Rookie big man Hannes Steinbach produced the best game of his young Las Vegas career Wednesday night, putting up 27 points and 15 rebounds at the Cox Pavilion, but the Charlotte Hornets never caught the Milwaukee Bucks in a 110-91 loss that dropped them to 1-3 in Summer League play, their third straight defeat.
The shape of the game repeated itself all night, per SB Nation’s recap: Milwaukee built a lead, Charlotte clawed it back, and Milwaukee answered bigger. A 19-4 Bucks run in the first quarter opened a 28-18 lead after one, and the gap sat at 53-37 by halftime. The Hornets’ best push came in the third, when a 10-0 burst capped by a Michael Ajayi putback and a Steinbach rolling layup cut the deficit to 63-62 with 3:43 left in the quarter. Milwaukee closed the period on a 16-0 run, took a 79-64 lead into the fourth, and never let it get interesting again. Nate Ament led the Bucks with 23 points, one of eight Milwaukee players in double figures.
For a franchise that has staked this rebuild on the draft, the box score’s most important line belonged to Charlotte anyway. Steinbach, the No. 14 pick out of Washington, opened the summer with a 15-point, 11-rebound double-double against Orlando and has now doubled that up with a 27-and-15 night against a Bucks frontcourt that threw multiple bodies at him. He rebounds in traffic, finishes as a roller and plays with a physical edge that does not depend on whether his jumper falls. Tidjane Salaun kept the fourth quarter respectable alongside him.
The wins have not followed — last summer’s Vegas champions have lost three in a row since taking their opener — but July standings have never been the point in Charlotte. The point is that the newest first-rounder keeps looking like a professional rebounder ahead of schedule.
On the fantasy side, Steinbach is trending up in dynasty formats, where per-minute rebounding this loud from a mid-first-round pick usually translates to an NBA role sooner than expected. Redraft value hinges on how Charlotte’s frontcourt minutes settle in camp; treat him as a deep-league flier for now and a priority stash in keeper leagues.
