Denzel Bowles Up and Down in Two Summer League Games

Former Duke, Denzel Bowles, is two games into his NBA summer league debut. He’s had one really good game, one sort of off game, and drawn one comparison to an all time NBA superstar former Washington Bullet. Sunday night when Bowles’ New Orleans Hornets faced off against the Portland Trailblazers, he came off the bench and immediately made an impact with his offensive game.

Since I was apparently the one guy on earth who watched the summer league game instead of Breaking Bad (well I watched 3 quarters of it, it’s just summer league), I can tell you that Denzel looked pretty much exactly the way he did while at JMU. That is to say he displayed a real nice touch inside 15 feet and hit a variety of turnarounds and short to mid-range jumpers. He finished the game with 18 points and 12 rebounds. His strong play led to Chris Webber comparing him to Ledell Eackles. As two long suffering Bullets/Wizards fans, Todd and I are 100% certain that nobody on earth derived more joy from that comparison that we did. The comparison did seem to resonate with Denzel’s teammates who, just like the old Bullets, blew a late lead and lost. After the game SBNation even listed Bowles as one of the best unsigned free agents at Vegas summer league. They refer to Denzel as a player out of Texas A&M though, so they’re either slipping or Coach Brady’s relationship with Denzel is so dis-functional that his association with JMU has officially been dissolved (that’s a joke people…hopefully).

Denzel earned the start in his second game, but was less effective. Going up against his old rival Larry Sanders (the VCU one, not Gary Shandling) he was far less effective. He struggled to get going and ended up only scoring 5 points on 1 of 5 shooting. It was just one of those nights where things weren’t going his way and he was unable to get into a groove on the offensive end. Despite the poor shooting night, he did lead the team with 7 rebounds. He’ll get a chance to bounce back and show his scoring ability tonight when New Orleans plays the Phoenix Suns.

I am by no means a NBA summer league expert, but it seems fair to say that players like Denzel aren’t playing summer league to make an NBA roster. They’re playing summer league to try to earn a NBA preseason training camp invite. And not necessarily from the team they’re suiting up for in summer league. At that point they really are in a position to make a roster. Denzel’s game might have a few holes on the defensive end, but he’s got pure scoring ability. That’s a valuable skill in the NBA. If he throws together a few more games like the one he had on Sunday, he could find himself in an NBA camp in a few months with a legit shot to make a team.