Knicks Summer Leaguer Aiming for Long-Term Role

NBA Summer League is almost more famous for the impulsive takes it produces than the basketball itself.

The small sample sizes coupled with the expectations of seeing top prospects in uniform for the first time and the lack of other basketball to compare it to often results in fans taking the few games that prospects play together every July as indicators of how they'll turn out as professionals, but the matchups rarely mean anything to league executives.

Not every Summer Leaguer is exempt from that generalization, though. Players past their first two seasons and still trying to prove themselves with the team that drafted them or the league they're desperately clinging to do require attention, as July is the last real chance many prospects have gotten to chase their NBA dreams.

MarJon Beauchamp is entering his fourth season, and has as many Summer League appearances to show for himself. The former Milwaukee Bucks prospect was let go from the team that drafted him after two and a half seasons together, stopping with the Los Angeles Clippers before ending up on the Knicks for six games toward the end of the season. There he remains, but he's fighting tooth and nail to prove he belongs.

The Knicks have just two roster spots left open, with their being allowed to sign a playoff-ready veteran with one slot while only getting to bring a cheap prospect onto the full-time roster with the other. Beauchamp is unlikely to snag that last spot given the upside of some other pieces in New York's development system, but he made a good case for himself with 25 points against the Brooklyn Nets on Tuesday.

He tied the soaring Kolek on the day of the rising sophomore's bounce-back, using his athleticism to his benefit as a play-finisher to compliment the point guard's playmaking. Kolek needed someone to move off of the ball, keep the passes swinging and attack when they spot available windows, to which Beauchamp held up his end of the bargain.