Brief Case, Ep 104: Scrimmage Versus Team China, New Two-Way, In-Season Tourney and Clingan In Vegas

Brief Case, Ep 104: Scrimmage Versus Team China, New Two-Way, In-Season Tourney and Clingan In Vegas

hey Rip City this is Anthony Simons and it’s time to open the briefcase with Casey Hodo greetings pleas fans and welcome to the briefcase episode 104 of the briefcase I’m your host Casey holdall coming to you live to tape on location here in Las Vegas Portland Trailblazers after a week of practices at their facility in Toton making the trip to Las Vegas to begin their four game stretch actually at least five game stretch of games here in Las Vegas on the campus of UNLV as I participate in the 2024 NBA 2K Las Vegas summer league is what I believe what we’re supposed to say from a sponsorship perspective preparing themselves for their first game vers the Spurs by having a scrimmage firstus the Chinese National Team the Blazers also gave out the second of their two-way contracts a few days ago we also now know which group The trebl is going to be in for the inseason tournament or the Emirates cup I guess is what we’re supposed to say from a sponsorship perspective in the upcoming inseason tournament and we’ll hear briefly from Donovan kingan about his first week of practices and his thoughts going into the Portland Trailblazers 2024 NBA summer league all that and more or less I suppose on this edition of the briefcase well while the NBA Summer League started on Friday the T players is not playing their first game until Saturday July 13th versus San Antonio Spurs 6:00 start time at Thomas and macarina that one on ESPN 2 two days later the Portland t blers play their second game in Las Vegas July 15th versus the Philadelphia 76ers 5:30 start time for that one also on tamas macarina but that game is on NBA TV Portland’s thirdd game is the second game of a back toback versus the Washington Wizards July 16th 530 30 start time for that as well also in Thomas macarina also on NBA TV and finally the trbl has finished up their pre-tournament play by facing the Charlotte Hornets July 19th Friday 8:00 p.m. start time for that one that one on ESPN 2 in Cox Pavilion so if you’re in town in Las Vegas for the games the first three games at Thomas and macarina which is the bigger nice Arena the final game Cox Pavilion the smaller more intimate gym I guess you would call it after that the Trailblazers will have at least one more game if Trailblazers are one of the top four teams and that really comes down to a lot of different tiebreakers since a lot of teams end up with the same record they move on to tournament play which is a semi-final versus one of the other top four teams and then potentially a final for the Las Vegas Summer League Championship on Monday if they’re not one of the four teams that qualify for the quote unquote summer league tournament they will play one more game before heading back home that game will either be on Saturday or Sunday since they play on Friday that game will probably be on Sunday but either way at least five games for the TR Blazers as many as six games if they make the tournament final but four games on the schedule Saturday Monday Tuesday and Friday and again all those games televised either on ESPN 2 or NBA TV so go ahead and check those out as well first chance to get a look at Donovan kingan while also getting a chance to see how players like Chris Murray and Rion repair have improved over the offseason and get a look at the player that Portland tra Blazers signed to their second two-way contract and also see if there’s any players on the team who are maybe not going to make the Portland Trail Blazers this year but who maybe going to be on the remix this season and maybe have a chance at some point in time to get a call up to the Trailblazers so PL to pay attention to here in Las Vegas if you’re here in Las Vegas or if you’re watching from home great chance to get some offseason basketball you already have some with the WNBA you already have some later on this summer with the Olympics but you also got summer league as well worth checking out catch the future see it now NBA Summer League start Saturday for the Portland tril Blazers but since it didn’t have a game on Friday the team had a scrimmage versus the Chinese national team at menen Hall Arena or Min and hall Hall I guess it’s what it’s called basically the setup at UNLV is to have Cox Pavilion which is connected to Thomas and macarina through a little Breezeway and then they have their practice court which is called menen hall Hall I think or the menen hall you’ve probably seen te USA practices there that’s where the tra baz is having a scrimmage today versus the Chinese national team just played three quarters though I guess they periods if you only play three because they can’t be quarters if there’s only three of them chance to shake off the rest for the Trailblazers and get a little bit of run in versus another team before they played the Spurs in their first Summer League game Trailblazers did end up winning that three period game versus the Chinese National Team 6142 thought Chris Murray had a nice game thought Donovan kingan looked great in it Chinese national team has a number of large centers on their team so Donovan enbl to kind of Bang there a little bit I think