Knicks 2024 Summer League recap: upsides glimpsed, debates ended, bigs bigging
Signs the Summer Knicks could impact the fall/winter/spring Knicks, this year and beyond
The 2024 Summer League Knicks squad engendered a surprisingly high level of excitement and anticipation among Knicks diehards. Why? Two simple reasons, my friends.
First, New York picked four prospects – four! – in this year’s draft, three of whom were expected to play under the all-seeing eye of our beloved Sphere in Las Vegas. While this may be a normal occurrence for fans of other teams, for the Knicks faithful it was unexpected. After all, they bypassed picking prospects for two years straight before this summer. Second, we finally witnessed the long awaited return of Eurostash combo guard Rokas Jokubaitis.
There are two types of Knicks fan reactions to that last sentence: jubilation or crickets. The majority could probably care less about rookies or Rokas. The Knicks just finished off a deep playoff run with an MVP candidate, then pulled off the blockbuster deal of the NBA offseason by acquiring Knick-in-waiting Mikal Bridges — without sacrificing depth.
Accordingly, none of these rookies project to be in the rotation outside of injury-replacement minutes, no matter how high your opinion of them. And guess what? Those fans are right. The kids won’t play much. If you find yourself in that group of fans, by all means skip this article and go tune into Brunson-less Olympic hoop nail-biters. Me? I’m not going to let that reality get between me and unnecessarily thorough analysis of the newest New Yorkers. I didn’t write 90,000 words over three years to pass over this moment. So, in honor of Sin City, here’s a lucky seven of Knicks SL takeaways.
1) The Summer League disclaimer
Every year SL overreactions abound. As fans see these guys for the first time since March Madness — or ever, in the case of internationals like Jokubaitis — excitement and unbridled optimism can take over. However, for folks who have spent a ton of time watching these players already as prospects, we almost certainly end up with the same conclusion: they are who we thought they were!
It really is rare (but not unprecedented) to see something meaningful on tape in SL that wasn’t on tape in high school or college or abroad. That’s not to say Vegas hoops are meaningless – fun matters, and shiny new objects matter. We just have to know where to hold our horses, that’s all. Let’s turn to frequent Draft Strickland guest Matt Powers for a reminder of what stats are meaningful in SL.
In short: willingness to chuck, willingness to pass, willingness to hit the offensive glass. Dassit. Don’t stress too much over efficiency being different from what any player did before being in the NBA.
2) The games and the players
The Summer Knicks ended up 3-2 after losing their first two games. If I'm being honest, who they played really did not matter much to me, because they didn’t go up against any of the ‘’marquee’’ SL teams, i.e. teams with the highest level of young talent, like the Summer Jazz or Summer Grizzlies. The highlight of their Vegas run was the victory over the Summer Kings at the buzzer, thanks to an incredible Tyler Kolek game-winner.
Lacking both the raw high-end talent and chemistry of other SL teams, the Summer Knicks struggled to find a groove. Early on the team featured high doses of chucking from Jacob Toppin and undersized Ohio State combo guard Duane Washington Jr. Duane got up 48 shots through the first three games, eclipsing his teammates by a large margin.
The Knicks centers, Ariel Hukporti and Westchester Knicks alum Dmytro Skapintsev, were largely supporting actors, while the lead ballhandlers in Kolek and Jokubaitis were initially happy to be pass-first and gun-shy, settling on making the Right Play™ perhaps too often. (Ed. note: Larry Brown is wriggling with joy in his coffin). Kolek starred with absolutely spectacular passes, but was a hesitant shooter. The baby of the team, Pacôme Dadiet, made just two threes over the entire two-week span, but gave effort on defense and moved both the ball and himself constantly, which I am sure made Tom Thibodeau proud.
During the third game, versus the Summer Kings, the Knicks began to strike a balance as Kolek discovered his inner-chuck while Rokas shot a perfect 7-for-7. The lefty lead guards were still pass-first, but became more willing scorers, manipulating defenses easily, almost casually. If I had a nickel for every skip pass Rokas and Kolek launched to an open corner shooter that didn’t result in a made bucket, I'd probably have a whole dollar, which is not a lot of money but is a lot of skip passes. You usually don’t see one passer like that in SL, much less two.
