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GIVEAWAY: Win a Joe Young signed photo! Must RT & Follow this account to enter. Winner selected & DMed on 7/26! pic.twitter.com/Hn8b2RDGhS

— iPacers (@iPacersblog) July 19, 2015

Tell me what you think about Joe Young and leave a comment on this page for 5 additional entries into the raffle.

And now for the post:

If you missed the post on Myles Turner’s performance at Summer League click here.

After missing his first game due to illness, Joe Young had a tremendous Summer League as he was the leading scorer in Orlando with 22.5 PPG. So, how will his game translate once the games start to matter? What does he still need to work on? Here’s an overview of what we saw at Orlando.

Joey Buckets lives up to his Twitter handle:

That Joey Buckets twitter handle is starting to make a lot of sense. Joe Young has scored all 7 points for #Pacers on pull up jumpers

— Candace Buckner (@CandaceDBuckner) July 6, 2015

After missing nearly all of the practices and the first summer league game, Joe Young started off his first minutes as a Pacer by going 4 of 4 for 9 points with 2 assists, contributing to all of the Pacers first 13 points. Young made it immediately clear what his main skill is: scoring the basketball. Unfortunately for Young, he ran out of gas after a week of barely eating and not being able to practice with the team as he missed his next 7 shots and struggled with turnovers.

Fortunately Mighty Joe quickly bounced back and was at full force the rest of the week as he scored 25, 28, and 28 points in the final three games. Young also showed much better poise and control running the point than in his first game, which is good since he primarily played at the 2 in college.

Young showed range out to and beyond the three-point line with a smooth stroke that’s consistent and confident, shooting 51% from the field in the four games. He worked well without the ball, making multiple catch-and-shoot threes; Young was also able to create his own shot and penetrate into the paint and draw a foul/finish or dish it to a waiting Myles Turner for an easy bucket.

Young may have feasted on inferior talent at the Summer League, but that’s what you want to see in these games. Especially when the opposite is what Solomon Hill, a starter for last season’s team, did by going 4 of 22 from the field and averaging 4.7 points per game in his three Summer League games. Larry Bird and Frank Vogel both said Solo looked great in practice, but were disappointed he didn’t take those games more seriously.

One of my favorite, beautiful ways Joe Young can get open to score is this: after passing to a big at an elbow, Young will run hard toward the big as if he’s going to take a hand-off. If the defender overplays that action, Young makes a quick reversal of direction towards the top of the key and gets wide open for a mid-range shot. I saw this a few times while watching the Summer League. This highlight video has the move at the 1:25 mark:

The video showcases all of the ways Young was able to score in Orlando, and that’s what the Pacers will be able to expect from the rookie whenever he gets on the court this season.

The concerns for Young come on the defensive end. He battled in the Summer League, but will have to get used to the speed of the game on that end of the floor. Young takes awhile to get around picks on the pick and roll, which teams will surely take advantage of once the season starts. Young will have to guard point guards in the NBA with his 6’2″ size being too small to guard larger shooting guards. There will be an adjustment period on that end. He reminds me of former Pacer DJ Augustin on defense.

Currently, it looks like Young may be the backup point guard for the Pacers. Of course all of the trio of Rodney Stuckey, Monta Ellis, and George Hill are comfortable at the 1 or the 2 spot. If Young gets minutes as the backup point, you can expect him to be an offensive sparkplug like Aaron Brooks off the bench. Young says he models himself after Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis, and you can see it when he plays, but that will be far too much to expect from him. Especially early in his career. Look for Young to take advantage of whenever he gets minutes from Vogel by lighting up the scoreboard for around 15 minutes a game.

Maybe in a few years, we’ll see that Young to Myles Turner Alley Oop from the earlier video happen often for the Blue and the Gold. This draft class could be one of the Pacers best ever.

GIVEAWAY: Win a signed Joe Young photo! Must RT & Follow. Winner picked 7/26. [Extra entry if you RTed original] https://t.co/71ZrDhhDDZ

— iPacers (@iPacersblog) July 22, 2015