2010 Summer League Rosters: Orlando Magic
July 10th, 2010
This post is a bit late, considering the Magic have played their games. However, the site’s outages just before free agency started set us back a bit, and then obviously free agency itself kind of blew the cock off the whole thing. Sorry about that.
Since I’d already started it, we’ll do it anyway.
Jeff Adrien
It’s hard for a 6’7 power forward to make it in the NBA. You have to be pretty exceptional at something to do it. Adrien, though, is exceptional at nothing. He’s solid at most things except foul shooting; decently athletic, willing and able to rebound, capable of defending the post, prepared to run, and able to shoot right handed hook shots. But despite his height, he’s in absolutely no way a small forward. He’s a very undersized power forward who is neither really athletic nor Chuck Hayes.
Adrien played in the LEB Gold last year, averaging 12.3ppg and 7.7rpg for Breocgan Lugo. It’s a league ideally suited for him.
Joe Crawford
Crawford is slightly undersized for a shooting guard at 6’4, could use a slightly better three point stroke (and definitely from the foul line), and is not exactly consistent; he is, however, a talented and versatile scorer, mainly through penetration. Crawford is a former draft pick of the L.A. Lakers, 58th overall back in 2008. Had he been drafted somewhere else, he might have stuck in the NBA by now. He’s good.
As it is, he’s appeared in only 2 games, for the Knicks in the last week of the 2008/09 season. He scored 9 points in 23 minutes. Not bad.
Joe Crawford fact: Joe Crawford is Hawks draft pick Jordan Crawford’s brother. That is all.
Paul Davis
Davis has spent at least part of three years in the NBA, including starting last season with the Washington Wizards. He is a jump shooting big man without three point range, who offensively rebounds but not defensively rebounds, and who doesn’t do much defensively. Yet because he’s 6’11 and able to score, he keeps making it back.
Rumour has it that Davis is going to sign with Maccabi Tel-Aviv next season. Admittedly, Maccabi Tel-Aviv are linked with absolutely everyone.
Patrick Ewing Jr.
Ewing gets to join the team that employs his dad, which always seemed inevitable. It might not last long, however. Now 26 and coming off a season he completely missed due to injury, Ewing is going to try to make the team as the athletic small forward rebounder/defender who moves the ball but doesn’t have a jump shot. He’s doing this on the team that just stole Stanley Robinson with the 59th pick. It’s pretty much the worse place he could have picked. Ewing will also go to summer league with the Knicks in Vegas, where he has more of a chance, but this isn’t [wasn’t] the best place for him.
Regardless of how well he played.
Trey Gilder
Trey Gilder was fourth in the NBA in PER last year. If I give that fact the context it needs, it’ll lose its lustre, so I won’t. When not in the NBA, Gilder was back in the D-League, spending all but 9 games of the season with the Maine Red Claws. He averaged 14.3 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.2 blocks per game, doing a little of everything except for jump shooting. The lanky bugger is developing well as a role player; unfortunately, outside of his athleticism, there is nothing exceptional to his game. And in the NBA, basically everyone is an athlete.
Yaroslav Korolev
Korolev was drafted ahead of Danny Granger, based on his potential. Turns out he’s not even as good as Danny Green. Korolev is still only 23 years old, but he’s still also not an NBA player. Last year, Korolev returned from three years of not playing in Russia to go to the D-League, splitting his time between the Albuquerque Thunderbirds and the Reno Bighorns. The 6’9 small forward averaged 9.9 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.2 assists, 1.0 steals and 1.2 turnovers in 20.8 minutes of 29 games for the Bighorns, shooting 43% from two point range and 35% from three. If you see anything NBA calibre there other than the words “6’9 small forward,” let me know.
Ben McCauley
McCauley does not have NBA talent. Instead, he has French league talent. It is therefore fitting that he spent his first professional season there, averaging 10.5ppg and 5.0rpg for Strasbourg. Defense and physical play are not really required in France, which is good, because McCauley doesn’t have it. He’s a good shotmaker for a centre, including having developing three point range. But he’s not an NBA player.
Daniel Orton
Whatever Daniel Orton becomes, he certainly is not it yet. That is, unless he’s destined to be not very good. Orton is drafted on potential and, of course, is only 19. He will only be 23 by the end of his rookie contract. Let’s hope he’s a rotation player by then.
Jerome Randle
As midgets go, this one is pretty excellent. The usual knocks against undersized point guards – can’t defend their position at the higher levels, can’t finish in the paint, can’t really get there – are all kind of true of Randle. But more than once, Randle demonstrated the ability to win games single handedly. Even in the weakened Pac-23, this is no small accomplishment. Randle has range about five times greater than his height and can play point guard to go with that; the fact that he wasn’t drafted does not mean that he shouldn’t have been. (If that makes sense.)
