Stephen R. Sylvanie-USA TODAY Sports
NBA Summer League means nothing, right? It’s just a few games where guys who, for the most part, aren’t usually expected to make a final roster can do their best to make that happen.
Well, for the Sacramento Kings, Summer League has meant a little more than it does for most teams. Their first round pick and highly decorated prospect out of Kansas, Ben McLemore, has struggled so far.
The word ‘struggled’ may be putting it nicely.
In his first game against the Dallas Mavericks on Saturday, McLemore finished with a shooting performance so bad that it remains to be the big topic revolving around the summer league action still at this point.
McLemore wound up shooting 4-23 in his debut.
In his second performance on Monday against the Golden State Warriors, McLemore finished on 4-12 shooting with a dismal 1-7 from three point range. According to SI.com, those in attendance were quite impressed with his perseverance throughout his continued missed jumpers and inability to finish drives.
I guess that’s good news. Or, maybe not.
The Kings thought they had themselves a steal drafting McLemore at number seven overall, but prior to the 2013 NBA Draft there had been a lot of negativity surrounding the 20 year-old guard.
McLemore was said to have been lazy and not worked too hard leading up to his pre-draft workouts, likely being the reason he fell to number seven when at one point experts predicted him to go as high as number two overall.
We shouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves here when analyzing his two first performances, but hopefully McLemore has learned that at the NBA level — even in the Summer League — there is a higher standard of work ethic required.
Ryan Heckman is a Senior NBA Writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @ryanmheckman, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
