The San Antonio Spurs are five games into the Summer League, splitting time between California and Las Vegas. Through those contests, Tarris Reed Jr. is looking the part of a four-year college vet. He’s playing with physicality, doing the dirty work, and acting like the oldest player on the court.
If only the rest of the rookies could be so confident!
Reed, of course, was picked 26th overall and is expected to be a rotation or end-of-the-bench guy. Second-round picks Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Maliq Brown have shown flashes, but by and large are as advertised. They are solid summer players, but their weaknesses are glaring.
A lot of Gillespie’s shortcomings can boil down to being just six feet tall and not the best athlete. Brown’s struggles, meanwhile, are a lot more frustrating.
Spurs Need Maliq Brown to Shoot the Ball
Defense wins championships, right? Well, being able to get a bucket helps get you on the floor.
In his final season at Duke, Maliq Brown took home the ACC Defensive Player of the Year award. He also averaged only 4.9 points on a lowly 3.5 shots per game. The Spurs don’t need him to be a solid two-way player, especially since he’ll probably spend his rookie season on a two-way deal, but they do need him to look more confident than a deer in headlights.
In the Summer League, he’s averaging only 2.6 shots per game. His defense and rebounding have been solid; he can probably hold his own in the regular season, but right now, his being on the court would require the Spurs to play four vs. five on offense.
To Brown’s credit, he takes pride in doing the small things. Usually, hearing a player say “I don’t care about buckets as long as we get stops” would conjure images of Tony Allen, Alex Caruso, or Dennis Rodman. However, those players were all able to score if given the opportunity.
“Definitely being an elite defender, a guy who’s going to always have a high motor, just do anything to get the gritty stop, do whatever the team needs me, coaches need me, just to help us get that win at the end of the day,” is how Brown describes his game.
“I was always told defense wins games, so just going into the game, that’s always been my mindset, just trying to start the game off on a good note, just making a good stop. So it’s sort of the same thing, same principles, the same concept going into this next level.”
Sure, the defense and NBA mindset are there, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a bona fide NBA player who won’t take the open 3-pointer or won’t attack the basket against smaller defenders.
If Brown wants to find NBA success, he needs to at least try to contribute on offense.
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