LAS VEGAS — One look at these stats — 16.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.8 assists — and you would believe Buddy Hield, who averaged these numbers in five games of gloriously chaotic Las Vegas Summer League action, had put his stamp on the Pelicans’ summer league roster. However, that wasn’t the case at all with the No. 6 pick in the NBA Draft and the impression he left on those critiquing meaningless games with slight glimpses into the future has been one of negativity and disappointment.

Everything about Hield’s performance confirmed concerns about him as a prospect heading into the draft. Sure, he can shoot but what else can he do? That’s been the biggest question in trying to figure out if he should be one of the top picks for your team or someone you should avoid for younger, higher upside projects on the wing. For Hield, his shooting in summer league was streaky, but overall inconsistent. Those 16.8 points per game came on 19.6 shots per game.

His shooting percentages were an abysmal 33.7 percent from the field and 24.3 percent from 3-point range. As the focus of this summer league team, Hield failed to provide what he was being asked to do. It was also a role he’s unlikely to have for the Pelicans during the games that actually matter. The question then becomes how much of his shooting issues in these exhibitions were due to randomness vs. defensive focus vs. an inability to translate his skill set to the NBA level.

When Buddy Hield got hot …

Despite those horrendous shooting numbers for a guy whose fallback skill is supposed to be letting it fly, there were moments in which Hield induced panic from his opponents. During his second game in Vegas against the Utah Jazz, Hield was mired in a second straight game of misfiring. With under six minutes left in the fourth quarter, Hield was just 3-of-13 from the field and 1-of-8 from 3-point range. This was coming off a 5-of-20 (1-of-8 from 3-point range) effort in his summer league debut against the Los Angeles Lakers.

A lot of guys would press in this situation and let the moment — even one as small as summer league — overwhelm them. But Hield showed the short-term memory you need shooters to have. Over the next 2 1/2 minutes, Buddy knocked down four straight 3-pointers, reminding everybody why the defense was so intent on not letting him get good looks.

Following the second make in that quartet of deep connections, Tyrone Wallace was at the line for the Jazz. Utah point guard Aaron Craft was organizing the team and reminding them of coverages. Craft informed rookie big man Joel Bolomboy to blitz Hield as he comes off screens, whether he had the ball or not. It bemused Hield as he stood next to Craft, talking a little trash as to why the strategy was a poor one.

The guard’s instructions weren’t demonstrative enough for the team to be aware of making sure Hield didn’t have room to shoot. Hield had room coming around a pick and knocked down down his third trey in a row. The fourth one was a quick look he created for himself. The crowd groaned on the next possession when the Jazz finally kept Hield from getting a shot and David Lighty ended up missing a 3-pointer.

In the blink of an eye, Hield changed the entire complexion and strategy in the game. That’s how good of a shooter he can be. Same thing happened to him in his third game against the Sacramento Kings. He was 5-of-14 in the game before the final 3 1/2 minutes of the third quarter when he dropped 4-of-5 from the field to close out the period. He finished 10-of-23 in the game for 23 points — his best shooting performance of the five games.

These two particular games were the only times in which he didn’t finish with more shots than points in a game. These were the two best stretches of his summer. And were it not for those six minutes of hot shooting, his summer league — as meaningless as this can sound — would’ve been a complete disaster. Hield consistently preached finding a rhythm and building confidence in those moments of a rising temperature in his fingertips. However, it was rarely found.

When Hield struggled to shoot, it got ugly

“Even the best in the world had the worst summer leagues,” Hield said after one of the games. “Steph Curry and C.J. McCollum [for example]. There are guys who have had worse summer league games. It’s something you can learn from.”

Lot of people want to see more from Buddy Hield. Getty Images

Hield is confident and comfortable shooting the NBA 3-point distance. He took a lot of them in college. He practices them constantly. He’s a shooter who isn’t worried about the distance between him and the basket as much as he’s going to be cognizant of the distance between him and his defender. As a shooter, you have to have the mentality of not letting the misses get to you and expect to make your next one. Amnesia is your friend during the cold moments.

“Probably haven’t shot like this since sophomore year or freshman year,” Hield admitted after the loss to the Jazz.

During his career at Oklahoma, Hield didn’t have many stretches in which he couldn’t hit shots consistently. Here and there he might have a poor three-game stretch, but the confidence always remained high. Some scouts wondered just how cemented that confidence is with Buddy when he’s shooting as poorly as he did in a new competitive environment.

