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Zeke and the NBA Draft


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It doesn't matter when he gets in. It matters how he plays when he does get in.

Right now, Zeke is like the guy fighting to make an NFL team and does so by busting his butt on special teams or any other chance he gets to play. Every team has a guy a year who makes the team like this. The coaches are evaluating every second of every game and practice so it doesn't matter when you get in. It's about production.

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Even when Zeke ISN'T playing, he's playing for an NBA job. GM's will analyze everything. I heard one say in an interview one time, that they look at players' body language while on the bench after a positive and/or negative play for the team that they're currently on. This will kind of give them a look into their personality a little bit. And when GM's put together a team, they want to put a team together that can play together(example: Golden State).May be over analyzing, but if you can tell Zeke this, tell him while being on the bench. Try to be as vocal as he can. That might intrigue a GM right there.

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Michael Eric (6-11, Temple + Canton Charge in the D-League) is the only other center on the 76ers Summer League roster. He did a nice job today of setting up Zeke for a chance to prove he's the best center on the team. In 24 minutes today, Eric was 1-5 from the field and 0-0 free throws for 2 points, 4 rebounds, 1 turnover and 0 blocked shots. If Zeke can't beat that, he's going to have a hard time earning an NBA roster position. The 76ers have tomorrow off and return at 1 pm Wednesday to play the Oklahoma Thunder. Go Zeke!

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Michael Eric (6-11, Temple + Canton Charge in the D-League) is the only other center on the 76ers Summer League roster. He did a nice job today of setting up Zeke for a chance to prove he's the best center on the team. In 24 minutes today, Eric was 1-5 from the field and 0-0 free throws for 2 points, 4 rebounds, 1 turnover and 0 blocked shots. If Zeke can't beat that, he's going to have a hard time earning an NBA roster position. The 76ers have tomorrow off and return at 1 pm Wednesday to play the Oklahoma Thunder. Go Zeke!

He is not going to beat anything if he does not get into the game.

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Why bother signing a guy to play summer league if you aren't going to play him? Maybe that's why Phili had decent expectations coming into the season last year, and are in a complete rebuild this year. Incompetent. No doubt in my mind Zeke is better than Eric. I watched Eric play for the Cavs in the summer league last year.

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Same reason you draft a guy from Europe and never sign him. Keep him from playing for other teams.

I doubt thats the reason. Zeke could have signed with a number of teams and can, and more than likely will (rightfully so) play for another team in the Las Vegas summer league to have a chance to prove himself.

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Wasn't able to watch the live broadcast of today's game, but just finished the replay. Zeke only played 8 minutes in a pair of 4-minute stints. My first observation is that he had no trouble running the floor. He's fast enough to stay up with smaller players and easily outran the Thunder's highly touted 7-foot rookie, Steven Adams. Second, it appears to me that he's learned some new tricks on rebounding. His first rebound was off a missed free throw where he did a nice job of boxing out and snatching the ball. He aggressively went after rebounds much more so than at UA. None of his 4 rebounds was a gimme. He worked hard and had way more rebounds per minute played than anyone else on the floor.

Zeke's first shot was off an offensive rebound where he quickly went up for a little 8-foot jumper that hit the back of the rim and rolled off the front. His second was about a 12-foot jumper that went off the side of the rim. His third was an attempted tip-in of a teammate's missed shot in heavy traffic with lots of colliding bodies, and it too rolled off. His shooting didn't look bad, just a little off.

Both of his blocks were against 6-8, 260-pound power forward Ron Anderson, who played 2 seasons at Kansas State, 2 at South Florida and last season in the D-League. Anderson took the ball strong to the rim on two separate occasions and Zeke not only blocked both but took possession of one. Zeke easily had way more blocks per minute played than anyone else. Zeke also did a reasonably good job defending Adams, who got off only 2 shots against Zeke's defense. The first was a really short jumper that Adams shot high just over Zeke's outstretched arm. It bounced around the rim and went through. The second Adams shot was a short hook, again just over Zeke's outstretched hand, and this one bounced around the rim even more than the first before settling in. Adams got the bounces where Zeke didn't.

Overall, I'd say that Zeke neither exceeded nor failed expectations. His shot blocking was great as expected, his shooting was a little off as many expected, and his rebounding was better than most expected. He neither guaranteed himself an NBA contract nor eliminated himself from consideration. After sitting the first 2 games, 8 minutes didn't give him a lot of time to show everything he's got. Hopefully he gets a little more PT in the next 2 games and gets some of those shots to bounce in instead of out.

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Another disappointing DNP for Zeke today. So in 4 games he has a total of 8 minutes of PT. Last chance in Orlando tomorrow at 4 pm when Philly plays Brooklyn. The Las Vegas Summer League also starts tomorrow, and I've seen nothing yet on whether Zeke has a spot on any of those rosters.

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Another disappointing DNP for Zeke today. So in 4 games he has a total of 8 minutes of PT. Last chance in Orlando tomorrow at 4 pm when Philly plays Brooklyn. The Las Vegas Summer League also starts tomorrow, and I've seen nothing yet on whether Zeke has a spot on any of those rosters.

das Schreiben auf der Wand

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He neither guaranteed himself an NBA contract nor eliminated himself from consideration.

Are you trying to play "Switzerland" on this one?

I'd say that not playing at all in several games, and only playing a few minutes in others, and not scoring points, on an NBA Summer League team is a really, really bad sign in terms of your prospects of moving upward.

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@skip-zip, I thought I was pretty clear in my detailed evaluation of Zeke's performance in his first 8-minutes of Summer League play after carefully reviewing the video, and stand behind exactly what I said. I haven't yet had time to review video of his 13-minute performance in yesterday's game, but will do so sometime in the next 24 hours. Have you reviewed any of the video?

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Unfortunately, I dont believe it looks very good for Zeke.

It's hard to prove yourself when you play in short stretches and for a short amount of time overall. No time to adjust or get into any sort of groove.

The question is whether he will have any more chances....

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