The San Antonio Spurs head to Las Vegas in a day or so for the 2012 Vegas Summer League and they’re taking some of the best young talent in their system with them. According to their official release, the team will feature Kawhi Leonard, James Anderson, Cory Joseph and 2010 second round pick Ryan Richards. Assistant Jacque Vaughn will coach the team.
Richards is obviously the big surprise here. Project Spurs’ Paul Garcia mentioned Tuesday that Richards was in the U.S., but at the time didn’t know why. That answer was made pretty clear with the release today. Richards has shown flashes of skill during his time in Europe, but he’s also shown some immaturity in bouncing around from team to team and even switching nationalities so he could play for the Jamaican national team. However, if he plays well in Summer League who cares about all that other stuff. We’ve seen Richards torch smaller competition, so it’ll be interesting to see how he fares against other big bodies trying to make the leap to the league.
James Anderson’s inclusion on the Spurs roster is also interesting. Seeing as he didn’t get a ton of playing time last season, Summer League will be an important time for him to show that he can be a good back up for the Spurs or someone else (likely someone else considering how many guards the Spurs already have on their roster). Anderson has skills, no one doubts that, and I won’t be surprised if he gets snatched up by a team looking for some wing help by the time the Vegas league ends.
A few other names of note on the roster:
Alexis Ajinca – French big man has bounced around the league a little bit. Surprising to see his name here since he normally spends his summers playing for the French national team.
Luke Zeller – Older brother of Cleveland rookie Tyler Zeller and Indiana University center Cody Zeller. He’s seven feet tall and he’s been playing for the Toros, so he’s got that going for him.
Alexis Wangmene – The former Texas guard played college ball with Cory Joseph and is the adopted son of general manager of R.C. Buford (H/T to the Express News’ Jeff McDonald for that nugget).
Here’s the full roster courtesy of Spurs.com:
| 42 | Alexis Ajinca | C | 7-2 | 248 | 5/6/88 | Strasbourg IG/France | 3 |
| 25 | James Anderson | G | 6-6 | 215 | 3/25/89 | Oklahoma State/USA | 2 |
| 10 | Dwight Buycks | G | 6-3 | 190 | 6/6/89 | Marquette/USA | R |
| 34 | Derrick Byars | G/F | 6-7 | 220 | 4/25/84 | Vanderbilt/USA | 1 |
| 23 | Eric Dawson | F | 6-9 | 250 | 7/7/84 | Midwestern State (TX)/USA | 1 |
| 1 | Marcus Denmon | G | 6-3 | 185 | 3/20/90 | Missouri/USA | R |
| 17 | Moses Ehambe | G/F | 6-6 | 215 | 5/22/86 | Oral Roberts/USA | R |
| 43 | Darius Foster | G | 6-3 | 210 | 1/12/88 | Wilberforce/USA | R |
| 11 | JaMychal Green | F | 6-8 | 228 | 6/21/90 | Alabama/USA | R |
| 7 | Cedric Jackson | G | 6-3 | 190 | 3/5/86 | Cleveland State/USA | 1 |
| 5 | Cory Joseph | G | 6-3 | 185 | 8/20/91 | Texas/USA | 1 |
| 2 | Kawhi Leonard | F | 6-7 | 225 | 6/29/91 | San Diego State/USA | 1 |
| 14 | Kalin Lucas | G | 6-1 | 195 | 5/24/89 | Michigan State/USA | R |
| 19 | Ryan Richards | F | 6-11 | 230 | 4/21/91 | CB Gran Canaria/England | R |
| 30 | Alexis Wangmene | F/C | 6-7 | 241 | 3/1/89 | Texas/Cameroon | R |
| 27 | Tyler Wllkerson | F | 6-8 | 240 | 7/25/88 | Marshall/USA | R |
| 24 | L.D. Williams | G | 6-4 | 210 | 5/8/88 | Wake Forest/USA | R |
| 40 | Luke Zeller | F/C | 6-11 | 245 | 4/7/87 | Notre Dame/USA | R |
