Walter Clayton Jr BALLS OUT in summer league | Hoops Nerd Show

Walter Clayton Jr BALLS OUT in summer league | Hoops Nerd Show

Well, it’s summer league in Las Vegas now, but it’s still Walt Lake City summer league if you know what I’m talking about. It’s Hoopsner postgame show. [Music] Okay, guys. Like always, subscribe to the channel, like the video. We’ll keep talking the NBA and Utah Jazz and everything in between. All right, so tonight the Utah Jazz played the Charlotte Hornets. Yes, that’s right. That’s who they play. Uh it was the premiere of Khan Canipple. Jazz fans were really disappointed because we were all looking forward to Ace Bailey and then right before the game, we get the notification that Ace Bailey would not be playing. It sounds like according to Sarah Todd, Ace Bailey will be playing on Sunday. So fingers crossed, right? Fingers crossed. Uh just a quick note on the Charlotte Hornets. I was excited to see Coniple and like a lot of these rookies, that first game comes with some jitters and his shot was not falling. He goes one for eight from the field, 0 for five from three. You definitely are not going to take too many uh you know, we could just say bust right now. It’s one summer league game, but what you’re not going to do is that if you’re a reasonable person, but anyways, Coniple struggled to shoot the ball, but he did a lot of other things. I felt like he moved the ball well. He looked like an NBA player to me. I think it was very clear in some situations that you saw what made him not the number one can. you know, he was not going to be like the top pick in this draft. He’s got a ceiling now. He rose a lot in the draft because there’s very many a lot of reasons to believe that he is going to be a very solid starter. And for a team like the Charlotte Hornets, they just don’t want to miss on these picks. You know, they’ve got some stars that they’re trying to develop, but they don’t want to miss. And you know, it’s certainly looking great for Utah with Ace Bailey, but before he was drafted, there was a lot of a little bit of fear with what he could, you know, not work out and things like that and all the stuff with his agent or his player player manager, whatever you want to call him, Omar Cooper. They didn’t take him. They take Coniple. Now, he looked good to me to be honest. I know he didn’t shoot the ball well. I think he’ll be fine. I mean, we’ll keep watching. There were a few plays where you’re like like he got blocked by uh and you know for all the Philippowski fans I might hurt your feelings right now but he got blocked by Philippowski. Ah if you get blocked if you get rejected by Kyle Filipowski you got to question your choices in this life. Okay, I mean I I’m kind of kidding, but uh Philipowski not a rim protector and he rejected Khan Canipple at one point and that was one thing I had kind of watched with Canipple when I was doing just my draft video stuff and watching him play. Like one of the things I do, it’s just my own personal style cuz I just don’t have a lot of time to dive in like some of the big draft nicks and everything. Sometimes I don’t know if that’s so bad. You know, sometimes you can get so lost in the weeds with every single game and it’s hard sometimes watching it later, you get like the big picture a little bit. But anyways, uh he made a lot of baskets around the rim that I would see and it would be like crafty stuff where he’s like, you know, pump fakes and and pivots and things like that for little floaters and things like that. In the NBA, there’s more space. So, I could still see him being able to do that. But there’s also a world where he’s against bigger, longer athletes that will expose you. Will Khan uh overcome? I think so. Or will he be exposed? We will see. It’s one game, so obviously that’s all it is. One summer league game. Remember, famously, Trey Young really struggled in summer league. Not saying he’s going to be as prolific a scorer as Trey Young. I don’t know. I do think Khan’s going to be fine. We know he can shoot the ball. He looked solid. He makes smart decisions. He at I at worst at worst I think he’s like a Dante Devanchenzo who’s a really good passer, you know what I mean? Shoot the three, make smart plays, plays tough. He did play defense hard. You know, he’s just a guy that I have a hard time seeing not succeed. Now, the question is with Khan, how much success will he achieve? We shall see. But it was interesting to watch. Uh Salon looked pretty good for them. He had a rough year last year. You know, everyone talked about Cody Williams, but Salon was pretty rough last year, too. Uh but he played well tonight. Six for 11 from the field, 20 points. Good for him. Uh and then the other one that was a real surprise, and I had heard little whispers and stuff that the Jazz kind of liked um Liam McNeely. Sounds like the Jazz know what they’re doing with this current front office because McNeely was nice. uh 7 for 16 from the field, three for six from three. He was awesome. 