BY DAVID THORPE
Many fans had shown up to the packed Thomas & Mack Center an hour early for the first game of the day. Warming up for his Summer League debut, Chicago Bulls lottery pick Matas Buzelis, full of swagger, seemed to be enjoying the moment.
When I saw Buzelis play in “Rico Runs” at UCLA last summer, some experts believed he could go first overall in this summer’s draft. After a relatively lackluster G League Ignite experience, Buzelis has been exuberant about joining his hometown team; cheerfully, he showcased highlight dunks for the fans during warmups.
On the other end, the Milwaukee Bucks were going through the same motions. Teenager AJ Johnson is energetic and athletic, all limbs and legs, and has a point guard’s game. He averaged three points a game playing in Australia last year and looks a little more nervous. Soon they’d play, and it would be terrible basketball, but amusing and fun.
This is Summer League 2024: a showcase, an exhibition, a sideshow of puppy dogs and ice cream. And, it struck me this year—more than ever, for players like Buzelis and Johnson—is a perfectly terrible bridge to the challenges ahead. Like frolicking on sand dunes as a way to train for Everest.
By some back-of-the-envelope math, I’ve spent an entire year of my life watching summer games—whether in Vegas, Orlando, Boston, or Salt Lake City. I used to love coming to the Vegas incarnation. I’ve coached hundreds of Summer Leaguers over the past 25 years. This past week, I was able to see my first NBA client, Udonis Haslem—whom I watched play in person at both the Boston and Orlando summer leagues in 2003—sitting courtside as one of the faces for the Miami Heat while head coach Erik Spoelstra assists for Team USA. I’ve been coming long enough to count Mike James among my students. James couldn’t get a single workout for an NBA team; now he’s the all-time leading scorer in EuroLeague history.
Back then, getting into the gym was the only way to see the games at all, but getting tickets was easy. Now you don’t dare go to the bathroom; if you leave your seat, hundreds of people are waiting to fill it. Summer League has come a long way for fans. It’s a full stadium, and people are having fun. That’s great.
But it has all come at a giant cost to player development. Summer League used to be a great place to gather reference points for improvement. Summer League has become almost detrimental to development. Ask yourself why players get 10 fouls before being disqualified here. Who is that helping? Certainly not the player, who needs no more than six fouls to learn lessons.
As one prominent agent said to me: “The NBA is more WWE than a basketball league now.” TrueHoopers have heard Jarod Hector and I say exactly that—too often.
It’s time we completely overhaul this behemoth.
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