The New Orleans Pelicans (3-1) failed to qualify for the 2023 NBA 2K24 Summer League Tournament (but they will play in a consolation game against the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday). So, their streak of not winning a Summer League title will continue.
However, that isn’t really what Summer League is all about. Summer League is about giving young players the repetitions they need to succeed in the games that matter and determining how far along in their development they are.
So, through four games, which Pelicans’ Summer League player has looked the most impressive? That’s the question we sought to answer in our most recent Twitter poll (follow us on Twitter @PelicanDebrief).
Over there, we asked fans which player they thought looked the most impressive up to this point. We gave them four options: Dyson Daniels, Dereon Seabron, E.J. Liddell, and Jordan Hawkins. In total, we received 93 votes in the 24 hours the poll was open. Here is what we got:
Which New Orleans Pelicans Summer League player have you been most impressed by thus far?
— Pelican Debrief (@PelicanDebrief) July 14, 2023
The winner of our poll (by a significant margin) was the team’s 2022 first-round pick Daniels, who received 63.4% of votes (59 of 93 votes).
This comes as a bit of a surprise, as Seabron has been playing excellent basketball in Las Vegas. Through four games, he’s the team leader in points (16.8 PPG) and rebounds (7.0 RPG). And he’s managing that output while also shooting a higher percentage from the field than Daniels (57.5% compared to 40.4%).
But those that know Daniels know that his impact has never been dependent on his ability to put the ball in the net. He comes from the defense and dimes lineage, specializing in shutting down the perimeter and dishing the ball out to his teammates. And so far, he’s led the team in both steals (2.3 SPG) and assists (6.0 APG).
On top of that, he’s demonstrated more aggression as a scorer (something we’ve mentioned before that he’s needed to do). He’s averaging 11.8 field goal attempts and 4.5 3-point attempts per game.
The team’s first-round pick from this year’s draft, Hawkins, has not been as successful in his Summer League stint as the other two gentlemen we’ve already discussed. He was drafted primarily for his marksmanship, but as of right now, he’s shooting just 21.4% from three. The good news with that is that these games don’t count toward the team’s playoff pursuit, and Hawkins will have plenty of time to atone for his poor showing in the regular season.