Washington Jr. provided some instant offense and sometimes some instantly horrible decisions. Max-effort combo guard Damion Baugh did a bit of everything; he absolutely needs to be on the Westchester team, if only because he’s a dawg. Hukporti focused on the glass and the easy dunks rather than off-the-dribble floaters. Skapintsev, 26, proved to be the most productive player on the roster, scoring and rebounding at a high rate, often set up by Rokas and Kolek. This recipe carried them to consecutive wins.
3) Kolek is legit
He ended SL with horrendous shooting efficiency, but as you’ll recall SL efficiency doesn’t correlate to regular-season efficiency. Passing, however, does. His assist rate was 36%, and it could have been higher; Kolek’s passing is an absolutely all-caps ELITE skill. Even with questions whether he can score enough to leverage it, even with him passing up good shots for himself to hunt great shots for others, it works. He is such a gifted passer that he doesn’t need to bend a defense, merely to distract it. That’s enough to create small openings which he regularly – and spectacularly – threads needles through.
The passing is a skill that should play-up with better surrounding shooters; one can’t help but wonder how it would look in three-guard bench units with elite off-ball shooting from Donte DiVincenzo and Deuce McBride. Kolek, in Westchester at times and in the Garden at times, will continue to work on making himself less of a defensive negative and a more willing shooter, especially off-the-dribble from deep and in the midrange. In the meantime, his passing should buoy his value in the NBA when he eventually plays.
4) Jokubaitis is legit
I am a well-known Rokas cheerleader. For folks unfamiliar with his situation, his minutes on powerhouse FC Barcelona dried up due to them preferring veterans like Tomas Satoransky and the ghost of Ricky Rubio. As a result, despite real skill and a leading role for the Lithuanian national team, Jokubaitis was left looking for a new home, either in the NBA or somewhere in Europe. The context around his NBA value is slightly complicated.
In contrast to Kolek, Rokas ended SL with sparkling efficiency numbers, but again those are not predictive. Historically, though, he does tend to be efficient due to his ability to hit shots at all levels. He showed that in SL, knifing into the paint with a mix of speed and size at 6-foot-5 that most SL defenders didn’t know what to do with. Jokubaitis also showed his penchant for capable midrange shot creation as well as spot-up shooting. Though a phenomenal passer in his own right, he’s more someone who hits moderate-difficulty reads quickly and consistently than someone who invents new magical passes, a la Kolek.
Finally, Rokas showed surprising gusto on defense. Because of the Lilliputians Kolek and Washington, Jokubaitis was often tasked with guarding both guards and wings, at various points defending Brandon Miller, Dylan Windler and Ron Holland. He was more comfortable than I expected sliding with these guys and using his size and strength to absorb contact, particularly as an older SL player.
And yet despite all that, what would really get him into an NBA rotation is something he hadn’t shown in Europe: the willingness to call his own number more frequently. We saw this good/bad habit early on, where he deferred to other Summer Knicks while he found his footing. It was only later on that he became comfortable getting a little saucy in isolation, probing and throwing more ambitious passes (some even ill-advised!). Even backup point guards have to be able to go off in the NBA. I would say he acquitted himself only marginally well from an aggressiveness perspective. He needs to chuck more for his next team, Maccabi Tel Aviv, to cement a future in the NBA.
So what is his NBA value? Well, not a ton. The reason is because even though he’s a potential two-way combo guard with standout passing and downhill burst, the question for other teams isn’t whether Rokas is good enough to earn bench minutes. It’s whether a team would be comfortable giving up assets to pry him from the Knicks and give him bench minutes. Given how easily the Knicks acquire second-rounders, another second or two is likely not enough to acquire him because of his value to the Knicks. For Leon Rose, Rokas is a rotation bench guard who could be on a four-year, second-round contract beginning whenever they deem advantageous: maybe next year when they have no picks; maybe after they trade for another star and need to replenish the bench. Maybe he’s included in a trade like that.
