Saint Louis’s Rob Loe to Play for Golden State Warriors Summer League Team
Saint Louis University center/power forward Rob Loe, who to little surprise was not selected in Thursday’s NBA Draft, has been invited to play on the Golden State Warriors’ team in the NBA Las Vegas Summer League next month. Loe, a 6-foot-11, 245-pounder from New Zealand, has intriguing pro potential due to his ability to shoot from long distance despite his tremendous size. As a senior in 2013-14, Loe averaged 27.7 minutes and 10.3 points per game, and he finished with a very respectable .306 3-point percentage over 124 attempts. He also led the team in blocks with 41.
Loe’s biggest area to improve will be his performance in the post, which is not as crisp as his size might suggest it would be. He averaged 5.7 rebounds per game in 2013-14, though that was by far a career high, exceeding the 3.5 boards per game he’d picked up as a freshman. He showed significant improvement in the area as a senior, but he’ll need to show even better skills in that area to be able to stand out in the summer league.
The chances for undrafted players to establish themselves in the summer league aren’t tremendous, since most teams already have filled their rosters with veterans and drafted rookies. But for a few players every summer, they impress to the point where teams give them a chance to come to training camp and try to earn a spot. Loe will attempt to be one of those players, but if he can’t, the summer league exposure at the very least will give him a leg up on getting a spot in the NBA D-League, the most common path to the NBA for young players who can’t find a team. For what it’s worth, the Warriors have taken advantage of the summer league to find members of their roster in the recent past, signing Kent Bazemore to their roster and keeping him for nearly two years.
Loe will attempt to become the first Saint Louis player to make it to the NBA since Willie Reed, who played for the Billikens from 2008 to 2010 and has spent time on the Memphis Grizzlies and Sacramento Kings’ rosters over the past two years without playing in a game. Reed will join the Indiana Pacers’ summer league team and try to earn a spot for the upcoming season.