The Detroit Pistons finished the 2005 vegas Summer League on a high note.

After defeating the Hornets and Celtics, two of the three 2005 Piston draft picks made the All-VSL roster.

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Maxiell is the real deal. He played the 4 all game and covered Kaman and another 7 footer alot. He not only has long arms but has some hops as well. He has a good feel around the basket and a nice (but flat) 12 footer.

Darko played much better than the stats. He got backed into the basket by Kaman 3 times in a row but other than that they played pretty even. Darko is not afraid to mix up even with a clown like Kaman. I talked with one of his countrymen…Zarko Caabarkapa, who plays for Golden State. He played agaist Darko in Serbia. He said that Darko is a great player…he just hasn’t showed it yet. He said we will be very happy with Darko when he finally gets comfortable.

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I read The Low’s comments and agree with some and disagree with others. The game was messed up with referees in training. Aside from a few dead spots I think Darko played very aggressively, at both ends. So did Delfino…he was really busting his butt. He went down with a knock to the knee, came out of the game and went right back in slashing to the bucket. I was very encouraged. He has trouble with his footwork on defense. Maybe he should go to one of those cornerback camps.

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There will be much less from me in game two because I really had to fill in the blanks from game one with guys that none of us had seen or heard of.

That said, I’ll work on the format from game one:

DARKO:
I’m quickly becoming a card carrying member of the “Ship Darko Somewhere While He Still Has Value Club.” I will be perfectly honest. He came out with alot more fire and energy this game then before, but today quickly became “the Best and Worst of Darko Milicic.” Darko did start the game with a couple of strong moves in the post from which he scored on one or both if I remember correctly. He’s posting strong physically and taking ground from the defender (good sign). However, on D he refused to challenge shots aggressively. He’s still kind of putting up a hand not really jumping and not making ANY effort to block shots at the rim and I mean NONE.

Through the second quarter, he was intent on proving his 20 jumper (by my count he was 1-4 3/4 of the way through the 2nd and by my count, which may not be accurate, took about 8 jumpers). I’m really getting tired of this fadeaway jumpshot crap. Other than that, he’s just being called for a lot of silly, cheap fouls that no one else seems to have to worry about. Slightly biased if you ask me. On defense, Darko seems to be drifting a bit (sort of like he did on offense, yesterday). He’s switching alot and leaving smaller players to guard big men in the post.

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Dudes! I sat two rows behind Congoman. Hey man, if you remember I was there in the black pants and white button-down with blue stripes (Black guy). I was actually back there taking notes, but hell, you got to chat with Gar Heard…good deal.

You can take my observations with a grain of salt because they may conflict slightly with Congoman (not that anything he said is wrong). I’ll start with order of importance (subjective)…

DARKO:
Ok, for the most part Darko looked extremely disinterested in the first half. He seem awfully content to just float around the perimeter and set picks hoping for a return pass for a 15 to 18 ft jumper (I don’t think he got the ball in the post once - it’s quite obvious LB wasn’t there).

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