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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted at 12:37 a.m., Monday, July 21, 2008

NBA: Blazers Bayless can score, but can he play point?

Advertiser Staff

Portland's Jerryd Bayless continued to be the star of the NBA Summer League, scoring 17 fourth-quarter points and hitting the game-winning jumper with 18 seconds left in a 74-73 victory over the Phoenix Suns Sunday in Las Vegas.

Bayless, who scored 36 points last night, has tallied 29, 26, and 28 points In four games, playing mostly the shooting guard as Finland's Petteri Koponen handled the point.

But the Blazers want to see how Bayless runs the point.

"We want to see if he can run the team," Portland assistant coach Monty Williams said in an nba.com article. "A lot of times he gets the ball and he just kind of runs off on his own. Hopefully he can run the squad and get us in our stuff and hopefully we can be a little more efficient in what we do."

Bayless says in the article that he's not worried about making the transition from shooting guard to point, saying he's already played point in spots already through the Blazers' first three game.

"It's not really going to be a big adjustment, I know I can play one," Bayless said.

The University of Arizona product added that his mentality while playing the point isn't any different than when he's the primary scoring guard: "Just attack."

However, his assist-to-turnover ratio is opposite of what you'd want in a point guard.

In four games, he has five assists and 15 turnovers.

However, his other statistics are outstanding: 29.8 points per game, 33 of 68 (.485) field-goal accuracy, 3 of 7 (.429) 3-point range accuracy, 50 of 61 (.820) on free throws and 19 rebounds (4.8 per game).