Dylan Harper was ELITE in NBA Summer League debut on both ends of the court for the Spurs

Dylan Harper was ELITE in NBA Summer League debut on both ends of the court for the Spurs

What’s up, guys? Thanks as always for supporting the show. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a second to scroll down and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss any more of our videos. Also, make sure you follow us all over social media so you don’t miss any of our content or show announcements. So, really fun first impression of Dylan Harper. The first thing that flashed to me was his defensive potential. You’re not really expecting that. This is a guy who’s famous for the dribble drive. is a guy that’s drawn a lot of comparisons to Shay Gildas Alexander as a bigger guard that can dribble through contact and can consistently get paint touches. But right out the gates, he was applying aggressive ball pressure, getting physical on the ball, getting deflections. He had a crazy block on Ryan Nemhard in transition where he elevated and swatted it away. Just showing a lot of that defensive upside. I’ve always been a big believer that forward aggressive turnover forcing defenders fit well with rim protection. And so guys like Darren Fox, guys like Dylan Harper, I think they make a lot of sense in the context of a partnership with Victor Webmanyama because forward aggression, ball pressure, that tends to give up dribble penetration. And if you’re giving up dribble penetration, you need guys on the backline that can clean it up. And there may not be a better player in NBA history than Victor Wimbeyama, who actually graced us with his presence in the arena today. It was funny when he was walking in. He actually was sitting in the the the seat and kicked his legs out as he was like relaxing and his legs were on the court during the game. And that’s just a problem that Victor Wmanyama has that not many of us have. But that defensive potential was flashing. And that second piece of it, and I think this goes for both Cooper Flag and Dylan Harper, is the dribbling through contact. For Cooper, it manifested a lot through foul drawing, which we’ll talk about in a minute. Dylan did draw some fouls in the fourth quarter as the Spurs started to put some separation there. But for Dylan, it was just consistently getting into the paint. And this is that that Shay Gilders Alexanderesque chaining together of dribble combinations, right? Like when you get into traffic, you make a move, uh the defender beats you to the spot, maybe he’s applying some physicalities, putting his hands on you, you got to be able to dribble through that contact and change direction and attack again and then potentially even change direction and attack a third time. And that’s one of the things that’s made Sheay such a gifted dribble penetrator in the NBA. There’s a chasm between the amount of drives per game that Sha Gilas Alexander puts together compared to other guards around the league. And that just comes from that downhill, that relentless downhill force, constantly changing direction and being able to control the basketball through that. And you saw that with Dylan, the protected dribbles, right? Like that between the legs dribble is how you can protect the ball as you’re dribbling in traffic so the ball doesn’t get swiped away. And he showed a lot of that. He drew some fouls. I just thought in general he was generating great offense, especially in that fourth quarter run. The Spurs defense held Dallas down most of the game, but in that fourth quarter they went on a little offensive run, blew the game open, and it got to the point where it was too much for Dallas to overcome. He had a really nice kickback read. A lot of times when you’re running ball screens, they will use the guy out of the weak side corner, out of the strong side corner to tag the roller. He had a ball screen coming off of the right wing where he got into the lane. The shooter in the right corner, his man tagged the roller and Dylan patiently pulled the ball out and pitched it back to the right corner. One of the things you notice a lot with NBA summer league is poor decision-m, right? It’s a lot of young basketball players. It’s a lot of guys that are trying to make their imprint, the guys that are trying to get a spot in the league. And so that can come with the pressure of being aggressive. And a lot of times it’s the guys that can slow down and read the floor and not force the issue that had the most success. And Dylan, I thought just similar to Cooper in the first game, just was patient, took what the defense gave him, made the kickouts that were there, didn’t get into the into the middle of the floor without a plan, without an idea of what he was trying to accomplish. There’s a pretty high floor for a basketball player who can guard the ball, but that can also get past the guy guarding the ball. It’s such a simple concept, but if you can apply ball pressure and make the opposing guard feel uncomfortable while also on the other end of the floor handling ball pressure and consistently getting into the paint, it’s just such a strong foundation. And then from there, there’s all the ceiling raising stuff, the shot making. We saw him hidden off the dribble three. It got wiped off, wiped out by illegal screen call if I remember correctly, but showed some of that more highlevel upside as a shot creator. That’s going to be the ceiling, right? like whether or not Dylan can reach that AllNBA level as a player is going to come down to his development as a jump shooter. And you know, one of the things with Dylan that’s different than most on ball guards is he’s a guy that typically on ball players, they struggle to shoot off the catch, but they’re comfortable shooting off the dribble because throughout their entire youth basketball experience, they’ve been the guy who’s had to dribble and get to their spots and they’re not getting a ton of clean catch and shoot looks. And Dylan was kind of different in that regard uh in college in that he was actually better off the catch than he was off the dribble because his release was a little drawn out. It’s a little low down in front of his face. And so as he kind of sharpens those details, gets a little bit more of a crisp and fluid release, that will make things easier for him uh when he uh when he gets into the NBA level. Before we move on to Cooper, I wanted to shout out Carter Bryant real quick. Uh Carter was one of the guys that the Spurs put an absolute defensive clinic together in their first two summer league games. Just absolutely strangled the life out of the Philadelphia 76ers the other night. Did it again tonight to Dallas. Carter is a traditional small forward type of prospect in the sense that he’s got great length and size for the position, but he’s very very quick laterally which gives him the flexibility to guard a bunch of different types of players. And I think that’s specifically exciting for a San Antonio team that doesn’t really have that type of player in their core rotation right now. They got a lot of guards. They got a lot of forwards. You know, obviously when Harrison Barnes was there, he was a slower forward. Jeremy Sohan has that ability to guard out on the perimeter, but I view him as more of like a four than a three defensively. I think Carter is going to bring that relentless ball pursuit and quickness to be able to be out on the perimeter getting over the tops of screens and doing some of the tougher perimeter defense work. And I think that that’s just a a role that that team really needs and and that’s going to be uh a really interesting thing to watch with San Antonio this year. Shout out to the Spurs summer league team. They’ve put together a couple really nice defensive performances.

Jason reacts to Dylan Harper’s NBA Summer League debut for the San Antonio Spurs in his matchup against Cooper Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks as well as Carter Bryant’s continued impressive play.

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