NY Knicks vs. Toronto Raptors: 3 Summer League Superlatives

NY Knicks: Most surprising performance: Jericho Sims

NY Knicks fans all over social media were able to get super excited for the selection of Jericho Sims 58th overall in the NBA Draft very fast thanks to some viral clips of the bigman.

Sims is simply a freak athlete. At 6’9 and 250 pounds, the center recorded a 44.5 inch max vertical jump at the NBA Combine, the 2nd best ever tied with Hamidou Diallo. If you haven’t seen the videos of him Space Jam Monstar-ing a basketball on Twitter, definitely do yourself a favor and watch those. But also don’t worry, because I have some fantastic Sims Slams to show you here first.

He finished this game with 12 points, going a perfect 6-6 from the field. He also nabbed 8 rebounds. Two of those were offensive, and one of them led to a strong put-back finish.

Sims also finished a couple of nice hooks around the basket, displaying a soft touch which could indicate a bit of a self-scoring ability at the NBA level. But we all know what we wanted to see from Sims, the dunks! And boy did we get some doosies.

Here are the two lobs from Immanuel Quickley I alluded to earlier:

It was awesome to see Sims have such a great performance and Knicks debut. We will have to appreciate every minute we see from him in Summer League, as the rookie just signed a two-way contract. He will be spending a ton of time in the G-League, and with the Knicks frontcourt as crowded as it is, Sims’ opportunities in the NBA this year will be few and far between. While Knicks fans shouldn’t be surprised to see a late round pick of the organization show promise early, it was still a pleasant surprise that Sims fit in with some of the other Knicks so well.