



For the past week, much of the NBA universe has descended on Las Vegas for the league’s annual Summer League competition. For the first time ever, all 30 teams are participating in the Las Vegas Summer League, which means things have been even more crowded and hectic in Vegas than they usually are at this time of year.

But while everybody who’s anybody has been in attendance for at least a day or two, most of the people on hand at least tacitly acknowledge that the games themselves are somewhat beside the point. Agents, scouts, and media members display this by congregating for hours’ worth of chats in the hallways between Cox Pavilion and the Thomas & Mack Center, while teams themselves acknowledge it by holding certain players out of games with minor injuries while deciding against allowing others to participate at all.

Barring injury or exigent circumstances (like Mavericks rookie Luka Doncic having played over 90 games in the last calendar year), most drafted rookies participate in at least a few Summer League games. It makes sense — let the first-year guys get their feet wet against some sub-par competition while learning the system and developing a rhythm with some of the other youngins who will either be on the active roster or in the G League. In the best-case scenario for the team, the Summer League prior to a player’s rookie campaign is the last time he ever plays a Summer League game.

Take Donovan Mitchell, for example. He damn near won Rookie of the Year after a spectacular season in Utah and the Jazz see no reason to risk exposing him to injury by having him suit up for the summer season, so instead he’s been sitting courtside watching the Summer Jazz do their thing with teammates like Rudy Gobert and Jae Crowder. Jayson Tatum, who finished just behind Mitchell in the 2018 ROY race, is not playing in Summer League, either. Guys who average 14 points and 5 rebounds a night with 48-43-83 shooting splits during the regular season of their rookie year and then operate as the de facto No. 1 option of a team that makes the conference finals during the playoffs do not play in Summer League prior to their second season. That’s how it works.



With players who were not quite as impressive as rookies as Mitchell or Tatum (read: almost every rookie ever), the hope is that they come to Summer League between Years 1 and 2 and quickly prove themselves too good to be there. This has happened for guys like Atlanta’s John Collins, who everybody on press row was begging the Hawks to yank off the floor so he didn’t get injured playing in games that are beneath him (Collins finally sat out the Hawks’ Tuesday afternoon win over the Bulls, which declined to send second-year man Lauri Markkanen to participate in LVSL at all); the Lakers’ Josh Hart, who’s averaging 22.5 points, five rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game while knocking down 47 percent of his shots from the field; the Heat’s Bam Adebayo, who played 44 minutes across two games and scored 33 points and collected 13 rebounds, three assists, three steals, and three blocks while making an absurd 18 trips to the free-throw line; the Nets’ Jarrett Allen, who scored eight points, grabbed 12 boards, and swatted five shots in his Vegas debut before shutting it down; and more.

Of course, it’s not the stars who don’t even play, nor the young guns who quickly prove themselves above it all, who make up the majority of NBA Summer League rosters. It’s the other guys — the G League lifers still looking for a break (like Summer League legend Jack Cooley, for example); the end-of-roster hopefuls from the second round or elsewhere, for whom a strong showing can mean a guaranteed deal or a camp invite (like the Wizards’ Devin Robinson, who went undrafted in 2017 and spent last year in the G League but has been a dominant scorer in Vegas); and the guys who washed out years back but have been getting better in Europe and are now trying to jump back stateside.