The Oklahoma City Thunder will soon begin their 2024 NBA Summer League journey. A developmental period the organization takes great pride in, even signing up to participate in two circuits - including seven games spread between two cities.
Starting on Monday, July 9 against the Utah Jazz, the Oklahoma City Thunder will play their first of seven games, coached by OKC Blue Head Coach Kameron Woods for the trio of contests in Salt Lake City before OKC Blue Assistant Coach Daniel Dixon takes over the reigns in Vegas.
Mark Daigneault announced that Cason Wallace would not be at NBA Summer League while Sam Presti confirmed Chet Holmgren is working out with the Summer League crew during the team's camp in Oklahoma City from which spanned across the last week. Though, neither is expected to participate in games, clearly.
The Oklahoma City Thunder have long taken Summer League seriously as an opportunity to develop players - and coaches - with an open roster spot still available, perhaps this summer run means a bit more.
This will be the first look at the Thunder rookies while also turning in a roster with plenty of NBA experience.
More must-reads:
Two weeks from tonight we'll see Notre Dame and Miami battle it out in South Florida, in a top 10 battle between a pair of teams with high expectations for the 2025 college football season. Two weeks isn't that much time, but feels like forever when you're looking forward to one of the biggest games of the season against one your biggest rivals in program history. Despite any college football games getting going for nearly another week still, Notre Dame has already seen itself move up in the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI). Notre Dame Moves Up in ESPN FPI ESPN updated its Football Power Index to reflect more accurate preseason numbers instead of post-spring information. As a result, Notre Dame moved up one spot from No. 7 to No. 6, passing traditional power Oregon to do so. Here's a look at the full current top 25 according to ESPN FPI. 25. Indiana (Not ranked) 24. Arizona State 23. Missouri 22. BYU (Not ranked) 21. Auburn (-7) 20. Oklahoma (-4) 19. SMU (+1) 18. Kansas State (+3) 17. Miami (-8) 16. Clemson (-5) 15. Michigan (+2) 14. USC (+4) 13. Florida (+5) 12. LSU 11. South Carolina (+4) 10. Ole Miss (+3) 9. Texas A M (-1) 8. Tennessee (+2) 7. Oregon (-1) 6. Notre Dame (+1) 5. Penn State 4. Ohio State 3. Alabama 2. Georgia 1. Texas Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway: A quick look at these ratings and you see a few things stick out. Most notably, the drops of both Clemson and Miami are eye-popping. How did both of those teams manage to drop a combined 13 spots in the ratings since June? There wasn't a major injury for either, so why the significant drops? Basic math can tell you that South Carolina and Florida were among the teams that jumped both Clemson and Miami despite no games or significant injuires taking place. So why on earth are those teams soaring while a couple of the supposed ACC powers are dropping? Like I say here often, sometimes we overthink things when the obvious answer is right under our noses. Instead of asking if something significant happened to the teams that fell or soared, perhaps its wiser to check again with who distributes these ratings. That's right, its ESPN. Do I think they care enough to go through the numbers and make preseason computer polls lean in favor of more SEC teams, whom they have ridiculously large television deals with? I'm not saying they did, but I'm certainly not saying they didn't, either. This is the same place that has turned Kirk Herbstreit into a mouthpiece for the SEC even though the conference's dominance has taken a significant hit in recent years, afterall.
Patrik Laine has recently done a major interview in his home country, and in that interview, he hinted at testing the waters in free agency next summer. The NHL career of Patrik Laine has been a very intriguing one to follow, as he has had mixed success in his time with the Winnipeg Jets, Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens, with the talented forward dealing with struggles on and off the ice in that time. However, things have turned around in recent times after he enjoyed a solid campaign with Montreal last season, and now, in an interview in his home country of Finland, he's opened up on many topics. Laine hints at testing free agency in 2026 While he's been very happy in Montreal, the 27-year old still has a very long future ahead of him in the National Hockey League, and with the former No. 2 overall pick set to be a free agent next summer, he's hinted that he may test the waters after not having the opportunity for quite some time. 'It's a little different from what I'm used to. Before, I've always just gone to whoever owns my rights. Next summer I get to decide for myself. It's a nice and great situation.' In the interview, Laine notes that he's usually just sticking with the team that owns his rights, but he'll now finally hit unrestricted free agency, and with so many teams around the NHL cashed up and looking for great wingers, it may be his time to cash in and get paid on a long-term deal. After 20 goals in 52 games a year ago, Laine flashed the talent that once made him the No. 2 overall pick in the draft, and if he can stay healthy next season and post 30 or more, he'll be one of the top names available. If that does happen though, the team at the top of the list offering him a big deal will be the Canadiens, so don't be shocked if he remains, but for right now, he's looking to get himself into a position to cash in next off-season.