that was a a a good opportunity for him to kind of get some run in since having not played or at least not played really live action outside of the practice facility since being in the NCA naal championship game I thought Justin manah looked great as well little hard to tell too both teams kind of feeling each other out both teams again I think using it as kind of a practice shaking off the rust a little bit and I don’t recall if the Spurs were playing in any of the other summer leagues but if they were the other thing too is that if you’re playing a team that already played a couple games at the other summer leagues and it’s your first game of Summer League when you haven’t played a game since the season got over either in the NBA or the NCA or in the g-league you know you could probably use a little bit of a chance to get up and down a little bit so I think that’s what the team used the scrimmage versus the Chinese national team for today nice collegial atmosphere in the gym I think players just got accomplished what they wanted to get accomplished I don’t know if they kept stats or not I tried to keep some for the first quarter and then realized there was really no point to doing that but I thought both teams looked good I think the Trailblazers looked considerably better than the Chinese national team which not exactly a surprise there but either way good chance to tune up and just kind of get the blood flowing a little bit before they have their first game versus the Spurs here in Las Vegas on ESPN 2 in another offseason news Trailblazers signed Bryce McGowan to a two-way contract on Thursday the second of Portland’s three two-way contracts J and IIA having the first of those two-ways they expanded the number of two-ways that teams could have last year from two to three so they still have one more spot left if they want to fill it you might remember Bryce mcgan from his last two seasons with the Charlotte Hornets he played 105 games 21 starts averaged 5.2 points on 41% shooting from the field 1.9 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 15.9 minutes per game he also appeared in games with the green burough swarm during the 2022 23 NBA G League season T players now have two players out of Nebraska between BR McGaw and d o Bon which they have to be the only team in the NBA that has two guys from Nebraska they have to be moment assume mwan is here in Vegas with the Trailblazers playing in their summer league team played in the scrimmage versus the Chinese national team on Friday had some nice plays nice athletic dunk as well for Bryce and actually let’s go hear what Bryce had to say after that game as well his first comments as a Trailblazer after signing that two-way contract on Thursday this what BR McGowan had to say after the scrim versus the Chinese national team at menen Hall Friday afternoon on the campus UNLV um as Charlotte for summer league so yeah did you you and Delano didn’t overlap in Nebraska didn’t you uh no we didn’t overlap he played with my older brother so uh yeah I know Delano very well so yeah that’s my guy yeah yeah Bryce for folks that don’t know your game what kind of a quick some op just of of kind of how you play yeah um you know just wiry you know long athletic uh you know play with energy just fun uh you know like to compete you know it’s a game of basketball so it’s what I love what’s been the the last 24 hours for you just kind of come back into the fire with a new team that quick uh last 24 hours you know it’s been it’s been it’s been a lot I would say you know uh a lot of talking you know uh a lot of you know outside stuff so you know just feels good to come back and you know get back in the gym and be stress free so uh I’m blessed like I said and you know I thank God how do you kind of feel like you fit in obviously coming these guys have been doing these summerly practices for like a week or so you come in just you fresh off the plane just getting in how do you feel like you fit in the first day uh first day you know it was good I’ve been here for about 2 days already um so and I was in Sacramento playing with Charlotte of course so you know I’m in a rhythm um I feel good and uh I’m excited to play tomorrow so were you at another summer league or what were you playing a different one yeah uh I was with Charlotte um in summer summer league so uh in Sacramento so that went well you know we went 3 and0 and we did good did good I got you here I guess too yes sir how did this uh how’ this go today uh today was great you know got a feel for you know a lot of my teammates a lot of the players uh you know it was fun uh defensively we play with a lot of energy uh which I hope carries over and offensively you know we shared the ball so um I’m definitely looking forward to playing with this group of uh guys in other NBA offseason scheduling news while the NBA hasn’t yet released the 20242 schedule they have announced which teams are going to be in witch groups for the 2024 Emirates cup also known as the inseason tournament which starts on November 12th the Portland Trailblazers are in West group a with the Minnesota Timberwolves the LA Clippers the Sacramento Kings and the Houston Rockets tournament play starts on November 12th with The Knockout rounds being held here in Las Vegas on December 14th and December 