In his first three games, Parks looked liked he was struggling to adjust to the NBA style and pace. He actually had more fouls (3) and more turnovers (2) than points (1) or rebounds (1).
Against the Lakers, Parks seemed to settle down. Playing 15 minutes, he scored 3 points and had 1 rebound to go with 1 steal. More importantly, he had no turnovers.
And then, against the D-League selection, he finally started to look like the Bobby Ray Parks Filipino fans were familiar with. In 21 minutes of play, he scored 10 points, had 5 rebounds, 4 steals and again, no turnovers. Not a bad performance at all.
In a previous post, I detailed out the things Bobby Ray Parks needed to do to have a better Summer League. Let's see how he performed against those.
1) Defense - Bobby Ray Parks logged 4 steals against the D-League selection and did not have a single foul, despite playing 21 minutes. More importantly, he was playing good man-to-man defense (see second sequence in the video clip above) and that led to more possessions for their team. Parks is starting to figure out how to use his length and speed to defend and it shows in how he's been able to keep himself from fouling his opposite number.
2) Nerves - No turnovers in 21 minutes? That's fantastic, especially for a player who logged in a turnover in just 3 minutes of play (albeit, in his first Summer League game). More games played seem to mean less nerves for Bobby Ray, as he hasn't logged a TO since his third game. Of course, a big factor here is he's now more familiar with his teammates and the Mavs system, which means he's now making surer passes to his teammates.
3) Scoring at the rim - In the game against the D-League selection, Bobby Ray Parks missed his first two jumpshots. And then he made his first fieldgoal, a putback dunk. He made two other shots, a fastbreak lay up and a high arching bank shot on a drive. He also got fouled twice on drives to the rim, making 4-4 from the line. Which means he scored all his points either at the rim (6points) or from the foul line (4 points) because of his drives to the rim. If he continues driving to the rim, expect those numbers to go up even higher.
Two new things about Bobby Ray Parks:
1) Rebounding - 5 rebounds in the D-League game isn't bad at all. If he can package his good D with a strong rebounding presence from the guard position and teams will definitely sit up and pay attention.
2) Good first step - It's always been a question if Parks was just too big and talented for his Filipino competition but not big or talented enough for the NBA. Well, as far as the Summer League is concerned, Parks' first step seems more than equal to the task, as he has been able to take it strong to the rim despite close quarter guarding. He's been able to draw fouls and escape for lay ups because of his first step and that's something worth exploiting.
The Mavs play tomorrow at the Summer League semifinal round, going up against the Atlanta Hawks summer league team. Here's hoping Bobby Ray Parks has another good game and keep on taking steps closer to his NBA dream.
1 comment:
Thiss is awesome
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