Shut 'Em Down: The Second-Year Players Who Could Break Out This Year

Featuring a Piston, a Rocket, and a Spur you never knew about

There are generally three kinds of players in Summer League, outside of a few exceptions. The first are the rookies, those who need all the reps they can get because, you know, they haven’t actually played any NBA minutes. Unless one goes off for multiple 30-pointers, rarely do you see them shut down, and fans tend to overreact a lot to them as a result.

The second category includes those who have grinded it out in the G League for a few years and in the weird “too good for the G League, not good enough for the NBA” zone. Sometimes you’ll see these guys get called up to the NBA level after some great performances, but usually they put up 20 points per game and play another season in the G League, which is certainly respectable, considering that many guys can’t stick around at that level, either.

The third group, though, is who we’re focusing on today. These are the sophomores of the league who generally didn’t get a chance to show what they were made of in their rookie years (for injury reasons, team construction issues, or otherwise), and now get a a chance to be honored with the biggest Summer League award: Getting shut down because the team doesn’t want to take a chance.

Getting shut down in Summer League is pretty impressive and shows that the NBA squad is interested in keeping them in a strong rotation role during the regular season. Below, I’ve taken notice of a few guys who could be in the conversation for being shut down and talk about why they may be this coming season’s breakout candidates. Not every single one will break out in the same way they do at Summer League, but each one seems to be too good for Vegas at the moment.

Without further ado, let’s start with a player who had a weird rookie year but could end up being a key piece on an upstart squad…