Dre just sent me an email, the previous attempt disappearing someone into the abyss of the internet, or perhaps such a tasty email was lost forever into the stomach of Oliver Miller.

Two great photos from Game 1.

The first photo is of the starters, Ronald Stuckey, Arron Afflalo, Sammy Mejia, Jason Maxiell, and Cheikh Samb. Is any other VSL squad fielding 5 players that are all signed or rights held by their franchise? I haven’t had a chance to look.

And the second photo is Sammy Mejia with the Dre Family after the game. Dre writes,

I spoke with Sammy Mejia after the game, congratulated him on hitting the winning shot and advised him that Pistons fans, particularly the worldwide fans at PF would be following and supporting him.

From Pistonsforum.com, courtesy of LA Dre

Good report from The Low as I noticed he was doing his game report with his laptop in tow just like the other beat writers. Met he and his ladyfriend and brother and we exchanged our game observations. Enjoyed the game much more so than the games on Friday, but then again I had more of an interest this one.

There were three empty seats in the second row behind a bench where Pistons trainer Mike Abdenour was talking, so me, the Mrs, and my nephew grabbed them. Much to my chagrin, I chose wrong and was actually sitting behind the Sixer bench where I heard their assistant coaches and braintrust discussing whom is whom and who do they like. One of those was Mo Cheeks who sat there silently through most of the game observing at the scorers table, but in the end, he moved to the row in front me and had to say that his guard Louis Williams is getting better and they need to play him more and more to get him ready to be the principal back-up to Andre Miller. Cheeks also marveled how active JMAX was. Looks like former Piston, Aaron Mckie has finally hung up his sneakers as he was one of sixer summer assistant coaches…..

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Two Minute Warning, by Wrecktangle Productions

July 7, 2007

DET vs PHI – VSL Game 1

Well, to kick off this year’s VSL I bounced on down to Thomas & Mack with the girlfriend and brother in tow.

I noticed a handsome young man named LA Dre hanging out across the arena getting ready to enjoy the action. Spotted everyone’s favorite beat writer and caught a glimpse of Joe Dumars and Mo Cheeks.

This year we were hoping to keep a closer eye on certain commodities as some of the lesser members turned out to be ineffective at best in years prior. This year appears to be more of the same, so I would recommend that you prepare to catch up on as much as I can provide on Johnson, Stucky, Maxiell, Afflalo, Mejia, and Samb.

• Points of note: Today’s game felt very slow and unfamiliar for a lot of these guys. I’m pretty sure this is mostly due to their not having played with each other for very long.
• DET seemed to get very little out of there offensive sets and turned the ball over a lot more than they should have.
• DET didn’t really shoot well to start the game, but seemed to take advantage of PHI’s dry spells.
• DET also didn’t seem to be attacking the basket with strength (with the exception of Maxiell because that’s what he does).
• PHI also seemed to be able to get some scores in the paint pretty early as Samb appeared to be late on a number of rotations.
• The first half seemed very methodical and slow moving to me…very tedious.
• I really hope this game isn’t an indicator of how well Stuckey and Afflalo can attack the basket and/or create their own shots. I was somewhat disappointed judging from all the excitement from some fans.

AJ
No Amir at this point. Still haggling contract issues.

Stuckey
Says that he patterns his game after Wade, but appears to lack the speed and strength. I was looking for him to be much more aggressive than he was. He seemed to dribble away from most double teams instead of looking to split or attack the weak side.

Afflalo
Hit a few shots here and there, but didn’t do anything eye catching in my opinion.

Samb
Appeared a bit slow and out of sorts today. He stayed near the basket and grabbed a few rebounds and knocked down a couple shots. However, he seemed to be very late on several defensive rotations. I’ll need to see his next couple games to see how this guy is rounding into shape.

Mejia
He didn’t really amaze me, but he did do a nice job of knocking down shots (including the game winner)

Maxiell
What can I say? Max was Max. He lead the team in scoring and was very aggressive on offense. I think the VSL officials really dislike him or something because he appears to pick up a lot of fouls that don’t get called on other players. He did a good job of knocking down his mid-range jumpers and attacking the basket with the same force we saw during the regular season. This year’s summer league will be the last for Maxiell and he plans to make lunch meat out of the competition on his way out the door.

I’m pretty sure that I am in the minority in thinking that today’s game was kind of blah as I understand the fans that caught the webcast enjoyed today’s action. For me, being there in person, the play just seemed very sloppy and the DET players seemed to get very little in the way of execution when running their offensive sets. I’m going to be looking forward to the following games to determine whether or not I’ll take a certain level of enthusiasm and/or interest into the regular season.

Last month, Matt Watson @ Detroit Bad Boys had an excellent piece on Cheikh Samb. In fact, I like to think it highlights the function of fan communities and blogs as being able to dig deeper on prospects, stepping outside the boundaries of the franchise practice facility or scheduled media appearances. Nothing beats first hand knowledge, and when a player is outside the USA, that type of appraisal is hard to come by. It’s a big reason why we run BadBoySummerCamp. Because a lot of news and perspective goes unreported.

If you’re interested at all in the seven foot shot blocker we traded Maurice Evans for last year, then Matt’s post is a must read.

As far as his progress as a player is concerned, Cheikh has managed to strive at gaining muscle and furthering his skills. Here, you have to take into account that he has been playing basketball for five years, a very short period of time. Considering his evolution, it is scary to imagine how far will be able to go as a player. During the course of this season, and using the idle time while he was injured, he added 12-15 pounds of muscle to his frame. His physical evolution is hard to miss when you look at the pictures from last year´s [Las Vegas] Summer League (left) and you compare them to the latest available images from one of his last games with Cornella (right).

Keith Langlois, the Pistons’ official scribe posted several insights about Cheikh yesterday,

“He’s like a sponge,” said Cowens, who worked out with Samb last week for the first time. “He’s got a lot of upside. He’s a pretty coordinated kid for a big and he moves well. The biggest thing for him now is conditioning and the strength in the core of his body.”

Samb was listed variously at 195 to 215 pounds a year ago, but since getting his first taste of the NBA he’s become a weight-lifting devotee.

“Last year when I come to Summer League, my first time, I see a lot of players, like, strong,” – and here he holds his hands well apart to display broad shoulders – “and I be like this” – and here he holds up a long, spidery index finger. “Skinny. I see I got to work on legs to get more big and come back to Spain this season. I have a little pain in my foot – I no play. I lift and lift and lift. I weigh now like 12 kilos more – I don’t know in pounds.”

There you have it. Cheikh Samb. No longer an enigma, and a possible Piston contributor.