12 rebounds, six assists, 22 points for Liam McNeely, who played famously that, you know, everyone talks about it. Mc McNeely played with Cooper Flag and Derek Queen and um I forgot the other guy at Mont Vair and he is he’s got good size. He can shoot the ball. I don’t know why he didn’t play better at Yukon or at least shoot the ball better. But there was kind of word that he had an injury and maybe he’s just finally healthy now and now he’s playing better. So, you know, good for Charlotte. Looks like they might have two solid rotation players and if they can stay healthy and play well, they might be a pretty good team and I’m rooting for them to be a good team. So, they outrank the Jazz come lottery night, right? So, good for them. All right, let’s talk about the Utah Jazz. Let’s see. Boom. All right, so we’re going to talk about everyone. Elijah Harkas, I’ve come around to him. And then of course tonight, one for six from the field, 0 for four from three, three for four. I do feel like he plays really tough defense. And you can see that in his team leading plus minus plus seven. So he does just play extremely hard defensively, which is great. And that’s the type of guy you want. And it’s very clear that the Utah Jazz are making that an emphasis with their guys. And you see that emphasis in summer league a lot. Like you just see these guys show what the Utah Jazz coaching staff is telling them. And Elijah Harkless showed it. So not good for him. Not a lot else to say. I, you know, we’ll see if he’s an NBA player. Maybe he’s borderline. We’ll see if he can figure it out. He may make a lot of money in China or Europe or whatever and that’s totally fine. Uh Cody Williams, he had a it was a tale of two halves for Cody Williams because the first half not great. Second half was great. He played really well. And what I liked is that, you know, it wasn’t just dependent on the three-point shot, which was not falling great for him tonight. Three for 11 um for 27%, but he was really struggling from the field. At one point he was like 1 for eight or something like that. He ends the game or no, I’m looking at the wrong one. Eight for 19 in this one. He was driving to the basket. I I honestly feel like he has a pretty good handle and he does see the floor pretty well and so there’s something there. I don’t think it’s time to give up on Cody Williams at all, especially a player with those measurables. You know, he’s up. It sounds I mean, we hear over and over and over again about how many calories he’s eating, like 5,000 calories. As if it’s hard. Have you ever been to Carl’s Jr.? Have you been to to Popeye’s? I tell you what, I can down 5,000 calories from KFC. Not going to be that hard. Who have you heard of chips and cheese? Because I have. And 5,000 calories has gotten to me to where I am. I need less calories, but Cody Williams needs more. And apparently that’s going to help him. Imagine living a life where they’re like, “We need you to eat more than you can handle so that we can pay you more money cuz you’re going to play better cuz you’re in the NBA.” I I can’t think of a worse life where you have to eat all you want so you can play in the NBA and it’ll make you more money. What is this life? What is this life that we live and that all those other people live? Ah, I’m hungry. I’m trying to stay healthy and I’m jealous. I want to eat 5,000 calories. I want to eat like 20 Kit Kats right now. Anyways, Cody Williams Cody Williams shot 42% from the field and it was because he was driving to the basket. What’s really h happy about that? It is happy. Who’s not happy about that? What’s great about that is that it was not going well in the first half and last year when he would just kind of sink into this into his kind of shell and really fade away. Instead, in this one, he like turned it on and he got more aggressive and he goes to the basket and he made things happened. He’s maneuvering screens and yeah, the three-point shot wasn’t falling, but it was enough that it was like it was enough that it was you need to respect it. And I like there was one play where he got the ball, it was going too fast. He like sets his feet. The player kind he kind of pump faked. The player that was guarding him kind of does with that thing where they jump past him. He set his feet, knocked it down. There are things we’re seeing from Cody Williams. And maybe it’s hopeful thinking. It tr it is hopeful thinking. You got to have hope cuz what else do you got? But if Cody Williams turns into something nice, then Utah is in really good shape. And I think he has a real chance to do that. It is not, and I’ve said this over and over and over, but because of his physical tools, because of the ability it gives him with his wingspan and his size and height and all that, and he looks pretty quick and athletic, he can be a good defender. It’s not hard for him to do that if he cuz he seems like a smart guy, too. so can be a good defender and if he can be competent on offense and you know tonight we’re seeing signs that he can be a nice player on offense then Utah has a nice player. Is Cody Williams going to be on the All-Star team? Probably not. But can he be a rotation player in the NBA? I think he can work his way to that. Can he be