Zags in Summer League: Round Robin Recap

The Round Robin portion of the NBA Summer League concluded on Tuesday night. For the first time, all 30 NBA teams brought their summer squads to Las Vegas. All 30 teams played three preliminary games and now each team gets seeded into bracket play, which begins Wednesday and concludes with the Championship game on July 17.

Jordan Mathews and the Clippers wrapped up on Monday, while Zach Collins and Johnathan Williams finished on Tuesday. Here’s a recap of how all three former Zags performed over the last week.

Zach Collins broke his nose in practice right before Summer League started. Instead of sitting out, he put on a mask, looked like Batman, and played great for two games. He sat out the third game to rest a sprained ankle and there’s no word yet on whether he will play in the bracket portion of Summer League. In the two games he did play, he averaged 6.5 points, 7 rebounds and 4 blocks. He only shot 29.4% from the field, and some of that could be attributed to the Batman mask. His defense and rebounding helped him carve out a role at the end of last season and will continue to get him minutes next year. The Blazers went 3-0 and got one of the two byes into the second round. They will play the winner of Hawks-Pacers on Thursday night at 7:30 pm on ESPN2.

Jordan Mathews played in two games for the Los Angeles Clippers, but saw limited time. Even though he started one of those games, he logged just 12 minutes of action across the two contests. He went 0-for-3 from the field, grabbed two rebounds and dished out an assist. Mathews played for the Erie BayHawks in the G-League last season. He averaged 8.8 points on 38.2% shooting (31.9% from deep) in 48 games. The Clippers went 1-2 in Summer League and will face the Washington Wizards at 1 pm on Wednesday. The game can be seen on ESPNU.

Johnathan Williams got the added bonus of playing in the California Classic before heading to Las Vegas. He played in six games for the Los Angeles Lakers, starting four of them. He had some good moments, some bad moments, and some moments where he blended in and didn’t do a whole lot. In short, it was an up-and-down six game stretch.

In Sacramento, Williams averaged 4.7 points, 8 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks across three games. He didn’t score his first two games in Vegas and only grabbed five rebounds. He didn’t score in the first three quarters on Tuesday against the Knicks, either. But in the fourth, he hit a layup, converted a driving and-1, and hit a three. He finished with nine points on 3-5 shooting (2-3 FT).

In all six games, Williams averaged 3.8 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks in 20.5 minutes. The Lakers went 3-0 in Las Vegas and got the other bye into the second round. They play the winner of Clippers-Wizards Thursday night at 5:30 pm on ESPN2. Let’s hope for a Clippers-Lakers game so we can see Jordan Mathews and Johnathan Williams together on the same court again.