17th while they change the courts everything else is basically the same it counts towards a regular season record the teams in each group with the best record move on to tournament play in Las Vegas and then I think there’s a semi-final or quarterfinal the semi-final and then the final with the winner of that obviously being the inseason tournament champion or this year the Emirates Cup champion I don’t think there’s any other Stakes involved in it right now other than I think the players get some more money but I’ve already heard talk about figuring out a way to maybe give a little more intend of the n Season tournament though I’d say that everyone seemed like once they got into the inseason tournament I think people realized a little more juice in that for the players and the coaches than they might have expected anyway I think the first inseason tournament went fairly well I’m guessing there’s some tweaks here and there they’ll probably make as years go on but as far as I know this year same setup as last year Trailblazers as I mentioned once again in West group a versus the Minnesota Timberwolves the LA Clippers the Sacramento Kings and the Houston Rockets there’s not any easy groups but it’s about a medium group I would say I think West Group C is probably the most difficult group who’s to say it also depends on how the games are scheduled I don’t think they have those games on seg Nota back to backs um but you know if you’re playing at home or on the road that obviously has an impact it’s only one game versus each team in your group TR Blazers will have to play some fantastic basketball early in the season in order to advance out of that group but who’s to say what happens that’s why they play the games so once again Trailblazers West group a vers Timberwolves Clippers Kings and Rockets inseason tournament starts the 12th Emirates NBA cup I should say starts November 12th and finally let’s go ahead and hear real fast from Donovan kingan who talked after the team’s practice on Wednesday before the trebl headed out on Thursday to Las Vegas you know what I was curious about was you know there’s always a lot of talk about how summer league is really more about guards and less about big men and so I was curious to hear what Donovan Clingan had to say about that notion and just about the broader notion of sinners in the NBA you know as we’ve talked about time and time again you the league has gone to more of a of a pace and space and a stretch five kind of system where you know you you basically play smaller players who who can stretch the floor more often than you play kind of traditional back to the basket centers that seems like it’s may be changing a little bit so I was curious to get Donovan kingan’s opinion on that considering that both the NBA and Las Vegas summer league you know not necessarily always considered great places for big men to be able to go out and Thrive so I was interested to hear what he had to say about that notion and I know that we’re all very interested in seeing how he’s going to play here in Las Vegas once the trbl lasers start their summer league on Saturday versus one of Donovan’s former teammates Steven castle and the San Antonio Spurs so let’s go ahead and hear real quickly what Donovan kingan had to say after practice about his thoughts going into his first summer league uh so after 3 or four days now how do you feel like this is coming along for both you and for the team uh I think things are you know going really well um you know just being able to you know build a connection with the guys on the floor you know getting ready for summer league um you know just building those relationships building those you know great habits offensively and defensively you know it’s been a great few days of work you know getting ready for you know Vegas and you know I can tell that everyone everyone in this Bild is excited to get out there how excited are you to get out there and play a real game yeah it’s been it’s been a while since I played a you know a real game live action so you know to get out there in Vegas it’s it’s going to be fun you know I’m really excited really amped up to you know go out there compete again is the newness of learning everybody is that pretty fun yeah I mean yeah I mean you you know it’s it’s completely different you know it’s a different type of basketball you know it’s obviously it’s not College anymore so you know and you’re really just trying to understand how you know all your teammates play you know how you know what they do to succeed you know how I could set better ball screens how I could you know hand the ball off better you know really just trying to pick up on you know different players and you know how they need me to play for them to be you know very successful you watched the summer league throughout the years oh yeah yeah I’ve been watching especially recently um you know I watched a lot last year you know especially with you know D Jordan and Andre going into Summer League last year so I watched a lot um you know it’s cool seeing a lot lot the young guys go out there and you know compete for you know spots and you just to battle it out you know this is why you play basketball is to compete so you know I’m really excited the I asked too is because a lot of times people talk about summer