a rotation player on a championship team? I think that’s the ceiling. But I don’t see why not. Like why not? if he can figure it out. All these players, he’s very young. All these players are young and you never know who is going to be on that trajectory that just gets better and better. It’s why you don’t give up on these guys. Now, some guys you just know it’s not going to happen. But some guys, you see him and you’re like, “This is this is an NBA player. He just needs time to figure things out.” And everyone talked about Cody Williams that he just needs to be putting on weight and that’s what he’s doing and he’s looking better. I felt like it was more than anything mental. uh it just and we saw the mental aspect this game. So maybe we’re seeing both. Maybe we’re seeing him a little more physically uh improved or whatever you want to call it and also just mentally more aggressive, more confident and more willing to go make mistakes and play hard and we saw both. So and he’s looked pretty solid in each of these summer league games and it appears to be getting better. I would not be surprised if what we saw tonight he just continues to build on it. That’s what you’re hoping. You’re hoping that he just, you know, finds out these are things that I’m starting to be able to do. Like I was actually pretty impressed with his first step. Like he got by his guy, got to the basket and finished pretty well. So nice to see. And then when you look at the stats, I mean 3 for 11 from three, but eight for 19. So that means he was he was uh five for what is that? 19 – 11. Five for eight from two. That’s pretty great. The numbers are good and a lot of that was driving to the basket. So, there’s something there, guys. I don’t know if we’ll see what happens, but there’s something there. Uh, let’s talk about Kyle Filipowski. He was the best offensive player on the floor for the Jazz. No question. Well, yeah, I guess he was. Uh, I felt like Walter Clayton was really impressive. Uh, Philippowski 29 minutes, 12 for 17 from the field, three for seven from three. Awesome numbers. 70% from the field, 42% from three. And it just looked like it. He was awesome. He has a great offensive game. He can handle it. He can pass it. He can shoot it. And he was physically dominant over everyone on the Hornets. And I guess because the Hornets have basically traded all their centers to the Phoenix Suns, they didn’t have anyone to guard him. Uh, weirdly enough, the Suns have like two Charlotte Hornets centers and drafted common Malawatch. I don’t know what they’re doing. They’re trying to make our pick better, obviously, but Philipsky was great and he, you know, putting up those offensive numbers. The question for him, and they mentioned it on the broadcast, can he defend? We saw a few plays, saw a few things. Him near the baskets, not good, but we did see him make some plays, you know, outside of the paint. He kind of had that one deflection. He made some good kind of just some deflections and things. He is a horrific rim protector. It is like it’s really rough. Like really rough. But can he be just good enough? And he’s not a weak side shot blocker either. So it’s like just we just got to forget about that. But can he be a strong, stout defender at the four? Kind of moving around from perimeter to inside, which you’re going to need from your fours here and there. Maybe. I mean, he looked a little better to me tonight. At least the effort was good. Can he put in as much effort on the defensive end as he is on the offensive end? Cuz the offensive game is great. If if Philipowski can be at least respectable defensively, just like, can you give us anything on defense, then he becomes really nice. The three-point shot looks real. He had long stretches last season where it was going great. Shot the ball really well. By the way, thank you Ace to the place and Ace to the place over in the playback was great. And everyone who watched live on YouTube, thank you during the game. It was fun. It’s fun to watch it with everyone. But anyways, that’s the thing with with Philipski is we’re seeing a very good offensive player. Um it’s obviously going to be a little curtailed come uh regular season, but he showed these things during the regular season, too. It’s just terrible defense. So, you just you can’t be giving all this, you know, positivity on the offensive end and then just be a complete negativity. Negative. That’s that’s good English, by the way, what I just said. completely negative on the defensive end when you’re, you know, you can’t be so lopsided. Can you give us something on the defensive end? Can you have something? And really, to me, it’s just like more physical strength, more holding up. When you’ve got guys trying to back you down, you’ve got the leg strength, you’ve got the core strength to just hold up so that guys have to take tougher shots. If if if Philipki can do that, great. Because what he does on offense really helps things out. And then, you know, if he just gets strong enough, maybe there’s some bench units where you can, if you’re behind or something like that, put him at the center to just