Utah Jazz: Kyle Filipowski, Cody Williams & Isaiah Collier! | NBA Summer League

Utah Jazz: Kyle Filipowski, Cody Williams & Isaiah Collier! | NBA Summer League

What team do you want to start with? Who is first in your notes? Yeah, let’s just let’s start with Utah. Um I I feel like that’s a one. Cody Williams is the legitimately the first name in my notes and I just think that that’s a good team because there are definitely multiple guys that probably should be discussed. I think that that is true. So, they have the summer league MVP, Kyle Filipki, who was genuinely elite at summer league. Like was uh I wouldn’t say he was the most dominant big at summer league. I still think like Drew Timmy was amazing. Uh but he had a real case for it. If you wanted to say it was Philipowski, I I’m totally open to that conversation and think it was reasonable. He played six games over the course of both Utah, Salt Lake City, and uh the Las Vegas summer league. He averaged 23 points, 9 and a half rebounds, 2.2 assists, shot 533672. Ba basically just completely dominated out there in any moment that he was on the court. The mix of like physicality on the interior and real perimeter skill is very very difficult I think for many summer league players to be able to handle. Yeah, I mean that was my takeaway offensively especially. I mean I have it in all uppercase. Offense was unreal. Too good for summer league. Unreal. Um you know I he was very aggressive from the three-point line. No hesitation. He did it in different play types. They ran a really fun flare screen catch and shoot three-pointer like out of timeout or whatever. It was the designed action. We’ve talked about this. This is why we like Will Hardy. We like these guys. as they get into the system and a guy like Philipowski who can for a big does some interesting things like he was trying to attack off the bounce and all of that but because of his perimeter skill level and his ability to shoot the ball it’s really fun to have him in that system. He also did some nice things like operating from the top of the key with passes and all of that. you know, like watching the Sixers game back, like the athleticism of Adona gave him some trouble on the defensive end, but offensively, Philipki was just a monster all the way through. Yeah, I mean, defensively, there were some flaws that definitely popped up, I thought, in general. Uh, just the movement like continues to be a bit of a concern. Like, I I do think he is one of those guys that’s kind of in the middle of positions like the four five kind of like Kelly Olen. I mean, Kelly Linux always the guy that I’ve kind of compared him to. Yeah. Uh different in terms of the way that their bodies like move. Like Flip is a little bit more power based. Kelly’s a little bit more uh you know, balanced, coordinated, fluid kind of whatever you want to say that that is, right? But I I do think that Flip is a real NBA player and I think that he is like a genuine this could be a starter long term. I think is what I would say like this genuinely could be a starter long term for Utah. It might end up being more of a he’s a great sixth man. Yeah. Where he’s like a guy that comes in like Bobby Portoris and just, you know, knocks down threes and is super aggressive and, you know, maybe can pass a little bit better than Bobby Portoris and can do some things that way, right? But I I do think there is like some starter upside here at the end of the day. Yeah, I think I’m with you there. Like if you made me bet a significant amount of money to me, I would probably make the bet on the six-man. I call that player a third big and not like he’s not your third center. He’s your third big. It’s the bar Bobby Portoris Nause Reed role. Not saying he’s those players exactly, but that role that against him is very, very important. Like we’ve seen those guys like that thrive in those roles. I think for me what gets him into starter level is exactly what you said. what is your position? And if you’re a five, then you got to be better defensively. If you’re a four, you got to be able to move better offensively and maybe have a little bit more passing juice or something like that. So, I I could see the world where it ends up happening in the starting lineup. I feel pretty comfortable that Utah has a very interesting third big six-man guy off the bench. And based on where they drafted him, Sam, that’s really good value. Yeah. And I will say he had a couple of big moments too where like he needed to go get a bucket and went to get a bucket like the end of the Spurs game, right? Like they went to him for a bucket and he delivered, right? Like just understanding the moment and like being the guy in moments like that. That’s what you want to see from guys at summer league. Like the comfortability to just be the dude. I was completely fine with him winning MVP of the event. I thought he was absolutely tremendous. It is like a little bit funny that I believe they went 0 and3 in Vegas and he won the summer league MVP award, but I don’t really care honestly. Like I I don’t I thought that he was really impactful and impressive and uh yeah, I have no defense is going to be the swing skill for him. If he can figure out how to like truly defend his position uh either at the four or the five, he is definitely a starter at that point. But if he can’t, he might be more of a sixth man. And that’s okay, too. He will make like significant substantial money and will be like an impact player’s sixth man. Yep. I agree. I think the guy I’m most excited to talk about is actually Cody