Florida State University Athletics
Seminoles Find Success In 2023 NBA Summer League
7/24/2023 3:40:00 PM | Men's Basketball
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Five Seminoles – John Butler (Portland Trail Blazers), Mfiondu Kabengele (Atlanta Hawks), RaiQuan Gray (Brooklyn Nets), Luke Loucks (Head Coach, Sacramento Kings), and Deividas Dulkys (Assistant Coach, Sacramento Kings) – represented Florida State in the 2023 NBA Las Vegas and California Summer Leagues. All five Seminoles displayed their talents and are all now looking forward to the start of the NBA season in October.
Butler averaged 4.3 points, 2.0 rebounds, 0.5 blocked shots and 0.5 steals in helping lead the Trail Blazers to a 3-2 record. He played in all five games for Portland and averaged 11.8 minutes played per game as the Trail Blazers finished with a 3-2 record. Butler scored five points and added 2 rebounds against Houston and had three points and one rebound against San Antonio.
Kabengele was productive for the Hawks as he averaged 19.3 minutes played while averaging 8.0 points and 4.4 rebounds per game. He shot .542 from the field, .364 from the 3-point line and better than 70 percent from the 3-point line. Kabengele totaled 13 points and five rebounds in a game against Loucks and Sacramento and totaled 13 points and five rebounds in a win over Minnesota.
Gray averaged 18.9 minutes played in five games. In his five appearances, Gray averaged 7.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.4 assists and was perfect from the free throw line. Gray scored his summer league high of 12 points with nine rebounds against Cleveland, and scored five points and totaled four rebounds against the Knicks.
Loucks and Dulkys formed one of the great backcourt duos in Florida State history (2009-12) as together they led the Seminoles to an appearance in the ACC Tournament Championship game for the first time in school history in 2009, then led Florida State to the first ACC Tournament Championship in school history in 2012. Loucks led Sacramento to a 5-2 record including a victory over the Los Angeles Lakers in Loucks' first games as the Kings' head coach in the California Summer league.
"What a neat opportunity to be a head coach and lead a group of young men for the NBA's summer league," said Loucks. "The ultimate goal for me is to be a head coach and it was a great first step. I'm thankful that Mike Brown and the Sacramento Kings organization would trust me to lead our group in the summer.
"We went 5-2 over two summer leagues (California Classic and the Las Vegas Summer League), so I was happy with the results. More importantly, in this stage, I felt that our players competed, fought, and are a little bit more prepared on what we're trying to accomplish on and off the court entering into training camp for next season. Our coaching staff was incredible (Deividas was my offensive coordinator) and we all learned/improved in our expanded roles. We will all be better assistant coaches for Mike after this experience."
The 2023-24 NBA regular season begins on October 24, 2023.