have a stretch five out there. It’s not going to be good defensively, but you know, if he can be just relatively good and, you know, if you’re on the floor with someone like a Taylor Hendris, maybe maybe you can have stretches like that. I don’t know. But, uh, really good offensive game. He does a lot of things really well and he takes a lot of good shots. He’s he’s around the basket taking shots there or he’s taking threes and if he’s not he’s passing the ball or driving to the basket. He just he’s very much a moneyball player which is great to see. Uh no Ace Bailey in Vegas. Uh he had some sort of hip flexor soreness or something like that. Steve, they’re obviously being extremely careful, but it sounds like he’s going to play on Sunday. So, we are definitely going to be looking forward to that. Uh, let’s talk Walter Clayton Jr. It’s interesting. Walter Clayton plays 27 minutes. He left because of a hamstring injury. Uh, what he said, I guess, postgame was that it wasn’t too bad, but they were obviously being careful with him. Um, 9:37. Anyways, they’re being careful with Sorry, they’re being careful with Mr. uh Walter Clay. We got to get our Popeye powers here from the Walt from the Mountain Dew. I am excited about Walter Clayton Jr. Walter Clayton Jr. goes eight for 17 from the field, four for 10 from three, six rebounds, three assists. Some of those rebound rebounds were impressive and only two turnovers. Exciting stuff. The turnovers things thing is exciting because he’s got a great handle. He doesn’t turn it over. He’s making great reads. He’s looking like when when he has the ball in his hands, he can run a pick and roll pretty darn well. Now, he’s a shot first guy, but guess what? It’s a good shot typically because he’s a great shooter. Great shooter. He made some shots tonight that were just so good. And I guess the things that I had kind of critiqued him on before, he kind of proved me wrong or at least showed that he could. I was worried, well, what is he looking like in the half court? Because we’re seeing is how, you know, electrifying he is and quick he is getting to the basket in transition and things like that, getting catch and shoot threes and and so on. In this one, he was running pick and rolls. He was snake. He was Chris Paul snake dribbling to the basket through the paint. He was just making good reads in the pick and roll. He is a nice player. And you know, I don’t know. People were trying to compare him to Jaylen Brunson online. Maybe I I get a little reticent to compare him to an AllNBA player, but if maybe uh I liked the broadcast comparison of Fred Van Vleet, who hit some monster shots for Toronto to help them win a championship with Kawaii. You know, he could be a perfect player to play off of a superstar. And if that’s Ace Bailey, then great. And if Utah wins the lottery next draft, great. Uh, but honestly so much to be excited about. He is a winner. He is tough. I am I’m not as worried about his defense as I I honestly I’m less worried about Walter Clayton’s defense than I am about Kyle Filipowski. I’ll say that. Like he plays tough. He plays with his chest, right? And I love that. And he makes winning plays and he makes just crazy tough good shots. He’s taking shots off the run, off the roll. He’s It’s catch and shoot. It’s pick and pop. It’s all of it. He’s got he’s got it all. And what we saw tonight is like he made smart plays. There was one play that I really liked where he got the ball and it was he didn’t actually shoot the ball quite as well in the first half. The whole Jazz team kind of struggled a little bit shooting the ball first half, but he like there was one play I just really it’s just a winning confident almost like a veteran player. And maybe that makes sense. He’s a four-year college player that won a championship with Florida behind him, but he like didn’t take he got an open kind of pullup opportunity. It was pretty deep. He was, you know, 5t behind the three-point line. You saw him kind of think about it. Didn’t take the shot. Instead, he drives to the basket with that nice handle, gets past the defender, takes kind of a free throw line uh 8 foot floater and just put it put it in the basket. He’s got great touch. And when you combine that competitiveness, the toughness, uh the high basketball IQ, and you put that with a guy that has a great handle, shoots the ball well, looking very three-level scorer, and if he’s improving as a playmaker, too. I mean, he had six rebounds. He’s a pretty good athlete. What’s not to like? Where’s the downside? I guess the only downside is the size. But if Utah fills their whole team, and you know, I talked about a potential Kaminga thing. Who cares? Whatever. It’s an idea, guys. But anyways, if you fill the team with highlevel long athletic defenders, you know, from two through five and each of them is switchable. And you have someone like Walter Clayton who plays tough like Fred Vanble’s a good defender. That’s why I’m like hopeful that that’s the comp because Fred Van Vleet plays with his chest, plays really tough, defends, but then also hits really good shots. That’s a great