Early in his first summer league game, he was pressured into losing the ball when he tried to bring the ball up the floor. Dribbling isn’t a strong suit of his, especially against pressure. He did pass the ball well in his five games, racking up 19 assists, but he also had 14 turnovers for a guy who wasn’t asked to do a lot of play-making. There was plenty of bad to go with the good. But mostly, defenses wanted to take away space and eliminate jump shot attempts for him.

Those who follow Hield and know him will tell you he’s a hard worker so he’ll figure out the problems plaguing his game in these exhibition games.

“Everybody who is a top 10 pick in a draft is a hard worker,” a Western Conference scout told CBS Sports. “Of course he’s a hard worker. He needs to be a smarter worker now that he’s in the league. Plain and simple.”

The weird thing about his shooting numbers is how they came to be. Roughly a quarter of his shots came on catch-and-shoot attempts. He made just 21.4 percent of the unguarded catch-and-shoot attempts and connected on 50 percent of the guarded ones (granted, these are small samples to use). Normally, that would be flipped. You can talk yourself into believing he’s unlikely to shoot that poorly on unguarded attempts moving forward, but can you be certain he’ll make half of his guarded attempts?

He made just 20 percent of his shots off the dribble. He just showed the struggles you aren’t supposed to see with a shooter of his caliber. It could’ve just been adjusting to the speed of the game.

“When he starts to get sped up or he’s trying to do a little too much with the ball,” Pelicans assistant Robert Pack answered about Hield’s struggles with his shot. “Sometimes as a shooter, he hasn’t really gotten that rhythm and he tries to find it. Now he hits a couple. Now this time you move it off and you’ll get it back at a different time. He has to differentiate between the times he can go and then we have to move him and get it back.”

The rhythm of shooting isn’t just knocking down shots. It’s knowing when the right shooting opportunity is available. That can be the difference between being Ray Allen and being J.R. Smith. Both are otherworldly shooters, but the virtue of patience can be everything.

A lot of the problems Hield encountered in those five games in Vegas he credited to just making “rookie mistakes.” It goes in line with how Pack viewed Buddy’s rhythm with the game. As the defenses keyed in on him, it was something he couldn’t adjust well to. That probably won’t be the case in the games that matter.

At least he won’t get this kind of attention much in real games

“Nah, I don’t think [it’s the defense],” Hield said about his misses. “I’m getting good looks; I’m just not putting them down.”

When Hield gets on the court in the regular season, he won’t be asked to take the role of the guy with the spotlight on his back. He’ll be asked to make defenses hesitate or pay for decisions in how they defend Anthony Davis. He’ll be the backcourt mate at times for Jrue Holiday. He’ll be the shooter spreading the floor for Alvin Gentry’s offense, instead of the scorer bending the dimensions of the floor like he was in college.

“I think this summer [gives] him a feel of how he’s supposed to play in the league,” Pack said, “and a test of how people are going to play him. He has to be patient with his set-ups. He’ll have more guys setting screens for him. We’ll have more guys who can do things, so they won’t be able to key just on him.”

Having Davis setting screens where the big man with a pterodactyl’s wingspan can slip, pop or roll from that action at any moment will open things up for Hield. Running defenders into the cement wall that is Omer Asik will get him free. And all the while, he won’t be an afterthought but he’s unlikely to be a guy you key in on right away for the defense. He’ll have to handle the physical nature of wing defenders off the ball. But if he can fight through the grabbing and holding to get free, he’ll have the space needed to knock shots down.

“Especially as a guy who is known to really be able to put it in the hole, teams are playing in to him,” Pack explained, “trying to put their hands on him and be aggressive against him and try to rough him up a little bit. It’s going to be even more [of that] when we get to the regular season.”

Things are set up in his favor for this Pelicans team because of his positioning on the totem pole. All he has to do is learn to play team defense, not be a red carpet in man-to-man defense, and knock down shots when given the opportunity. If he does this, we never remember the struggles of his time in Vegas. If he isn’t able to expand his game or just be a good shooter when called upon, we’ll remember these misses as the first glimpse into why he didn’t make it.

Hield has a wide range of comparisons in terms of how his career can go: J.R. Smith, Danny Green, Jimmer Fredette, Anthony Morrow and others. These five games probably mean nothing but they could have meant everything, as well. Only time will tell but he has to make shots. That’s what’s expected of him. Nobody will care about the other numbers he puts up in his career. They’ll only care about the percentages and those stretches that alter the opponent’s game plan.