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Blazer Update

With summer league over, aside from a few Blazers (Greg Oden and Jerryd Bayless) scrimmaging with Team USA next week, we're looking at an uneventful lead up to training camp.

Summer League Boxscores:

Game 1 Blazers 87, Raptors 92
Game 2 Blazers 82, Rockets 87
Game 3 Blazers 93, Nuggets 111
Game 4 Blazers 91, Spurs 74
Game 5 Blazers 73, D-League Select 74

Jerryd Bayless, the only guy on the team that has played NBA basketball, continues to look like more of a shooting guard than a point guard. It's no secret that his focus this summer was on trying to be more of a pass first/pass second/score third guard… but it's now painfully obvious that it's just not there. Ben Golliver of BlazersEdge covered Saturday night's post game interview, where Jerryd decided that his  7 turnovers in 27 minutes should've been attached to somebody else:

The quote, Bayless, Pendergraph and Cunningham after the jump…

Bayless stated, “The turnovers are coming from me trying to get other people involved… people are dropping the ball. During the regular season that doesn't happen… I had a couple of carries but a lot of them — not saying nothing negative — but a couple of guys dropped some passes. When it's Brandon, Travis, Rudy, Nic out on the wings, they're not dropping it.

It turns out that Jerryd's both ruthless and turnover prone in equal measure. Summer league teammates, meet underside of bus. To a dergree, he's right. Having someone like Brandon Roy backing you up is a luxury; he's a prove nplayer that rarely makes mistakes. That said, Jerryd isn't out there trying to get Mr. Magoo buckets. These are good basketball players. Capable basketball players. Sure, they're nervous and might make a few mistakes, but you cant hang everything on them… or throw them under the bus.

Jeff Pendergraph, a 4 year player from ASU, turned out to be a nice surprise.  He's willing to do the dirty work, or whatever is asked of him. He held his own on the block over the week, crashed the boards and attacked the basket. After Joel Pryzbilla, the Blazers were missing this piece of the puzzle last year. Neither LaMarcus or Channing were willing to get their hands dirty and mix it up in the middle (Greg Oden had enough on his plate).

Blazer lead scout Chad Buchanan on Pendergrpah, via BlazersEdge:

That's what's going to help him understand that if he's not playing for a 10 game stretch but he's helping the team in practice or on the bench, that's still important. He just wants to be a part of it.

The highlight of the last week was rookie Dante Cunningham of Villanova. Like Brandon Roy and Jeff Pendergraph,  Dante spent 4 years playing college basketball. Having played 4 years at the d1 level, he plays a smart, polished and matured game. He has a solid mid range jumper, strength, crashes the boards, can guard players that are both smaller and bigger than him and has a great overall basketball IQ. It's unlikely that we see Dante crack the rotation this season with Travis Outlaw, Rudy Fernandez, Nic Batum, Martell Webster and LaMarcus Aldridge all poised to see regular minutes.

OTHER BLAZER NEWS:
It should come as no surprise that the Utah Jazz matched the Blazers' Paul Millsap offer.

The options have shrunk considerably since July 1st, left on the market: David Lee, Lamar Odom and Andre Miller. Trade for Kirk Hinrich? Who knows…

The 184th Chris Paul to Portland rumor.

SPORTS LINKS:

Berry Petchesky asks: When is a blog not a blog?

Ex-Marine fights lion with a chainsaw.

ESPN sideline princess Erin Andrews was filmed.

BE Ben's summer league cavalcade.

The 8 biggest stories of summer league.

You can contact Andy Popp at either andypopp@gmail.com or BlazersPipeline on Twitter. When he's not at PDX Pipeline, you can find him at lowposts.com.