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NBA Summer League play continues with seven games on Friday, Aug. 13. The action begins with Timberwolves vs Bucks at 4 pm ET, and continues with a new game tipping off each hour until 10:00 pm ET. I’m looking at two games for my best bets of today’s Las Vegas Summer League slate.
Warriors vs Thunder
The Golden State Warriors face the Oklahoma City Thunder with both teams sporting a 1-1 record. PointsBet Sportsbook lists the spread as Warriors -4 for this Summer League matchup tipping off at 7 pm ET.
Two rookies star for Golden State in Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody. Both players have been inefficient at times and each shot under 30% in the team’s last game, but they flashed the potential that made them lottery picks in the 2021 NBA Draft.
Kuminga led the team with 18 points in Wednesday’s win over Toronto and boasts averages of 17 points, five rebounds, 2.5 blocks and a steal per game in Las Vegas. Kuminga, the seventh overall pick in this year’s draft, put up an exorbitant 36.5% usage rate against the Raptors and should adjust to Summer League better than most rookies after he spent last season with the G-League’s Ignite team playing against professionals. Golden State’s other rookie, Moses Moody, scored 14.5 points per game in his first two Summer League matchups while shooting 41.7% from 3-point territory.
Point guard Gary Payton II adds a veteran presence to the Golden State summer roster as a 28-year-old with five years of NBA experience. Payton and the Warriors agreed to push back the date of the partial guarantee in his contract until training camp, allowing the team to get an extra few games to evaluate the guard as he competes for a roster spot. The former undrafted player from Oregon State impressed in his first two Las Vegas games, averaging 12 points and 6.5 rebounds per game on 75% shooting from beyond the arc.
This Oklahoma City summer team ranks last in Las Vegas scoring, with only 70.5 points per game on 34.8% shooting from the field. The Thunder have been unable to connect from beyond the arc through two games, as the team is dead last in three-point percentage and three-pointers made per game. An abysmal 17.9% mark from beyond the arc is unlikely to improve without OKC’s two 2021 first-round picks in Josh Giddey and Tre Mann.
Giddey, the sixth overall pick in this draft, left his Las Vegas debut early in the first quarter with an ankle injury and Mann was ruled out for the remainder of Summer League due to personal matters. Mann shot inefficiently from the field, but he was among Oklahoma City’s best distributors in Las Vegas as the only player with an assist ratio above 20% in the team’s last game. The most notable healthy player on Oklahoma City is second-year guard Theo Maledon, who put up a double-double with 15 points and 11 assists in the team’s first game against the Pistons, but shot only two-for-11 in Wednesday’s 15-point loss to New Orleans.
No players on the Thunder roster average 15 points or more, and second-round pick Aaron Wiggins is the leading scorer through two Las Vegas matches. Wiggins, the 55th overall pick in this draft, put up 14.5 points per game despite his ghastly 11.1% mark from long range. Wiggins could have an even larger role against the Warriors after putting up a Westbrook-esque 36.6% usage rate against New Orleans even with Mann in the lineup.
Prediction: Warriors -3.5
Golden State will have a huge advantage from beyond the arc, as the Thunder are the worst three-point shooting team in Las Vegas while the Warriors rank first in three-point accuracy at 41%. Synergy data reveals that Oklahoma City has the worst efficiency (0.47 PPP) on spot-up possessions compared to Golden State’s 0.92 PPP mark on spot-ups, which ranks 10th in Summer League. Spot-ups are the most common play type for Golden State, while Oklahoma City runs a significantly higher volume of possessions through a pick-and-roll ball handler than the Warriors. Despite this, the Thunder still rank as the second-worst team in PPP on those possessions.
Oklahoma City is slightly better defensively, with the seventh-lowest PPP allowed overall, but still permit the highest opposing PPP when defending transition possessions according to Synergy. An athletic Golden State team should be able to get fast break opportunities in this game, as the Warriors rank seventh in transition PPP offensively. I think the Warriors should be able to cover the four-point spread easily if they can continue to make their three-pointers and thrive in transition.
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Knicks vs Pistons
Tonight’s 8 pm ET matchup features the Knicks and Pistons in action. The New York is 2-1 through three games, with two consecutive wins since a 10-point loss against Toronto to open the Summer League. Immanuel Quickley leads the team in scoring with 24 points and 7.7 assists per game while only averaging 2.3 turnovers. The second-year guard put up a game-high 25 points in New York’s most recent action: a nine-point victory over the Lakers.
2021 first-round pick Quentin Grimes starts alongside Quickley in the backcourt, but second-round pick Miles “Deuce” McBride has been the more impressive rookie through three games. McBride scored 22 points against the Lakers to increase his average to 15 points per game on 62.5% shooting and 61.5% from three-point territory. The Knicks also have 2020 first-round pick Obi Toppin in the frontcourt. Toppin, who played limited minutes last season but showed flashes of potential in New York’s playoff series loss to the Hawks, has averages of 21 points and 9.3 boards through three games.
Cade Cunningham, the top pick in this year’s NBA Draft, headlines Detroit’s Summer League squad. Cunningham averaged 16 points in his first two games but struggled with his efficiency, only making 37.1% of his shot attempts and committing more turnovers (4.5) than assists (2.0) per game. Luckily for Detroit, the Rookie of the Year favorite contributes in other ways, with 2.5 steals and 1.5 blocks per game to go along with five boards per night. Detroit has other young prospects with potential, including 2020 All-Rookie First Team selection Saddiq Bey and last year’s first-round pick Killian Hayes. Cunningham is still the main attraction as the only starter with a usage rate above 20% against the Rockets.
The main stat I’ll be following during this matchup is the assist/turnover ratio on both sides. The primary knock on Cunningham in the draft was his poor assist/turnover ratio at Oklahoma State, and the Detroit summer team hasn’t fared much better. The Pistons average the second-fewest assists in Las Vegas while committing turnovers at the third-highest rate among Summer League teams. Detroit only put up 0.8 assists for every turnover in their last game against the Rockets, a major factor in the 20-point loss. On the other hand, New York exceeded a 1.0 assist/turnover ratio in all three games in Las Vegas.
This discrepancy makes sense when you consider how each team plays. The Knicks summer squad relies mostly on spot-up attempts, with 34% of their shots coming off spot-up possessions, while the Pistons run isolation plays more often than any other team in Summer League according to Synergy. While this may benefit Cunningham’s development in the long run, the current result is a Pistons summer team shooting only 22% from beyond the arc.
Prediction: Knicks -2.5
New York’s success in Las Vegas is the product of a strong offense scoring 0.97 points per possession (PPP), the third-best mark in Summer League. Quickley and the Knicks should be able to score at will against Detroit’s squad, which allows opponents to score 0.91 PPP, ranked 26th in Summer League by Synergy. The Pistons also commit more fouls than any team in Las Vegas and own the third-worst PPP rank while defending ball handlers in the pick and roll, so New York’s guards could have another big game. I’m taking the Knicks to win the assist/turnover battle and cover the 2.5-point spread at PointsBet Sportsbook.
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