Blazer news: The Summer League roster

The Orlando Summer League tourney is on its way--punctuated by the amazing performances of Nick Johnson, Aaron Gordon, and Nerlens Noel, among others--and the Las Vegas tournament is in the offing.  It begins Friday, July 11, and the Blazers will be playing their first game against New York on Saturday the 12th.  Here is who is playing and where they hail from:

First, there are the current players:

Will Barton
Allen Crabbe
Joel Freeland
Meyers Leonard
CJ McCollum
Thomas Robinson

These men will play most of the minutes, and we can expect good things from them--espeically Barton, McCollum, and Robinson, all of whom seem really excited for the occasion.  Allen Crabbe will also be fun to watch, since we have seen so little of him in the regular season.  And it will be good to see Meyers and Joel at work and improving.

Then, we have the invites:

Keith Appling, a 6'1 guard from Michigan State
Davion Berry, a 6'4 guard-forward from Weber State
Craig Brackins, a 5'10 forward from Iowa State, the Sixers, the Pelicans, and Stelmet in Poland
Bobby Brown, the 6'2 guard from the Euroleague and Chinese Basketball Association
Matthew Bryan-Amaning, the 6'9 center from the French League's Olympique Antibes
Rodney Carney, the 6'7 forward from Memphis, the Sixers, Golden State, Al Riyadi in Lebanon
Sam Dower, the 6'9 forward from Gonzaga,
Jonathan Gibson, the 6'2 guard from New Mexico State, Celtics, Petrochimi in Iran

All of these figures will be great to watch if you enjoy college ball and Euroleague ball, as I do.  Three in particular stand out right now.  They'll add a bit of excitement alongside the current roster:

Brown will be an interesting figure to watch.  After a great performance playing in Germany, he played for the Kings for about a year.  After being traded to the Timberwolves, the Hornets, and then the Clippers, he returned to the Euroleague to play in Poland, Greece, and Italy, where he excelled.  He then signed witha team in the CBA in China.

Rodney Carney was the 16th pick drafted by the Bulls and then traded to the 76ers.  After a couple years with them he began to get shuttled around the league--moving from the Wolves, back to the Sixers, then to the Warriors, the Grizzlies, the Heat, and then the Pelicans, before signing with Capitanes de Arecibo, a Puerto Rican team, in 2013.

Matthew Bryan-Amaning from London made first team All Pac-10 for the Huskies, before going undrafted and signing with a Turkish League team.  He played for the London Lions shortly and for the British national team.  Recently he signed with Olympique Antibes.  Last year he put up five blocks against the Blazers playing for the Bulls in Summer League, so it will be nice to see him return some favors for the other side his year.

I'll have a longer look of the backstories of the other players, as well as what you can expect to see as the tournament unfolds, for you soon.  In the meantime, Casey Holdahl has a thorough rundown of all the players at Forward Center.