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Stanley Robinson was drafted about 25 places too low and single handedly makes Matt Barnes surplus to requirements. I stand by this. He is not as good as Barnes currently, but he will be.
Sean Singletary
Last year, former Kings draft pick Singletary signed with the Philadelphia 76ers for training camp, but had little chance of making the team. He then signed with Spanish EuroLeague team Caja Laboral, on what was initially supposed to be a short term contract; however, Singletary has ended up sticking with the team for the entire season. This was due in no small part to his January 13th performance; after shooting only 6-27 in his previous 6 EuroLeague games with the team, Singletary shot 6-8 for 16 points in the final EuroLeague regular season game against CSKA Moscow, also putting up 5 steals in only 15 minutes. Caja Laboral lost anyway, but it was enough to get him the extension.
That was his only double digit game of the season, however, in all competitions. Singletary has averaged only 3.4 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 12.6 minutes per game in the EuroLeague, alongside 10.7 mpg/2.4 ppg/1.9 rpg/1.5 apg in the ACB. He is shooting a combined 36% from the field, 33% from three and 52% from the free throw line. Singletary is a small point guard who has lost his offence since joining the professional game (it’s not as easy to score 19.8ppg once you leave the ACC, as outlined above); as he is also turnover prone and too small to have much impact defensively, there’s not a whole lot of upside to Singletary at the NBA level.
Vladimir Stimac
Vladimir Stimac is a Serbian power forward/centre who looks more like bowling champion Chris Barnes than I am comfortable with.
Stimac is 22 years old and a former member of the Serbian U-20 national team. He is a former member of Crvena Zvezda, my favourite non-NBA team; like basically everyone else, he left when they stopped paying him. Stimac is basically a tough, physical rebounder; he can make shots around the basket but does not post up a lot to create them, and defensively, he is limited to only the hard foul or the touch foul. He is unathletic and not even especially big for a centre; aside for a pretty decent jump shot, he plays exclusively around the basket. In the NBA, at 6’10 and already with a foul problem, that’s not getting it done. But it was good of him to try.
Curtis Stinson
Stinson has had one NBA contract in his life, and he survived all of three days on it. That was with the Bulls last year, and he was cut just as the Bulls suffered an injury crisis to their guards. Did not think that one through.
This was Stinson’s third season in the D-League, and his second full season with the Iowa Energy. Just like in the first one, he played all 50 regular season games. He played 44.6 mpg in 2008/09, and 42.4 mpg in 2009/10; hardiness is definitely not one of his flaws. He also maintained his averages even with the slightly reduced minutes, going from 16.1 ppg, 8.4 apg, 7.0 rpg and 2.2 spg in 08/09 to 15.2 ppg, 10.9 apg, 5.4 rpg and 2.2 spg in 09/10, raising his scoring from 44% to 46%, and his free throw shooting from 74% to 81%. Stinson still can’t shoot from outside, making only 11 three pointers all season on only 19% shooting. His PER of 15.7 was also pretty sedate. But the rest of the numbers were all there, again.
In the D-League playoffs, Stinson averaged 44.6 minutes, 23.7 points, 10.8 rebounds and 8.8 assists per game, going all LeBron-like when the season was on the line. However, it ended on a sour note. The Energy were tied 1-1 with the Tulsa 66ers in the three game conference finals series, but were facing elimination when down 5 with two minutes left. The game had (apparently) been badly officiated, and Stinson blew his top at a call that went against him. Stinson was ejected from the game by the ref, but rather than go, Stinson started after the ref and had to be restrained by Pat Carroll. The crowd (the Energy were at home) then also got into it, and some of them had to be ejected too. The game was postponed for several minutes while order was restored. And when play resumed without Stinson, the Energy lost.
Somewhere in that exchange, Stinson vomited on the court. After three straight seasons of D-League paychecks, it’s entirely possible that he leaves the D-League for better money elsewhere next season. If he does, then that may have been his final D-League game. There’s no better way to say goodbye than with a puke and a fight. A legacy is born.
And yes, there is a video. But not of the vomit.
Because of the fact that his numbers are so inflated by the minutes he plays, plus his lack of jump shot, plus the fact that his strengths lie largely in the full court game, Stinson has not yet gotten in the NBA despite the stats. However, 10.7apg is significant in any league.
Donell Taylor
Taylor had a strong season, averaging 21.9ppg, 7.2rpg and 4.8apg for the Idaho Stampede. He is a former Wizards and Bobcats guard, whose problem has always been jump shots (and, in his Wizards days, layups as well). Taylor’s jump shot has improved a bit, although it’s still the strength of his all-around game that makes him interesting. He probably won’t get one, but another turn in the NBA would not be unjustified.
