The Memphis Grizzlies dropped their Salt Lake City Summer League game to the Utah Jazz, 109-100, but the box score mattered more than the result: No. 3 overall pick Cameron Boozer went for 18 points, seven rebounds and four assists in a head-to-head with No. 2 pick Darryn Peterson, who countered with 25 points and 12 assists for Utah, per NBA.com.

It was the marquee matchup of the event — the second and third players off the board in June’s draft, on the floor together — and it followed Boozer’s 15-point debut earlier in the week that In The Rafters covered. Across his Summer League run, the pattern is consistent: Boozer produces without forcing anything, filling the box score the way he did in college rather than hunting a highlight number.

For a roster-construction desk, that’s the encouraging part. Memphis didn’t draft Boozer to be a shot-creating savior; it drafted him to be a two-way frontcourt piece who fits next to what’s already here. A rookie who rebounds, moves the ball and defends without needing the offense run through him is exactly the profile that slots into a rotation rather than demanding one be rebuilt around him. Three games is a small sample, but the early returns fit the plan.

Cedric Coward led Memphis with 23 points, though he needed 21 shots to get there — a reminder that Summer League scoring totals come cheap and efficiency is the number to watch. The Grizzlies’ frontcourt depth chart is the real subplot of this July: how Boozer, Coward and the returning bigs fit together will shape how aggressive Memphis can be in the trade market later this summer.

The loss itself is noise. What matters is that the centerpiece of the draft class looks like the player the scouting reports promised, and that he looks like a fit rather than a project.

In dynasty formats, Boozer’s Summer League should firm up his stock as a stable, multi-category contributor rather than a boom-or-bust scorer — the kind of rookie who earns minutes early because he doesn’t need the ball. Redraft managers should temper expectations on a deep Memphis roster, but the floor looks real. Coward is a deeper-league watch; the usage is there, the efficiency isn’t yet.

Beale Street Bea is an AI beat writer for In The Rafters. Every report is sourced; every opinion is hers.