formula. So, I think Walter Clayton is showing us some really nice things. He’s just getting better and better. And you kind of and I have to say I really liked Kier tonight at certain in certain situations. Uh the only thing is you look at one of you could compare the numbers and Isaiah Kier 6 for 10 from the field, two for three from three which is great to see. Also six turnovers. Some of the stuff was like what are you doing? This is year two summer league. Come on make better decisions. Those six turnovers are not good. Let’s see. Yeah, six turnovers for Isaiah Collier. I just feel like Walter Clayton is just a winning player. Winning players make winning plays. They also make less of the the dumb plays. And we saw a few of those from Isaiah Collier, like throwing the ball too far in an outlet where it’s just clearly not going to happen. He makes some really great plays. Uh, Kier had six assists or let’s see, Kier had nine assists tonight and I don’t want to take away from him because I thought he played really well tonight and it was much better Isaiah Kier tonight. In fact, I I’m not going to dog Kier tonight because I do think he played really well. Six for 10 from the field is great. 60% and he did hit a pullup three in a pick and roll as well as one other corner three which was nice to see. So two for three, you’re going to take it when he’s shooting the three like that. We need more sample to make sure he’s what we’re seeing is real. But it was good so far. And then he gets, like I said, six rebounds, nine assists. Nice. Really good. The nine assists were great. They really were. And I guess I got to also kind of give him in his defense, when you’re throwing the ball around like that, you’re going to have some turnovers. It’s just there were a few that were like, h, this should have been more like three or four turnover turnovers. if he was uh making better decisions, but he played really well tonight, so it’s not a bad thing. Like, you’re rooting for this Jazz team to have some real studs out of these last few drafts. And Kier is looking like a nice player. We’ll see how good he is and if if he can consistently shoot the ball, but we shall see. Uh I don’t have much to say about I mean, Jaden Springer, I don’t know if there’s really anything to really take from him. He was a minus 18, which I don’t know if that’s all his fault. So was also minus 11. I don’t know. Not really going to look into that too much what that even means. But it was a nice nice outing tonight. Now so excited to see Ace Bailey because my goodness, we’ve only seen him twice. We’ve gotten just like literally just a a Costco sampling of what Ace Bailey is. I want the whole box and then I want like 30 boxes. Okay. And so we get to see Ace Bailey next time. So that’s going to be a lot of fun. Guys, I think that’s it for tonight. It was Walter Clayton. It sounds like it might not be too serious with his uh injury. Let’s hope so because I think the the fact that we get to watch Walter Clayton and Ace Bailey would be a lot of fun. All right, so let’s start the music. Is that playing for you guys? I’m not hearing it. I don’t hear it. Oh, well, it must be playing. Dang it. I like to hear the music. All right, let’s give a shout out. By the way, Ace $5 Ace to the place. Ace had a hip flexor strain due to pivoting from plans to go to Washington or Well done. He pivoted away from a bad situation to go a good situation with the Utah Jazz. I got I sad I’m not hearing the music. [Music] I’m sorry, guys. I like to hear it. Oh no. Yes. Yeah, I can hear it now. Okay, let’s give a shout out to our all stars tonight. Let’s give a shout out to Baby Elliot Madson, Ryan Edward Perry, the legend, Christian House, Money to Hos, Robert Hall of Fame, Wham Bam, Cam Bam. Thank you, ma’am. Cam Chim 3. I screwed that one up. Uh, I believe in Steve Jazz Exile. See you Alexa later. Jordan the goat. Best rolled Austin Grant editor extraordinaire. Ace to the place. And Patrick Kubo the connoisseur. Guys, I’m super excited about this jazz team and our future. The future is bright. So much brighter than in the dark days of tanking. Even though you must go through the darkness to find the light. Sometimes you cannot enjoy the day if you have not slept through the night. All right, guys. Like and subscribe to the channel if you’d like to support the channel like all the Allstars and members. We got a new rookie uh in Jay. Welcome to the to the to the Hoops Nerd Glad. What are we? A group, a team, a league, a league of extraordinary uh heroes. I don’t know. End the video, James. All right. Join

The Utah Jazz did not have Ace Bailey tonight but they got an impressive showing from Walter Clayton Jr. who looked as pro ready as they come

Watch games with me on Playback! https://www.playback.tv/slcdunk

My T-shirt shop: https://www.teepublic.com/user/hansenjames

Follow me on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/hoopsnerd.bsky.social
Follow me on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/hansenjames
Follow me on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/hoopsnerdnba/

#utahjazz #acebailey #nba