Sports Odds and Ends
NBA Summer League basketball is virtually an on-the-job audition. Most players are playing for an invitation to the particular team’s fall training camp. If not, they hope to get invited to play in the G League or an overseas team.
Gabe Kalscheur is one of 12 rookies on the 2024 Minnesota Timberwolves NBA Summer League Las Vegas roster. “Some of those guys won’t be playing in the NBA,” said ESPN2 announcer Marc Kestecher during last Friday’s Wolves-New Orleans contest.
With Rob Dillingham and Terrance Shannon Jr, Minnesota’s two top draftees last month, both all but assured to make the team’s fall training camp, Kalscheur is working hard to prove that announcer wrong.
“I feel very competent…and just use my assets, which is shooting the heck out of the ball and playing defense, playing hard on both ends,” stressed the Edina native.
The 6’4” Kalscheur split time during the 2023-24 season with the Iowa Wolves and Capital City Go-Go in the NBA G-League, appearing in 22 total games. Before that, he split his college career, first at Minnesota for three seasons, then his final two seasons of eligibility at Iowa State. He played his high school ball at De La Salle High School, winning three Class 3A state championships.
Now, Kalscheur is a professional basketball player. “Oh, for sure,” he pointed out, “something I already learned from high school to college. It’s about up and down, which means staying in shape.”
The physicality was the biggest adjustment once he left college and turned pro, noted Kalscheur. “Guys are playing the G-League for a while, four-year guys that know how to use their body against yours. I feel like holding my own against those guys has been good for me.”
After Vegas, Kalscheur plans to return home and play in the Twin Cities Pro-Am as he stays in playing shape, waiting for that call from a team looking at him. “Just trying to figure out my options whatever it is.”