There were a few former Michigan State stars in action on Friday night in the NBA Summer League and you just know that Tom Izzo was proud to see his guys get opportunities.
Frankie Fidler played in his first Summer League game on Friday night, scoring 13 points with four rebounds and two steals in 23 minutes and Carson Cooper had his first “poor” game with the Memphis Grizzlies, scoring zero points with two rebounds in 15 minutes.
A lot of eyes were on a third Spartan, though.
Jaden Akins appeared in his first NBA Summer League game with the New York Knicks and everyone was excited to see how he’d parlay his G-League All-Star season into a real shot with the world champions. Unfortunately, his first performance with his new team was not his best and he’s going to have to make up some ground in a hurry.
The former Michigan State guard finished with just two points, two assists, and two turnovers in 21 minutes. He didn’t make a single field goal on five attempts and was a rather forgettable -31 in those 21 minutes on the floor. That’s not something you want to see from a Spartan hoping to make an NBA roster, but I know that this is an extreme outlier.
Also, the Knicks’ overall performance left a lot to be desired and the 91-65 loss to the Brooklyn Nets shows that the team as a whole just didn’t play well. Akins was not alone there.
Heck, he didn’t even have the worst +/- on the team at -31. The team just didn’t look good and that’s not all on Akins although he does need to play a lot better moving forward.
Jaden Akins will turn things around
You don’t make the G-League All-Star Game as a rookie if you’re not at least somewhat ready for the NBA so I would call this performance an extreme outlier.
Akins also had four fouls so frustration was clearly setting in. It was one of those games where nothing can seemingly go right and that happened here and there when he was in East Lansing. He’s the player that we saw during his senior year at Michigan State and into his rookie year in the G-League and not the one that showed up (or didn’t show up) on Friday night.
It’s also unfortunate that this happened against Joey Hauser and Foster Loyer who happen to be assistant coaches on the Nets’ Summer League staff.
Akins will get another chance to prove himself on Saturday evening at 6 p.m. ET.
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