Basketball Intelligence for 7/25/24
Top 21st-century players, Heat's Summer League lessons, Olympics, and more
OLYMPIC AND LEAGUE STORIES
Reed Sheppard, Tristan da Silva highlight NBA Summer League standouts
John Hollinger, The Athletic
Defensively, Sheppard showed he might be more impactful than scouts presumed. While Sheppard still yielded his share of blow-bys, much as his tape at Kentucky showed, he made up for it with disruptive plays. He finished with 11 steals and five blocks in four games, a Matisse Thybulle-esque “stocks” performance not too far off what Sheppard did in a much larger sample in the SEC last season.
Kevin Durant returns to practice for Team USA, TBD on Games debut
Brian Windhorst, ESPN
Ranking the top 25 NBA players of the 21st century
Staff, ESPN
NBA offseason grades: Gauging teams ahead of 2024-25 season
Kevin Pelton, ESPN+
Team USA leaders address Joel Embiid’s comments on team age: ‘We figure out ways to be effective’
Joe Vardon, The Athletic
NBA basketball hurts
Henry Abbott,
If you want to be an NBA player, you need skills. If you want to be an NBA star, one of those skills had better be drawing fouls. Scoring 30 points rarely occurs without the magic sauce of free throws. Referees can turn zero-point possessions into unguarded shots, good shots into and-ones, and off nights into 20-point games. And most importantly, the threat of a “superstar call” makes defenders yield useful chunks of airspace. Free throws are a force multiplier.
Just look at Damian Lillard. He made SportsCenter a hundred times for his logo shots. But in 2022-2023, at age 32, he shifted focus, drawing a free-throw attempt every 3.8 minutes, compared to every 5.8 minutes the season prior. In advanced statistics, Dillard became the best offensive player in the NBA and had the best scoring season of his career.
The Remarkable Reinvention of Chase Budinger
Mirin Fader, The Ringer
Summer League Reflections: A Rollercoaster of Performances
Rafael Barlowe,