summer League winners and losers: A Michigan man impresses in first weekend of play

The first weekend of NBA Summer League in Las Vegas had some big names, plenty of notable performances … and a surprising altercation.

Let’s break down who rose to the occasion and who fell flat.

Because of the immense hype surrounding Washington’s AJ Dybantsa and Utah’s Darryn Peterson, it’s somewhat understandable that other performances from lottery talent fell by the wayside — even though Summer League did feel kind of meh this go-round. But even with that sentiment, it’s difficult to watch Johnson and not come away utterly impressed.

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Johnson, who played for Mavericks head coach Dusty May at Michigan, should instantly become a fan favorite. He runs the floor extremely well and utilizes his physicality at both ends with a non-stop motor. The more I observe him, the more I see shades of Serge Ibaka (soft touch), Montrezl Harrell (motor and athleticism) and Jonathan Isaac (defensive skill set). His chase-down speed, timing and first leap already look pro-ready. And 27 points on 12-of-17 shooting, 8 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 blocks in his debut is … not bad!

Now, Vegas basketball isn’t the most accurate pool of data to draw conclusions from, but there are absolutely scalable attributes shown now that will manifest itself once the actual games start. One of these is stop rate, a combination of steals, recovered blocks and drawn charges, where Johnson is currently in the 9th percentile among all players. He’ll definitely need to clean up some of his wild forays into opposing defenses and I’d like to see him clean his shot profile up somewhat — again, it’s July and he’s 20 years old — but there’s a lot to love here. There also seems to be a clear path to immediate playing time, with Dereck Lively’s foot issues still keeping him without a timetable for a return and the rumblings of Daniel Gafford’s dwindling future with the club.

Winners: Kingston Flemings and Darius Acuff Jr.

Along similar lines, evaluating guard play in July can be very tricky. I’d argue that even more context is needed here than at other positions, simply due to offensive workload and how point…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-summer-league-winners-and-losers-a-michigan-man-impresses-in-first-weekend-of-play-181542534.html

Author : Kelly Iko

Publish date : 2026-07-14 18:15:00

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