In a game with virtually no redeeming qualities, it wouldn’t be fair to read a clumsy analysis of how the Blazers shot 34% from the field, 23% from deep, and committed 50% more turnovers than they had assists. It would be cruel and unusual to mention they are eliminated from Summer League championship contention, and will play one last game before taking another few months off. No doubt an international tribunal would put me up for Geneva violations.

Instead, let’s focus on just one person, a person whose enigma wrapped in a riddle is now covered in a hot layer of doubt beneath crumbles of insecurity between chunks of stunted growth: Meyers Leonard.

When the season ended, Meyers said he needed to play basketball. He didn’t want to be a bust, and he didn’t want to let the city down. He knew he wasn’t up to game speed. No matter how gifted his body, his mind held him back, and he was owning up to it. It was a step in the right direction, a full ownership of the disappointing two seasons in which 4.4 points, 3.4 rebounds, and fewer blocks than assists (each coming just once every other game) in 14 minutes. And I believed him.

All we wanted was to see him try. All we wanted was for him to grit his teeth, furrow his brow, and get to work. So what if the work was sloppy? Who cares if the picks missed their targets? What would it matter if he mistimed a jump or two so long as the tallest, most athletic player on the court LOOKED like the tallest, most athletic player on the court?

It’s something he’s never done, and was it too much to ask that he start during SUMMER LEAGUE, when the odds are never lower, the pressure never more tolerable, and the competition never weaker?

Apparently, yes, it’s too much to ask. Leonard has averaged 5.5 points, 2 rebounds, 0 blocks, and .5 assists… in 26 minutes per game. In Summer league.

Words can’t express the frustration. And it’s not like watching him play bears out some nuanced narrative in which the stats lie, and he’s actually contributing quite a bit more on the floor than shows up in the box score. Watching him play against people who won’t even be in the league next year, you see the same scared, hesitant, indecisive, scared, startled, scared, and scared Meyers Leonard we’ve come to know… only it’s even WORSE.

Not too long ago, I wrote an article apologizing to Meyers Leonard the person. I stand behind that.

But to Meyers Leonard the basketball player, I say this now: he’s a bust.

He’s not going to develop. He’s not going to get better.

They say you can’t teach height? Well, you know what else you can’t teach? Heart. Desire. And, apologies to Nate McMillan… scrap. Hustle. Instinct. All of those things that keep you locked in to what you’re doing? That keep you engaged in your work? That prevent people or things or events or loud sounds from distracting you when you’re in the zone? Meyers doesn’t have it. At least not where basketball’s concerned.

That’s what I took from this game. Sure, Barton shot terribly, McCollum shot only slightly better. And the game started ominously, with Bobby Brown scoring Portland’s first four points (not the player you want sparking a stalled offense).

Sure, the Blazers lost. Sure, Summer League success would have been nice, considering how much of Portland’s one-year trajectory depends on the development of the bench.

But Meyers Leonard is the story. Not the man, the player. The player who hasn’t shown up. The player who can’t back up what Meyers Leonard the man knows, expresses to the media, and promises to correct.

The story is that the Blazers blew a lottery pick. And that stings a lot worse than a Summer League loss.