NBA Day 6: Mayo’s summer school not over yet

By Andy Samuelson

Wednesday, July 16, 2008 | 8:30 p.m.

O.J. Mayo's Summer League session may be over, but summer school will be held all next week for the Memphis rookie.

While the Grizzlies ended their stay in Las Vegas with a 2-3 record (a 82-74 setback to the Los Angeles Clippers Wednesday dropped Memphis below .500), Mayo will take a quick respite in L.A. before heading right back to Vegas to train with the U.S. Olympic team all next week.

"It feels good. It's a great honor," Mayo said, of being selected for the U.S. select team roster. "I'm looking forward to learning. The best guys in our game in our country. I'm just really looking forward to getting out there."

The third-overall pick got a pretty good indoctrination into the NBA lifestyle during the last week, considering Memphis played five games in six days.

"It kind of wears on your body when you play a lot of minutes on back-to-back nights," said Mayo, who averaged 22.8 points per game in in the Summer League.

"But I'll go back to the gym tomorrow and try to get better, get stronger, faster — try to get taller," said a laughing Mayo.

While the star out of USC was clearly the crowd favorite during Summer League (a big dunk and three-quarter-court shot certainly cemented his star power), not everything was fun and games.

Mayo did commit 24 turnovers as he took turns playing both point guard and shooting guard. Despite scoring 20 points in Memphis' last game, Mayo was whistled for a technical foul after complaining to a referee for a couple of perceived missed foul calls.

"I'm not afraid to make mistakes, I'm not afraid to fail," Mayo said of the learning process. "That's part of success, you got to fail somewhere. I'd rather mess up here than in the next 82 games.

The NBA season will come soon enough. But first it's back to L.A. "to go to Venice Beach," Mayo said.

Then it's back to Vegas, where summer school continues.

Another Pick Bites the Dust — The second lottery pick from this year’s NBA draft looks to be done for the rest of the Summer League at UNLV’s campus.

New York’s Danilo Gallinari, a 19-year-old rookie out of Italy, didn’t play in the Knicks 82-67 loss to San Antonio Wednesday afternoon because of a sore lower back.

Reporters thought the sixth overall pick was playfully joking after Monday’s win against Cleveland when he said he didn’t play in the back-and-forth final five minutes against the Cavs because his back was sore from weight lifting.

Apparently not.

Now Gallinari, who scored 14 second-half points in his lone game in Las Vegas, joins Los Angeles Clippers lottery pick Eric Gordon on the sidelines.

The Clippers rookie strained his left hamstring in a loss to Charlotte on Saturday.

While Gallinari was out of N.Y.'s line-up, reigning Summer League MVP Nate Robinson made his session debut. But the third-year pro struggled, scoring eight points on 2-of-10 shooting in 26 minutes of action.

Fellow New York teammate, Anthony Roberson — who will sign a two-year contract, further increasing speculation that Stephon Marbury won't be with the Knicks this season — scored a team-best 12 points on 4-of-13 shooting.

Four Spurs reached double figures, led by Roger Powell's 15 points. San Antonio improved to 2-1 thanks in part to a 28-16 third-quarter spurt.