league being a guards league and and not as good for for centers uh your thoughts on that because it seems like some of the centers so far playing this summer have had some success out there because the guards are Gunners and ballhawks well I’m not saying it’s because of they’re trying to get get paid and they’re like well the post go get that’s not an indictment of bigman that’s indictment of the league yeah yeah yeah I just you know for me it’s it’s about winning you know for me it’s not about the points it’s not about you know might getting the social media you know recognition now for me it’s just winning it’s just about you know how I can help my team win it’s not about you know scoring 20 points you know I’d be happier with 20 rebounds and you know seven blocks and you know five assists rather than you know 25 points so you know for me I really you I’m just going to go in there with the same mindset of every other game and try to you know attack my opponent and just win however coach BS was bragging about your shooting ability we’ve all heard these Tales are we going to see it in this summer you expected to be Unleashed a bit yeah I mean if I’m open I’m going to let it fly but they’re going to run more plays for you hopefully are you think yeah yeah yeah I mean yeah I mean you know just try to get myself into the groove of you know the league get you know just try to get adapt to the PACE the style of play um you know I feel like there be some plays ran for me and also you know plays ran for me to get my team it’s open I think you need three to five threes a game personally we’ll see we’ll see yeah I’ll get him up there you’re kind of in that same vein um you know there there’s been talk about like traditional centers not as not not getting as much play in the NBA as they used to but it seems like between guys like you and guys like Zach it seems like kind of maybe the more traditional big Center is is making a bit of a comeback yeah um you know I feel like I’m myself and you know playing against Zach you know I could tell how badly he wants to win and you know we both really you’re just out there trying to do whatever we can to help our teams win and you could really see that um you know and that’s what it’s all about you know it’s not about the points you know when when you’re big it is about the rebounds it is about the blocks for sure but you know just trying to do the little things trying to learn every day trying to get better every day you know for me it’s just how could I protect the rim at a high level how could I defend at a high level how could I you know be the best teammate possible how could I you know learn every day you know be coachable and you know that’s that’s going to find your playing time and you know if I just keep getting better keep putting the work and keep learning you know I know I’ll be good what have you learned most about yourself this week um you know that I could you know play at a high level I can compete um you know there’s a lot more things offensively that you know I could do that you know that wasn’t able to Showcase you know at the college level just because you know the style of play but um you know I feel like I’m really excited for Vegas and I’m ready to show what I can do all right thanks thank you and that’s going to do it for this edition of the briefcase thanks so much for joining me as always more shows throughout the trailblade has run here in Las Vegas once again games on Saturday Monday Tuesday and Friday we’ll have coverage from those games and some of the practices the team is sure to have in between they might have another scrimmage versus another team as well too typically you try to get in as many games you possibly can at Summer League because you have a lot of players sometimes they don’t get to play so the bench guys you want to get them some run too to show respect for the work that they’ve put in so maybe one more scrimmage at least five games up to six games should be interest running Las Vegas or free part in the Trailblazers I’m looking forward to it and if you didn’t make the trip to Vegas please stop by say Hello I’d love to hear from you so once again thank you as always for joining me on this edition of the briefcase like And subscribe wherever get your podcast and we’re also on YouTube these days as some of you are probably watching this right now so please like And subscribe there as well I’m Casey holdall in Las Vegas thank you so much for joining me we’ll talk to you soon go [Music] Blazers hey this is Chris Murray thank you for joining us on the briefcase [Music]

On this edition of The Brief Case podcast, Trail Blazers beat reporter/insider Casey Holdahl, on location with the team in Las Vegas, discusses…

• Portland’s four-game schedule at the Las Vegas Summer League, which begins Saturday versus the Spurs

• The Trail Blazers scrimmaging versus the Chinese National Team Friday at UNLV (including footage of the game)

• Portland signing Bryce McGowens to a two-way contract on Thursday

• Which group the Trail Blazers are in for the 2024 NBA Emirates Cup (aka the In-Season Tournament)

• Donovan Clingan’s comments about center in the NBA and his goals going into his first game at Summer League versus a former teammate

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