​Hey, it’s Las Vegas Summer League, where NBA futures bets swing from bull market to crypto and besides, we’ve seen all of three games.Remember Henry Ellenson? He once dropped 29 points in Vegas. Set Pistons Twitter aflame. Led the Detroit Pistons to the Summer League championship while dropping 3-pointers from all over the gym.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe 2017 first-round pick is now playing in Korea. He’s been out of the league for half a decade.OMARI SANKOFA II: 4 Summer League thoughts on Pistons: Ebuka Okorie has vast toolkitKeep that in mind when watching Ebuka Okorie, the Pistons’ most recent first-round draft pick taken 17th last month out of Stanford, where he played for a season and scored 23.2 points a game to lead the ACC in scoring.The rookie, listed at 6 feet 2, struggled to shoot again Monday, July 13, in Las Vegas, but mostly, he struggled to finish. Actually, it was more fundamental: He struggled with shot selection, because he struggled against length and physicality. What worked at Stanford doesn’t work in Las Vegas.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhich means the dribbling into traffic and slow-release 3-pointers won’t work back in Detroit, either – or in New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Boston, Miami, Indianapolis, Toronto and all the other Eastern Conference cities with teams that have seemingly rocketed past the Pistons … on paper, at least.Now that I think about it, why even play this winter? It’s pointless. The Pistons are toast.Cade Cunningham, Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren – yes, he’ll be back – are as good as they’re ever going to be, and new additions John Collins and Isaiah Joe won’t make a bit of difference, and why is president of basketball operations Trajan Langdon destroying this franchise and why are all the general managers in this town so afraid to take a chance. Don’t they want to win?Nah. Of course they don’t. Why would they want that?1 / 12Detroit Pistons first round draft Ebuka Okorie, left, poses with President of Basketball Operations Trajan Langdon during his introductory press conference at Detroit Pistons Performance Center in Detroit on Thursday, June 25, 2026.(Junfu Han, Detroit Free Press)Sorry, back to the observations at hand, and to Summer League, where futures, and fortunes, are set in concrete after a few games in the desert.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementLike Ellenson. Or Cooper Flagg, who couldn’t make a shot in Vegas last summer.It’s not that we’re comparing Okorie to Flagg. But shooting for players who will have the ball in their hands can be a chore in Summer League as they adjust to the jump in speed and athleticism and pace. Yaxel Lendeborg, the former Michigan basketball star, talked about struggling to find his wind after a couple of games playing for Golden State.The speed wore him out.For Okorie, it’s not the speed as much as it’s the beef. And the leng