Summer Raptors 89, Summer Knicks 79: Jericho Sims soars
The Knicks kicked off Summer League play against the Raptors on Sunday afternoon, and though they showed a considerable amount of rust and jitters, the young Knicks gave glimpses of lots of potential.
Ah, Summer League, our favorite offseason fling. Always a joyful, carefree, Hawaiian shirt of an event. It’s comparatively meaningless, of course, to its 82-game cousin — in that wins and losses, good and bad performances, don’t matter like they usually do. That makes it a perfectly-situated pallet cleanser in the hazy-August afterglow of the NBA Finals, the draft, and free agency — all of which are very serious business — as the main events of a very serious basketball calendar.
The NBA’s Summer League is to the NBA’s regular season as Mindaugus Kuzminskas is to Carmelo Anthony: related, in concept, but separated by as many levels of depth and meaning as the two former Knick small forwards’ respective career point tallies (425 of them thangs for Kuz versus 27,370 and counting for Melo).
Not that this matters, because we love Kuz for different reasons than we love Melo. For his cheesy grin and his boyish hair and his herky-jerky offensive cadence. In the same way, we love Summer League for different reasons than we love the NBA’s serious season. For the novelty and the distance from Having-To-Always-Have-A-Take and the pocket-sized two-week narratives.
From a fan’s perspective, the stakes are ankle-low. But for some of the tournament’s players, this is their Super Bowl, in which they’re literally playing for a chance at an NBA life. It makes for an odd dissonance, the contrast in significance for the carefree fan and the pocket of little-known participants on each roster going full-throttle to get a second glance from one of the powerful faces courtside.
Meaning in Summer League isn’t always found in the final score, or even necessarily in individual stat lines, but in flashes and glimpses and on-court clues to big league futures. The Knicks fell to the Toronto Raptors 89-79 in their 2021 Las Vegas debut yesterday. It was fairly disgusting to watch, and by the end was being played on a court at least a foot deep in rust, 75% of which had started the afternoon barnacled to Immanuel Quickley’s shooting arm.
Analyzing this one with a strategical eye would be about as useful as picking your nose with a crowbar, but there are a few tentative takes to be had. Here are some moments and themes, that for Knicks fans, could carry meaning beyond this shimmering two-week neon dream in the desert.
Let’s start with Quickley, whose opposite number Malachi Flynn will take the plaudits after an efficient 23 points on 8-13 shooting to go along with six rebounds and one assist. As previously alluded to, IQ didn’t shoot well — 15 points on 5-17 and 2-10 from three — but he did have eight assists, six rebounds and two steals for a well-rounded floor game.
The shooting would be worrying, if we didn’t have a rookie season sample the size of Jupiter that yes, actually, he can shoot the thing pretty well. He got the keys to the offense yesterday, and a steady diet of pick-and-rolls to work out of, and like last season, he made consistently functional although notably not manipulative reads going downhill after leveraging the threat of his long ball. He’s still a playmaking work in progress, but I think he’ll survive this one, where he was clearly tasked with working on the skill everyone agrees he needs to work on. Which is exactly what Summer League is for. Back away from the pure point guard discourse, let’s not overthink this single Vegas clunker.
The Knicks’ other sophomore star, Obi Toppin, popped off the screen tonight. After a slow start, he dropped 24 points on 10-21 shooting and 2-10 from deep. There were put-backs, leaners, threes, post-ups, and breakaways; a variety of buckets that underscore what we already knew, but didn’t get a chance to see much of last year: if Obi gets touches, the buckets can fall like rain in monsoon season. Despite the percentage, his aggression from deep was encouraging, and there were zero of those bad-by-a-few-feet misses that we saw last season. The stroke looks cleaner, noticeably compact, more repeatable — which may have something to do with a summer of reps for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The second-year man looks spry, and eager to erase the doubts born of an inconsistent rookie campaign. Personally, I’m bulk-buying Obi stock.
Speaking of dinner: Deuce McBride plays hungrier than a hyena on a diet. He couldn’t find the range from deep in his debut, but nine points, five boards, two assists, and a steal is a nice line that underplays the tenacity he moves around the court with. This game felt his minutes. I’m surprised Thibs didn’t spontaneously stride onto the court mid-possession and give him a hug. The kid was as defensively advertised: crisp rotations, willing rim protection, kamikaze screen navigation. He bordered on frenetic at times, gambling a few possessions too many, but that’s likely the price of doing business and falling in love with a player like McBride. MSG will sign the adoption papers in the first minute of the first quarter of the first preseason game, I promise you that.
One minute and one touch is all it took for Quentin Grimes to knock down his first catch-and-shoot three, zooming off a pin-down into a wide open look at the top of the key, uncorking that picture perfect jumper — as smooth as ice on ice. He was 3-8 from deep for all nine of his points on the night, a quiet night, where he was self aware enough to stay in his 3-and-D lane. He took his shots and played solid defense on the other end, with impressively quick and active feet to go with a sturdy frame. There are shades of rookie RJ Barrett in his defensive discipline, on and off the ball. A solid if unspectacular debut for Grimes, who didn’t take any risks in the opener, which is a smart philosophy if he wants to earn minutes on a roster as deep as this.
We didn’t get to see any of Rokas Jokubaitis against the Raptors, but we did see Luca Vildoza, who yawned his way through eight forgettable minutes. To be fair, his performance may have something to do with arriving in the country approximately eight minutes before tip-off, not-so-fresh from Olympic duty for Argentina in Japan. The guy had reason to be tired and played tired. Jet-lag aside, though, given the roster crunch and sudden embarrassment of backcourt riches, there is a sense that Luca is auditioning for a roster spot in Vegas, and he’ll have to show more in the coming games than he did yesterday.
Last but not least, we have Jericho Sims. Let’s not beat around the bush, the man punched the sky in the face, from above, like a giant would an ant, when he dunked on whichever 7-foot gnat it was that he dunked on in the fourth quarter. He is bounce personified. Volcanic hops. Nitros ups. You get the picture, probably, but he really is the kind of athlete that makes you question if he’s not in fact a chiseled skinful of flubber.
Even then, the most encouraging thing about his performance were the hints of a deft touch to go along with this atomic bounce: a floater here, a baby hook there, an agile catch and finish through traffic. There’s a player in there. Defensively, and especially on the glass, he is raw to at times red-raw. It doesn’t feel like he knows how to really use his body before jumping for a rebound yet: he seems like a puppy on the boards, constantly surprised by something interesting that’s just entered his field of vision. But hey, stuff like that is what Kenny Payne is for. KP will whisper the puppy right out of him.
And that was that really. There was a fake comeback. Scottie Barnes is a strangely proportioned human. The refereeing stunk like a Las Vegas sewer. Wayne Selden exists. The Knicks lost a game that doesn’t matter, but got some interesting performances from some players that definitely do.
Oh, and Jericho Sims doesn’t believe in gravity, making it hard not to believe in Jericho Sims, which might be the most grounded take available with game one in the books.
Next up: Summer Pacers vs. Summer Knicks, at 2 p.m. ET, Monday, an unexpected but welcome addition to the schedule.
