I’m hopped up on DayQuil and other drugs right now, so if you see any spelling or grammatical errors in this piece, blame it on that.

Anyway, I’d like to continue a Sixer tradition this afternoon. Let’s examine a bunch of meaningless practice clips, which is honestly all we really can do during July minicamp. The Summer League squad will again practice tomorrow and Wednesday before heading out to Vegas.

Obviously the big attraction is first rounder Zhaire Smith, a guy who entered the draft with a lot of athleticism and upside but was seen as still very raw, especially as a shooter. He only took one three point attempt per game at Texas Tech and shot just 71% from the free throw line, showing a slow-ish release in the games I watched him play. He did, however, start to bloom in February, playing some of his best basketball from the early part of that month through the first week of March, a stretch where he scored double digit points in nine straight games.

The Sixers put him through some shooting drills after 5v5 scrimmages at the end of practice:

His form looks good to me on that first one. And on the corner three, I think he does a nice job of getting his feet set and squaring up to the basket.

More:

One short, one long. Looks a little mechanical, yea? Although, ya know what… after this past season of Markelle Fultz shenanigans I’ll take mechanical over whatever the alternative is.

Smith also hit a decent chunk of catch-and-shoot corner threes, probably half from what I counted. Nobody was guarding him of course, but we gotta start somewhere:

Keith Pompey got some of the corner threes from a side angle, so you can get a better look at his elbow and lift here:

Like I said, he didn’t take a ton of threes in college, but if you wanna compare the Lubbock form to how it looks now, pick up this video where I set the marker and watch it until the end:

https://youtu.be/3pq92xKl2vQ?t=5m41s