Although most people seem to not really know who he is and I wrote that he doesn’t have much of a ceiling, veteran wing James Anderson was downright impressive in Game 3 of the Las Vegas Summer League, with a perfect six for six shooting performance in the Kings win.
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Although the pace of the average Summer League is roughly two thousand times faster than any NBA game (that’s a precise scientific calculation, by the way) the fact that Anderson was perfect from the field and managed 17 points in just 20 minutes is still significant.
Maybe in workouts with the team Anderson showed Vlade Divac and the Sacramento braintrust something similar to what we all saw in Game 3, or maybe Vlade just figured he’d add another camp body. Either way, the experiment of bringing in Anderson seemed to be going well after Game 3, although it wasn’t looking great before that point.
One disheartening part of James Anderson’s Summer League performances has been his three-point shooting, however. He may still end up without a roster spot if he cannot manage to up his percentages from long-range, which seemed to be part of bringing the veteran to Sacramento.
Anderson is a career 33 percent shooter from long-range, but he managed nearly 40 percent in his rookie year and over 40 percent in a very short stint with the Spurs in 2013. So far in Las Vegas he is just one-for-six from deep, and although the sample size is obviously small it’s still disheartening to see Anderson fail to find his stroke from three-point territory.
He’s also been very turnover prone, with five turnovers in his first two Summer League games and four in his third. Again, the rapid and sloppy nature of Summer League games might be the reason for some of those mistakes, but considering the lesser competition you’d like to see an experienced NBA player like Anderson stand out more in this stage.
Still though, his near 64 percent shooting from the field is strong, and in two of his games he’s snagged four assists apiece. Unfortunately, in the other game he didn’t manage to dish any dimes. I’m just not sold on Anderson as an NBA level player yet, although it’s not like he’s slated to get many minutes anyway.
Given that he would most likely only be used in blowouts or injury situations, the Kings could definitely have a worse body to bring off of the bench. Despite his perfect game in Las Vegas though, don’t expect much more from Anderson than a veteran who can gobble up some garbage time minutes like a Hungry Hungry Hippo.
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