The NBA Summer League offers a number of mixed emotions for the regular fan. It is a time where they watch their respective teams that are made up of draft picks, young players from the D-League who are still trying to make it to the NBA, and players from Europe who are simply there to better their game and make a name for themselves.
Often times, people will be quick to judge whether or not a player will be a solid contributor once the NBA regular season rolls around. For instance, Glen Rice Jr. was the MVP of the Las Vegas Summer League last summer as he led the league in scoring at 25 points per game. He also averaged 7.8 rebounds and 2.5 steals.
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Wizards’ fans were extremely excited about adding him to the roster to provide scoring off a bench that offered little to nothing already. That isn’t how it worked out. Rice Jr. ended up appearing in only five games for Washington before being waived. During those five game he averaged 2.2 points per game.
This isn’t to point out that if a player does well in Summer League, they most likely won’t transfer it into the regular season.
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The stars of the league today like LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul were all great Summer League players and were able to transfer over into their NBA careers. Now, those guys don’t come a dime a dozen, but the point is that during Summer League, it doesn’t matter how many points a guy is putting up, it matters how he is getting them. Is his scoring coming from the flow of the offense? Is he forcing shots? Is he making defensive mistakes that can’t be fixed?
These are all perspectives that the coaching staff and front offices evaluate to predict whether or not a player’s Summer League success can carry over into the NBA. This year’s draft was one of the deepest we have seen in recent years and just like every summer, fans are excited to watch the potential stars of their team get warmed up for training camp.
Let’s take a look at how the top five picks of this year’s draft have performed at this year’s Summer League.
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