Two Nebraska basketball players are taking part in the NBA Summer League, hopefully in preparation for playing during the regular season as rookies in the 2019-20 season. Of those two players, it's not the one who was drafted that is shining right now. James Palmer Jr has had a much more impressive Summer League showing at this point. Isaiah Roby, on the other hand, has struggled to the point that some Husker fans are likely saying "yep, that's the up and downplay we've seen before."
There is very little doubt that Roby has shown he can hang with the big boys in the NBA.
What has plagued him in his career thus far is that he simply isn't able to bring the game every day. That is going to be even more glaring as he goes up against the better competition in the pros. Palmer, to some extent, has also brought the same kind of game that he showed while playing for Nebraska basketball.
That means he's scoring a ton of points, taking a ton of shots and doing the little things to get on the scoreboard. At this point, it's hard not to imagine some team at least giving him a shot in the G League this fall.
Palmer as a scoring machine
When it comes to filling up the box score, James Palmer Jr has clearly seen himself as one of the top offensive options for his Phoenix Suns Summer League team.
Through this rather short season, the former Nebraska basketball star is averaging 17.3 points, 2.3 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. It is the fact that he's doing more than just scoring that could eventually get him a shot during the regular season.
If there is a reason why he might not get that shot, it would be the fact that he's starting to show some struggles when it comes to shooting percentage. A few days ago, Palmer did score 18 points in a team-leading 33 minutes for the Suns, but he hit just four of 11 shots from the field and was just 2-for-8 from beyond the three-point arc. What he was able to do well in that game was get himself to the free-throw line, something he did well at Nebraska as well.
He hit 8-of-10 free throws in order to reach those 18 points.
In the Suns' latest game, he again played a team-high 29 minutes but scored just 11 points on 4-for-9 shooting. As the Summer League winds down, he's going to want to start putting up big numbers again.
Roby struggling against big boys
While Isaiah Roby might have a slightly easier shot at making the Dallas Mavericks roster, or G League roster because he was an actual draft pick, it's hard to say he's not struggling so far this summer. The former Nebraska basketball forward is averaging just 9.8 points per game, 1.8 rebounds and just 5.3 rebounds per contest.
On the one hand, those aren't terrible numbers against some of the best young talent trying for roster spots in the NBA.
On the other hand, he's really struggled as the Summer League has gone on. One of his last games was against Sacramento where he played a team-high 30 minutes but hit just 1-of-6 shots and scored only six points.