LAS VEGAS — David Duke Jr. turned down the Nets’ offer of a two-way contract, coming to the Las Vegas Summer League unsigned and betting on himself.
There’s no better place to bet than Las Vegas, and few better ways to make an impression than the effort Duke put in Friday. He had 22 points, three assists, three rebounds and a steal in the Nets’ opener, a 94-90 loss to the Bucks.
The Nets gave one of their pair of two-way contracts to undrafted rookie Alondes Williams, and they offered the other to Duke, who had impressed last season as an undrafted rookie. But Duke turned it down, and reiterated he wants one of their 15 standard contracts.
“Well, you know, I’m always going to strive for the most that I can get, right? So if there’s a roster spot to strive for that, then whatever happens from there, happens,” Duke said. “But like I said, I’m just out here trying to play the best that I can, show what I can bring to Brooklyn, to whoever. And that’s just my mindset.
“I mean, I’m not really focusing too much on that. I put in work for the past few weeks with the team, and really right now it’s just me trying to know just show my team that I’m with right now what I can do. And they’ve seen the developments over the past few weeks. So I think they’ve given me some confidence. I’ve given them some confidence as well. I’m just trying to make the best out of it out here.”
The aforementioned Williams, the highest-rated of the Nets’ five unsigned rookie free agents, had a strange night Friday. He shot 1-of-6, didn’t have a single assist and made three turnovers. The ACC Player of the Year out of Wake Forest came billed as a creative passer and showed that at times, but he was either overaggressive with some passes while teammates were caught off guard by others.
“Super exciting talent. Can really see the floor and score. Thought he was really unlucky a few of those rim attempts didn’t go in. His stat line doesn’t look impressive, but I thought he really helped us,” summer league coach Adam Caporn said. “It’s little things for him to improve that we can definitely help him improve and exciting talent.
“First game, a lot of guys excited to play, played a bit quick and don’t have a great feel for each other yet, [they’re] getting there. And some of it just his layups, he’s a very good finisher: I thought he was a big unlucky. A few of those rolled out. They were very contested. But he’s good at that. Across the board we were just out of sorts offensively and that’s on the coaches as much as anything. When you’re out of sorts and second guessing yourself, that attributed to some guys not being in the right spots and those things, those passes not coming off cleanly.”
Cam Thomas, who led the 2021 Las Vegas Summer League in scoring (at 27.0 points per game) and was named co-MVP, started the 2022 league right where he left off. The second-year guard had a game-high 31 points Friday, though he missed a potential tying 3-pointer in the waning seconds.
“I played with him since last summer league, and almost every shot that he’s putting up I’m thinking that it has a great chance of going in,” Duke said. “So I definitely thought it was going in.”