Williams. Okay. Like in the entirety of this what we’re going to do here when we talk about things, I am genuinely like pumped to talk about Cody Williams. I thought he was awesome in Vegas. I thought he was genuinely really really good in Vegas. Yeah. You look at the numbers, 21 points against the Hornets on 19 shots. He started that game really poorly and then it just felt like he kind of went screw it. Like I need to be the guy and like remember that, you know, I went in the top 10 a little bit, right? He had 22 against the Warriors. That Warriors summer league team was pretty bad. Then he had 10 against the Spurs in a rough one, but then finished with 23 against the Wizards in a win. Uh, and then 26 against the Bulls. Uh, consistently did a pretty good job on the glass in Vegas, I thought. Eight rebounds against the Warriors, five against the Bulls. Passed the ball really well, I thought, in Vegas. Four assists against the Warriors, four assists against the Spurs, three assists against the Bulls. Consistently got stocks, consistently was uh rotating defensively, and frankly, he just looked bigger. And this is what we talked about all year with Cody Williams when we would do rookie reviews. He just wasn’t physically ready to play in the NBA last year. And that’s okay. You know, I knew that when they drafted him, he was a project. I think Utah knew that when they drafted him, he was a project, but he looked stronger. He doesn’t look totally like an NBA player yet, but his arms look bigger. I thought he looked stronger and thicker through his chest. He’s never going to be his brother in terms of like that level of physicality. Like JDub’s chest is just like an absolute tank, but just continuing to add and continuing to get stronger and more physical. That’s going to make the difference for him. And we are already started to see it at summer league that that is making the difference for him. Yeah. I mean, people probably know that to follow like I’m a little bit lower on Cody Williams in general going back to the first time I watched him in high school, even through Colorado, all of that. I will say even though and we talked about this on the rookie recap that you know when you get into those final two games of summer league at Vegas the the rosters are something but I will say this the fact that he had games multiple games with 19 17 16 17 shot attempts 11 threes in one game 10 threes in another game regardless of the competition is a very big positive for me for Cody Williams because one of my biggest things with him has always been that authoritative play style like like you said, I am a top 10 pick. I am going to go out and attack and be aggressive and he just always set back a little bit too much for me. I’m glad you brought up the build. It was more. I had in my notes that I think it needs to be more yet, which you mentioned as well. I get very frustrated with people when they try to tell me that adding weight, adding muscle, etc. is lowhanging fruit and it shouldn’t be a part of an equation for or a scout. It it it drives me crazy that people think it’s that easy. I I’ll actually touch on this when we talk about Don Holmes the second later even because it’s not. Yeah, you may be able to add muscle, but then can you still move the same? And so like that’s the thing with with Cody is it’s going to be a fine line of okay, he has a slithery movement style. You don’t want to put so much mass on him that he loses that in his game. I’m sure Utah is very well aware of this. his representation’s very well aware of this, but it is part of the equation with Cody Williams reaching who he can be. It’s 100% right. Like it’s way more difficult to add functional strength than what people think. Uh not everybody can do it. Like again, like I think Holmes will be like a really good conversation point for us. Yeah. because like that that you know is an interesting frame to continue to break down and Holmes looked great but like it is a it’s an interesting conversation to have. Yeah. Like I just think you know I love that Cody Williams came out and fired from three, right? Like didn’t shoot it well in the first three games but then got rolling a little bit in the last two games, right? He drilled eight threes in the last two games that he played at summer league, right? So, I I think that there is a real like anybody writing off Cody Williams, and I said this last year when he was in the middle of just like a catastrophic rookie season, anybody writing him off, I I think is just like kind of out of their mind. And I I don’t really see why you would do it. I I think the people that are writing him off maybe came in with greater expectations for him than what they should have as a rookie understanding that like it it just takes real significant amount of time to be able to add the weight that you have to wait to play or that you have to add in order to play in the NBA. Yeah. The other thing I will say is he showed off his versatility along with the mentality. So, um, you know, just from one game, I remember there was a catch and shoot. He was off the dribble, had an offensive rebound, had a cut, like I I really value that level of versatility in players. And so, when he has the right body, which may still be 12 months away, when he has the right mentality, which he at least showed throughout summer league, excuse me, in all what seven or eight games, whatever he played, eight games, I think it was, like that all comes together really nicely for him. So, I think it was a positive step for Cody Williams with a player who I think needed a