Speights shines in summer league; Donovan happy for him

Former Gator Marreese Speights continues to impress in the NBA summer league.

Speights is averaging 18.2 points and 10.2 rebounds with the Philadelphia 76ers.

And remember how stamina and conditioning used to be his biggest weakness? In five games, he's averaging 33 minutes per game.

Florida coach Billy Donovan, believe it or not, says he's not as surprised by Speights' rise since he declared for the draft in early April.

"I think when the process first started, the initial response coming back from the NBA office before all the workouts started, was that he was probably anywhere from 20 to 35, 25 to 40, somewhere in that range.'' Donovan said this week. "I think Stu Jackson and the NBA office do a great job helping you at least get the amount of information that you can at that time, when he first put his name in. I was probably surprised, but as the process was going forward it was very clear that
Philadelphia picking at 16 was really, really interested in Marreese, and really liked Marreese. All it does, it takes one team for a guy to move up. So I think, when the processs started, I thought Marreese if he kept his name in would probably go anywhere from 19 to about 25.

"I think if Philly had passed on Marreese he could have fallen back into the 20s but I'm certainly happy for him and his family because I think he's going to a great organization and he's got a great chance,'' Donovan added.