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SALT LAKE CITY — It was pretty clear who the main draws at the Salt Lake City Summer League were for the home fans. You had Utah's new first-round picks Taylor Hendricks, Keyonte George and Brice Sensabaugh, as well as second-year forward Ochai Agbaji, who was going to get a much larger role.
So with that being the case, the story of Wednesday's summer league game of Philadelphia's 104-94 win over the Jazz was who was on the bench at the end of the night.
Hendricks and Sensabaugh both sat out with injury, George left early with a foot injury, and Agbaji used up all 10 of his allotted fouls. (Oh, and newly acquired Jazz forward John Collins was on the sidelines, too, sitting with Danny Ainge, Will Hardy, Justin Zanik and Jeff Hornacek.)
So what did we learn on Wednesday? Here's some quick takeaways:
George's comfort level rises
As George watched film of his first summer league game, something stood out to him: He passed up too many shots.
He was determined to fix that.
"We had a little off day, so just reppin' those shots out," George said. "Seeing Philly was in a drop the last game — had a lot of opportunities to get my shot off this game."
Just a minute into the game, the Sixers went under a screen, and George made them pay with a deep 3-pointer. That started off a strong first half from the Baylor product, who built on his impressive close to his first summer league game on Monday. George scored all 14 of his points in the first half on 5-of-10 shooting.
His night ended early in the third quarter when he stepped on a foot and sat on Utah's bench after going back to the locker room to get the injury checked out. He said there was "nothing wrong" and wants to play in the SLC Summer League finale on Thursday.
"I'm expecting to play tomorrow," he said. "I feel good. I want to play basketball. Hopefully y'all see me out there tomorrow."
Summer league foul trouble
Agbaji joined the likes of Thon Maker, Andrew Bogut, DeMarcus Cousins and Greg Oden as players who have fouled out of a summer league game.
Ten fouls is a lot. That many in 27 minutes of action is actually somewhat impressive, so when he was asked about it, Agbaji was quick to laugh off the foul fest.
"A lot of ticky tack fouls," Agbaji said. "I mean, obviously, in a real game that would change your aggression because you have six fouls to give and all that, but I think I was just being over aggressive."
In fact, Agbaji said he didn't realize he was in danger of accomplishing (that feels like the wrong word here, but we're going to roll with it) the rare feat.
"I was just kind of fouling here and there and not even thinking about it till it stacked up into nine," Agbaji said. "I looked, and coach (Evan) Bradds said something, and I was like, 'Wait, how many fouls do I get?' And he's like 10."
And soon after that, Agbaji was called for a charge, which sent him to the bench and into summer league lore.
Agbaji had a rough first half (he went 2 for 10 from the field with several fouls), but did have some moments to shine after the halftime break. The highlight was a great chase-down block — it may or may not have been a foul — and then hit a 3-pointer on the other end.
He finished with 18 points and five rebounds, but had zero assists.
"I thought his response was good," Bradds said of Agbaji's comeback. "He came back. He, obviously, ran into what we call foul trouble, especially in summer league. But that happens; I'm not too worried about that."
Samanic's week with Markkanen paying off
Luka Samanic was Utah's best player on Wednesday. He finished with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting and nine rebounds as he bounced back after a less-than-stellar opening game.
"I would say tonight was probably the most physical on offense that I've seen (from him), maybe like physical with a little bit of confidence, too," Bradds said.
A potential reason for that? Last month, Samanic spent some time as Lauri Markkanen's shadow when the All-Star was back in Utah for a week.
"I was enjoying every day, just doing what he does and going through workouts with him — and then to get into play against him," Samanic said.
He went on to say that he was simply trying to "copy" everything Markkanen did; and he played a bit like his Finnish teammate on Wednesday. He was aggressive on cuts to the basket and used his size to finish over smaller defenders. He also finished 3 for 5 from 3-point range.
