Summer league exhibition games are a largely unobscured view of a basketball player’s style. The game is stripped of most of the formalities he is accustomed to: there are no coaches to run set plays, referees typically recede into the background, scores (usually the single most important element of a game) are irrelevant, and there are no real ramifications for less-than-perfect play. The format enables a player to operate exactly as he wants to. He can take 45 shots, if he wants, or he can throw no-look passes all day, or he can challenge himself to actually play some defense, or he can try ankle-breaking crossovers on all five opponents in one possession (that was Joe Jackson), or he can spend all game looking for that one tip-slam opportunity that will rouse the crowd.

When I watched Adonis Thomas (and Memphis player Joe Jackson, and eight other small-college players) play in the Bluff City Classic, a summer-long tournament with nine teams, each with about two or three recognizable names, I had mixed feelings. It was thoroughly enjoyable, no doubt, to watch a highly touted recruit handle this particular kind of basketball environment. I was also unsatisfied because who I really wanted to be watching were UK players, especially this summer, and I knew I won’t be able to.

Thomas did not dominate the game as I expected him to. Everyone’s profile on the other team was so mediocre compared to his, I went into the gym prepared to see him exploit the lack of constraints and assert his official arrival to Memphis college basketball. But he didn’t, really. Early on, Thomas was stymied on drives, unable to finish through contact or forced to retreat into a fall-away jumper. And there’s no doubt his opponent was trying just a little bit extra when facing Thomas. Nobody wants to be the one who gets posterized, especially when all the crowd wants to see is a posterization.

“A lot of guys want to go at you just because of your name, the type of player you are, and who you’re going to play for,” Thomas said after the game, already in college form with Beats By Dre headphones hanging around his neck. “Guys want to compete out here. They want you to play your best and show what you’ve got out here.”

Thomas finally got his skying, rim-rattling dunk at the very end of the game. It was a breakaway; Thomas ran unimpeded to the basket. He rose up, spun 360 degrees, and flushed it.

“I needed that,” Thomas said.

The game was, for the most part, competitive enough considering the situation. Both teams did score over 100 points in the 40 minutes of play, although much of that can be attributed to the big white center on the green team who couldn’t do anything except cuss as he got beat relentlessly on the defensive end. Thomas said that his team’s focus was “defense and rebounding,” which indicates either that the players were taking it semi-seriously or he is already turning into a cliche quote machine before he even gets deep into the Memphis media machine.

But in some ways, Thomas was right. Guys were taking it seriously, for one reason or another. It’s evident Thomas is already wanting to fit the hype. Jackson seems like he was born to play the way he did Wednesday. Others were trying to prove they are better than whatever stage they’re currently at. Others were just coming to ball. But all had some sort of respect on the line, because of the inherent nature of basketball. They all grew up trying to be the best; while the certainly don’t mind letting up a little bit for these games, they just as certainly don’t float through it.

And if it were UK guys I was watching — whether on the blue courts or at the Joe Craft Center — it would have been even more awesome. Raise the talent level, and you raise the amount of pride that gets coupled with the outcome. If UK had an NCAA-sanctioned summer league like Memphis did, well, I would love it.