After joint practice on Wednesday between the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots, I was asked by some members of the Patriots beat about just one player. "Who's 61? He's a dude." That player is Jalen Redmond, who has quite the story heading into his second season with the Vikings. He was playing in the UFL in the spring of 2024 with the Arlington Renegades. He was a signing the Vikings made on June 18th, 2024, which came after mandatory minicamp. Redmond was the 90th player on the roster and excelled throughout training camp to earn a roster spot. That ability is showing up once again. Jalen Redmond is taking another step forward The signing of Redmond was a massive win for general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah and his scouting staff, especially Ryan Grigson, who was given a lot of credit for finding him. "I remember he [Grigson] called me and said, 'I like this guy.' I think it was late May," Adofo-Mensah explained. "You have to ask yourself, what's your standard for bringing people in, because a lot of good players are on teams already, so there's going to be something there that's not perfect, not clean, and earlier he had injuries, so you've got to understand why he's available, but ultimately here's why he might be a good bet. "And you saw the flashes for an interior guy with burst, his run defense kind of jumped out to me. That's the other thing, when you've been together for two or three years, and my history with Grigson before, he knows how to communicate with me, makes a cut-up, knows exactly what we look for." You can see the power and explosiveness in Redmond's game. He rarely gets washed out by the offensive line, and often penetrates the backfield with his ability. Where things have gotten really interesting with Redmons is seeing how good he can be from a short and long-term perspective. Last season, Redmond played in 13 games and flashed in a major way. While he went undrafted out of Oklahoma, it wasn't so much due to talent, but a health issue that kept him from being selected. He certainly looks like a player who should have been selected. Over the course of the season, Redmond got one sack and 6.0 tackles for loss to pair with 18 tackles. His ability to be a penetrating force on the line earned him a starting role at the end of the season, with two starts in his first year with the Vikings. Going into year two, Redmond shouldn't be overlooked. He won't be a starter with the additions of Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave, but it shouldn't be much of a surprise if he approaches 500 snaps as a rotational player. His teammates believe he's a stud, something that Jonathan Greenard emphasized last week. "Redmond is a dog," said Greenard after Redmond's great practice on Thursday. "Jalen's been a dog since last year in training camp. I knew he was a dog when he got thrown out of practices last year. So I was like, listen, from that day forward, he got thrown out, he came back in just completely, just dominating. And at that point even to see it during the season and see him continuously build. Now I'm like, man, everybody knows, but when you see, obviously, you bring in two guys like JA [Jonathan Allen] and Grave [Javon Hargrave], you kind of think that he gets put in the wayside, making the same place he was last year, if not more. And that just helps us out to know that it's not gonna drop off whenever those guys get a breather or something like that. If I'm coaching, I'm putting him in." Don't sleep on Redmond going into this season, as he's only getting better.
No one in their right mind has the Florida State Seminoles beating the Alabama Crimson Tide here in a few weeks. Well, anyone who isn’t a die-hard Seminoles fan with a rational mind, I should say. That’s not to say they can’t or it won’t happen, but most people have Alabama winning that game. And, it makes sense when you think about the two rosters. Sure, this is not the same two-win roster from last year, as only a handful of the projected starters are returning from last season. But it is the same staff, and it’s not as good of a roster on paper as Alabama’s. Now the Seminoles have something going their way that could actually boost their chances at winning their first game of the year. And, it’s unfortunate that it happened, but the Seminoles can only take advantage of it. Seminoles to play Alabama with RB Jam Miller When you look at Alabama’s roster, they have stars everywhere. Jam Miller is a guy who was projected to be in that conversation for the 2025 season as the team’s likely starting running back. But, earlier this week, he suffered an injury. It’s unfortunate for Alabama that they could be without Miller for around six weeks with a dislocated collarbone. “Jam Miller suffered an upper-body injury in Saturday’s scrimmage and went in for a procedure on Saturday evening,” Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer said in a statement. “Jam should recover fully with a timetable for his return yet to be determined.” This leaves Alabama with Richard Young, Daniel Hill, Kevin Riley, Louisiana transfer Dre Washington, and top 100 high school recruit AK Dear. Young, Hill, and Washington seem to be the guys who will get the carries against Florida State. Now, there are also some downsides to this – they have been prepping for Miller, and some of these other guys don’t have a ton of tape to go off of. But Mike Norvell is a head coach for a reason, so he will adapt.
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