Fri, Jul 13th 2007, 09:31
We just finished our final summer league game against Miami. With five games in five days, I am absolutely exhausted.
I played a ton of minutes this week and my body is definitely feeling the consequences. Overall, I was pleased with how summer league went. Obviously, I could have shot the ball better the last couple games but off-shooting nights happen- especially when your legs are tired. My focus coming into the week was not on shooting, anyways. I wanted to commit myself to play solid defense and for the most part I thought I did a good job. Coach Van Gundy was very excited about how I played and both of us are looking forward to me working hard the rest of the summer. A couple of quick things about summer league-
-I always love running into former ACC opponents. All of us have a great deal of respect for each other because we know what it takes to play in the best basketball conference in the country. A few former rivals I went up against this week were Robert Hite from Miami, Jared Dudley and Sean Williams from BC, and Jackie Manuel from UNC. All those guys are great players and I wish them the best.
-I didn’t watch any of the Vegas summer league but I’ll say this about the Orlando summer league: the games were extremely competitive. At times play was sloppy but all the teams played hard and it made for some great games.
-I had a lot of fun playing with James Augustine this week. He saw even less action than I did in our rookie year so we never really got the chance to play together. He plays very hard, has great skills, and can really shoot it from 15 feet. I’m hoping this week will give him a lot of confidence heading into next year.
For now, I’m going to rest up this weekend. I’ll probably go to the driving range and hit some balls (I’ll be honest, my golf game is very bad) and relax at my house. My body needs some time off. Next week I’m going to be in Orlando until Thursday morning when I leave for Las Vegas for the USA basketball mini-camp. I’m going to work out before I go but very lightly. I need my body at full strength in Vegas.
One more thing- Rashard Lewis never asked for my number- but if he had I would have gladly given it to him. However, I believe that technically we couldn’t have swapped digits. The NBA now has some weird rule in place that you have to keep your number atleast four years if you play with the same team. Re-read that last sentence. It probably will make more sense.
Everyone have a great weekend. Thanks for your participation on the site- there should be some new Q and A up in the next couple days. I think I’ve written this before but the site is going to be completely revamped over the next few months and anything you guys wanna see on here (like a message board haha) would be noted and taken into consideration.
“The human torch was denied a bank loan.”