Final thoughts from summer league after Celtics wrap up with a win

The Celtics wrapped up their summer league schedule with a big win over the Orlando Magic. The game started off pretty ugly, but the Celtics were able to get their shooting touch and pull away.

Box Score

Here are some final thoughts from summer league.

Jordan Walsh: He passed his first NBA test in Las Vegas. He showed a lot of the defensive instincts that have the Celtics intrigued and hit more shots than I think most people expected. He shot 11-27 (40.7%) over the five games, which is obviously a small sample size but it’s still a very nice surprise. 

I don’t want to overreact to summer league (remember, I made everyone promise we wouldn’t), so I’m not going to say this will allow him to slide into Grant Williams’ role as a rookie. He still made plenty of mistakes, and the shooting was streaky, so we all still need to be patient. 

At the same time, he was better than expected. It makes me at least a little curious to see how he handles training camp and the preseason. He’s still too thin to handle actual NBA players, so there will be another learning curve for him in a couple of months. If he’s able to make a good impression there, then he’ll head into the G League season with a lot of confidence. 

Again, not trying to get anyone’s hopes up, but his performance this summer was good enough to at least open up the possibility of spot specialty minutes later in the season. And by that I mean the Celtics are up seven with :45 to play and they want to make defense/offense substitutions, then I can see Walsh getting some time to help get stops. He could be a guy who steps into a 20-6 run by the opponent to start the game and picks up full court to change the energy. 

Don’t expect that in November. He needs time to learn and add some muscle to his frame. But who knows by the end of the season. He’s been impressive, and I think he has the drive to make good progress. 

JD Davison: He comes out of this game leading summer league with 36 assists. He’s also near the top of the turnover list with 22 (one of three players heading into the game with 20+ turnovers), so it’s been an up-and-down summer. 

He ended on a high note, though, with three of the best plays we’ve seen from him all in one game. 

He has spectacular basketball in him. He also has infuriating basketball in him. As I’ve been saying, I think the two-way contract was right for him as he needs to learn more discipline and control. 

Jay Scrubb: He earned a two-way contract with the Celtics, and he celebrated it with the worst game of summer league. Still, with the new NBA finances to navigate, snagging a guy with the potential to get hot and see how he develops with the franchise makes sense.

Is he a long-term fit in Boston? We’ll see. Might he get a chance to step into a game here or there due to injury? Maybe, and if he can get hot in one or two opportunities, then the two-way will already be worth it. 

Justin Champagnie: He didn't play in the final game. I think he did enough to earn the guaranteed deal, if for nothing else to give Boston some trade ballast. He’s similar to Scrubb in that he might snag some injury minutes here or there. 

Tony Dobbins: He did a good job with the team. It’s always tough to keep these guys together in the summer setting, but I think he showed why he has survived multiple coaching staff overhauls. I also like the use of the zone defense, which I do think is going to carry over into the regular season. He was pretty good about deploying it at the right time and getting good results more often than not.