Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Tangential Hawks Notes From the First Day of Summer League

I didn't get to sit and watch the summer league action yesterday (that'll have to wait until next week) but here are some notes of possible interest...

James Augustine may play for the Hawks in Vegas. He's playing for the Jazz in Orlando and impressed Scott Schroeder of Ridiculous Upside:
Boy oh boy did I like Augustine's game (and semi-fro hair) today. When breaking down the Jazz Summer League roster, I opined that "If Augustine actually asserts himself, he moves up a couple of spots on my invisible ranking system of free agent power forwards - he's got good size, he's athletic and he knows how to play basketball. Unfortunately, he never really seems to put that all together." The 6-foot-10 big man put it together today, though, as he scored 20 points on 9-of-10 shooting while playing just over 21 minutes of action. He also had the highest +/- on the Jazz with +12 while rendering second round pick Jeremy Evans and RU favorite Rod Benson useless on the bench. If the unstoppably awkward lefty-hook is indeed part of his expanded arsenal and he's able to perform this well every game, I'd be surprised if he's not on an NBA roster next season.
I've always like Augustine as an end-of-the-rotation NBA big and would support his acquisition to be the fourth or fifth big in Atlanta next season should the Hawks fill out the roster with minimum salaries.

Garret Siler continues to be huge, unproductive. He made one of two field goals for the summer Nets but grabbed just one rebound in 9:52. He's just too slow and grounded to compete against NBA players.

PJ Tucker, second only to Nick Fazekas in my estimation and wonder about what might have been, is on the Charlotte team. He played just 1:56 yesterday but I'd like to see the Hawks bring him in as a possible defensive-minded 3/4 in the vein of Diamon Simpson.

1 comment:

jrauch said...

I always thought Augustine was under-rated coming out of Illinois. He was a pretty nice inside presence for them with the athleticism, I thought, to catch on somewhere on an NBA bench.

And he's got great hair.