positive step. Like some of these guys is like, you know, like, okay, whatever, you know, but with him, especially after the rookie year he had after coming into the league where you and I, I think, both knew it may be a little bit of a struggle. It was good to see a positive step with the body and the mindset and mentality that he was playing with. Isaiah Collier just felt like much of the same to me, which is totally fine. Like that that is an NBA player. I think when I watch Isaiah Collier, like I think that just his ability to get paint touches is very real. He can really pass the ball. Like that is a genuine skill set that he brings to the table that I think will continue to grow and improve throughout the course of the next couple of years. It’s always just going to be how does he score the ball? Doesn’t elevate super high off the ground. doesn’t really have much of an in between game. definitely doesn’t shoot it right now, but the paint touches are valuable and he finds ways to be able to, you know, use that like bowling ball frame in addition to like I think he has a little bit more craft than people think with his footwork particularly like I think he is more than just like a physical dude blowing past dudes and like you know using his frame to bump into guys and get some space. Like I think he actually does have some real nuance with his footwork and pace to be able to like go slow to fast and use that burst that he has to be able to get to where he has to go, but it doesn’t matter that much in terms of his upside as a starting point guard if he can’t score the ball. And that that’s really what my worry is with him right now. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I feel like, man, people probably think we just like share notes and I swear that we don’t because the first two for me on Collier is a lot of the same things we saw coming out of his rookie season. The passing in creation is interesting. How does he score? You know, like is he is he able to knock down shots? I will say like defensively and I realize Jai Broom is a rookie. He got matched up with Broom in the Sixers game and Broom like tried to start backing him down and Collier gave up nothing. like you talk about a certain build and chest and all of that. Like he does have this physicality that makes him interesting in terms of like what could he provide at the point of attack defensively and then he had like a sick fullcourt pass to flip that just like it kind of made me laugh. It was so ridiculous. So I do think his passing is underappreciated at times. The the assist numbers pass genuinely. Yeah. Um and I don’t know that I I think it was a little bit more up and down. Maybe I’d have to go back through my my scout notes on him, but like you said, the the upside to become a starter, he just has to flat out score the ball better than what he’s done so far. Yeah. 39% from the field, 28% from three, 47 from the line at summer league. Drew five fouls a game at summer or drew five free throw attempts per game at summer league. Like that was serious. Like someone asked about like the difference between him and Jaden Ivy. They’re just like entirely different players. like Ivy’s a real scorer whereas Collier is like a passer playmaker. I I think Ivy’s skill set is just drastically more valuable and Ivy can actually like really shoot now off the catch and I think it’s proven that over multiple years at this point. Yeah, I I don’t think they’re the same archetype of players. Um I like Jay Ivy is very much an offthe- ball player at least in a starting lineup in a lot of minutes. He can obviously play with ball in hand at times but has really grown his shooting. And here the other thing like Jay Ivy is not the passer that Isaiah Collier is. Like it he just straight up is not. Um so I think there’s some some pretty vast differences between those two archetypes right now. Okay. Uh Bryce Sensah from early on at Summer League. Any thoughts? Uh gets buckets like just like definitely gets buckets. Yeah. Um I I put see Kyle Filipowski above in terms of the offense was unreal. Too good for summer league. Unreal. He was just like making crazy shots. Um, but he also he had a ridiculous behind the back pass that went into like the second row of the stands. I was like, okay, like uh I don’t know about that. Um, I thought he was giving turnovers in both of the games he played. Yeah, I thought he was giving effort defensively, but it’s like I I don’t know that there’s a real impact coming there. So, the scoring was cool. The scoring was fun. I mean, that that Grizzlies game was absurd. like just completely in control of his craft as a scorer in terms of the footwork, the driving ability, getting to the basket when he wanted, drawing fouls when he wanted. He drilled six threes. He had five threes in the first game against the Sixers as well. Um, absolutely an NBA caliber scorer. It’s just pretty pretty glaring on the defensive end that it’s got to get better. Yeah, maybe maybe he should be mad that he’s not getting $30 million a year offer from the Brooklyn Nets. Like I feel like we keep rounding back into these same conversations. Yeah, you’re we’re we’re going to get in trouble here. We’re definitely going to get in trouble for that one.

Utah Jazz: Kyle Filipowski, Cody Williams & Isaiah Collier! | NBA Summer League

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Sam Vecenie, a Senior NBA Writer at The Athletic, talks all about basketball. From the NBA, to the NBA Draft, to college hoops and even some high school, Vecenie has you covered in this show.