Normally a Summer League game doesn't require a recap. Normally I wouldn't be moved to write one. This isn't normally, obvious or not. The game was an unusual one. It ran long for one, and went to OverTime for another. So, whether the Kings won or not, and they did 75-74, this is more about what matters in Summer League. That's the point of this FanPost. Or more accurately, as the title might indicate, the Summer League 6? Who are they? Well, they are Quincy "Doubster" Douby, Sean "Mike" Singletary, Patrick "PJ" Ewing Jr, Shelden "Mr Candace Parker" Williams, Jason "JT" Thompson, and Spencer "Shawes" Hawes.

Let's get the easy stuff out of the way. PJ showed little, and with the exception of help defense, he showed that he's athletic and he's not much else. He can be a good role player, and he might get a spot on the team, but his inherent value is something I simply don't understand. Frankly whatever value he brings to this team I haven't seen it. I'm willing to be patient. The Kings don't need him to be aces right away, or at all. If he doesn't pan out so what? C

Spencer Hawes was utterly and completely awful tonight. Everything he did was pretty much awful. He was 3-13 from the floor , and made terrible rotations on defense. He missed several boards that were his to grab, and frankly he looked lost all night long. Hawes did score 10 points, and grabbed 7 boards, 3 offensively, but overall, it was not his best game. That being said, if he looks that bad and still manages to grab 7 boards score 10 points and block 2 shots, I only hope to see what he does when he's into the game and makes a difference. C-

Shelden Williams had a fairly productive night. I thought the uneven, and pretty bad, officiating kept him from having a better night as he banged and bumped his way to 10 boards and 9 pts. He blocked 2 shots, and generally made his presence felt. Because he played as well as he did, he highlighted the difference between the generally lesser front line of the Blazers vs the Kings tonight. B

Quincy Douby was fairly excellent tonight. He excelled defensively at times (particularly matched up with Bayless early and late in the game), and did a good job at matching up with Koponen early on while giving up 4 inches. It's easy to say that Douby should dominate if he's any real talent, but Koponen showed how talented he was. Douby did accomplish disrupting Koponen with his quick hands gambling and aggressiveness, but at the same time he also hurt the team a few times by gambling and missing. He ended up with 6 steal's, and the entire Portland team had 5. He got to the cup whenever he wanted to on Bayless, and the only real weak point he had was taking off balance Jumpers at various times. The other major disappointing moment was missing 2 free throws with 30 seconds left in regulation that probably would have iced the game (or kept it from continuing actually) for the Kings. Quincy, overall, had a major impact on the game, and was one of the 3 best players on the court overall for both teams (Thompson and Koponen were the other 2 players). He also got the better of Bayless despite Bayless getting to the line more and Bayless scoring 2 more points. Frankly, Bayless had the "best" game according to points, but anybody watching the game knew Bayless had less impact than the box score might indicate. B+ (Only because Douby has to do this. Had he been nearly perfect he would have earned an A. Wasn't his best game ever or anything, but it was worth nothing he made a difference in. But still, he didn't have as much impact as he should. Hence only the B+. And shutup. I'm a tough grader.)

Mike Singletary I thought had a tough job no matter what he did. He had no easy task defending Bayless early, and did a fairly solid job, until Douby got his first rest, and did a fairly solid job on Koponen. He did make several steals that lead to fast breaks and baskets by Jason Thompson or Quincy Douby. His speed translated into an advantage the team had to use in order to beat the Blazers tonight. Mostly I think what we saw was a competitive and interested desire to improve on his game from the first game against Toronto. In my humble opinion he did so. He did make mistakes, and this happens with young PG's, but one was notable. He was running a 3 on 1 that absolutely should have netted the KIngs 2 points. He passed the ball to PJ way too early, and as a result PJ ended up with a very poor shot. Why was this a mistake? Well he passed the ball to PJ about a stride from being 6 feet away from the basket and near a defender. What he should have done, in hindsight of course, was keep the ball and force the defender to make a decision. There is no way under that situation that you shouldn't come up with 2 points under any circumstance.

That all being said he made good upcourt passes to JT several times, and got bailed out by JT when passes were off the mark, and in general used his speed to impact the game. The play of the game was when JT sprinted past the entire 6 players who were jogging back and "Mike" passed it perfectly to JT in stride. While some passes were off the mark, and it cost him a reasonable chance at an assist, some of his other passes led to Ft attempts for both the Doubster and JT. That's a huge asset to have with a smaller PG. I rate his game a solid "B", but it definitely has room to improve. (That is what the summer league is all about.)

I already alluded to Jason "JT" Thompson, but the kid was the player of the game. Whether or not NBA.com, or ESPN.com does recognize it, I guarantee that every scout and GM noticed many things about the way he played that caught some insider/basketball junkie's attention. He grabbed several off target passes by Singletary, gathered them in, and either put up a shot, or got fouled, or both in one instance. That's not an easy thing to do to catch a pass behind your head and still get a shot off. Then of course was the aforementioned sprinting play where he simply beat everybody down the court. There isn't anything particularly "great" about the play, but there is something special about it. IT showed a great feel for the game that many young players of the game just simply don't have. He has a great knowledge about the game, but he has a great instinctual feel for the game too. This kid may not be a great all-star anything, but he's one of those, to me, a kid whose upside at worst is a very good all-star, and at worst a solid role player who can help a team. A high reward low risk type of player. Those are always the best kind aren't they? Even better, he was active on both ends constantly disrupting what the Blazers wanting to do with well timed shows on the pick & rolls (something Shawes did decently as well which made a difference in the game at several junctures), he boxed out well (as did Shelden Williams), and in general his athleticism, fluid and mobile play, created a matchup that was difficult all night for the Blazers to counter with. In fact his not getting the ball (a fact several posters during the game would lament---get him the damn ball!) probably led to a greater stagnation of offense. One reason the team was successful was when they moved the ball and chose to run the offense through either Douby or JT during the course of the night. Creating ball movement, while difficult without prior knowledge of your teammates, is difficult to pull off. Had the Kings done so tonight, and who knows cuz it is only summer league, they probably would have beat the Blazers by 10. But JT's excellent catches in traffic, his rebounds in traffic, as well as a well timed blocked shot, several difficult shots, as well as hitting 9-11 FT's, out running the entire other team to the basket for an easy layup, and beating a guy from the perimeter off the dribble with a shot over 2 defenders in the lane to win the game leads me to conclude his impact was far better than any other player on the court. He displayed all of his abilities, and truth be told, they were pretty tantalizing. A-

Overall, it was a very ugly game, and without Douby or Thompson (2 of the 3 biggest reasons I'm watching along with Singletary), the Kings would have an awful night. It's like masterbation vs having sex with a super model. Do you take the masterbation as the real deal, or do you take the super model sex? That's what I thought. That being said starting somewhere and creating a confident place where a player feels he can contribue to Reggie Theus' rotation is the goal here. These are small building blocks designed to give players insight on how they need to improve their playing to get better as players. Watching how players improve (Singletary and Thompson both did), and watching Shawes digress is valuable. Every little thing, and bad bounce, can serve as an object lesson keeping things in their place. Douby can play defense, and JT is versatile. Shelden can bang, and Shawes isn't the 2nd coming of Vlade Divac quite yet. Singletary is a blur, but needs to work on his running of the team. Yet, he spent a good deal of time looking for players, and clanging Jump Shots when he couldn't get to the rim. We saw an ugly game that saw plenty of talent flashed, and plenty of promised un-fulfilled. Ladies and Germs, and Carl, that is the name of the game when you send a group of young, fairly unaccomplshed group of players to Las Vegas as the Kings have done with the Summer League 6.