And yet, nobody is going to give up a first for him because firsts are incredibly valuable. Hence, he is worth more to New York as a player and a contract than he is to teams who, rather than give up picks or players, can sign a Kris Dunn or Seth Curry or Monte Morris for relative chump change.
5) The point guard “debate” was never a debate
The latest ‘’please go touch grass’’ discussion topic among Very Online Knicks Fans was the guard pecking order. Much was made of the Knicks signing Cam Payne, as more than a few trauma-informed fans wondered if that spelled not only the end of playing time for Kolek and Rokas, but also McBride. I posited that Payne was signed more to be a good vet and friend of Mikal than anything else.
What it looks like now was what always made sense. Deuce and Donte remain the primary bench guards with Kolek as the situational backup, the same role Deuce played behind Brunson and Immanuel Quickley. Deuce and Donte are very good, and Kolek and Payne are not, so this should not be a surprise. Meanwhile, Payne’s role is the extreme situational vet, a la Taj Gibson.
Despite being the best Summer Knick not named Skappy, Rokas is headed to ply his trade in Israel for Maccabi Tel Aviv. He’ll have more chances for NBA minutes next year if the Knicks consolidate and bring him over to replenish depth (they have no picks next year) or if they include him in a power trade. Him being better than Kolek doesn’t matter a ton, since either way you’re talking about the 10th man on the team.
6) Pacôme has even more upside
The sell on Dadiet was size and shooting plus other interesting movement skills and flaws you could reasonably work on: athleticism; defensive habits; willingness to pass. My hot take is that he showed some things on defense and passing-wise worth altering his projection for. Doing that from SL games is a dicey business, but he genuinely showed some skills that weren’t on his scouting tape.
First let’s get the bad out of the way. Although known as a shooting prospect, he couldn't hit the side of a barn in Vegas, bricking 15 of 17 3-point tries, frequently missing short. He has some minor adjustments to make to adjust to NBA range. I’m not super worried about it.
He showed real defensive chops man-to-man, which wasn’t quite as frequently on display in Germany, where bigs and guards do most of the scoring damage. While he still needs to hone his off-ball defense, being solid on-ball is a very good foundation.
The other skill he showed, unexpectedly, was vision. Dadiet looked comfortable passing out of drives, as a connector and out of the pick-and-roll. We knew he had a great feel for off-ball cutting as a prospect, so perhaps this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, but this young man had only 32 assists in 59 games in Germany. For him to consistently move the ball so well in SL shows that his context in Germany – his job was to finish plays scoring, period – suppressed his passing.
That effectively chops his prospect weakness list in half. As an 18-year-old wing scoring prospect that’s a big deal, and arguably the most consequential long-term takeaway from Vegas.
7) The jury is still out on the centers
Many a Knick fan remains annoyed the team is currently slated to go to war with a fragile starting center in Mitchell Robinson and a terrible backup in Jericho Sims. They’re right to worry. So naturally, there was some curiosity as to whether Hukporti or Skapintsev might fill that Sims role, at the very least.
Hukporti played well on offense. He finished lobs, dunked with aplomb and showed short-roll floaters and passing skills. The issue was on defense, where you can see most clearly he’s still recovering vertical pop after tearing his Achilles late in 2022. His leaping while backpedaling or off of turns isn’t great, making his rim protection weaker than you would think for someone who can throw down dunks or get highlight blocks. Right now he’d be a liability, at least on the level of Sims.
Skapintsev, on the other hand, showed major offensive proficiency – which makes sense, given he’s 26. He showed an ability to step out for threes and for middies, and make basic moves around the hoop to attack mismatches and find angles for layups. Having a 9-foot-4 standing reach certainly helps. He was also elite on the offensive glass, which we know 1) translates from SL and 2) is major for Thibs’ bigs. On defense, Skapintsev was mid — he’s long but can barely jump, though he does move well up and down the court. Gun to my head, I think he’s probably a more helpful third center than Sims right now. As the primary backup? That would give me pause.
