Bouknight will begin NBA career in the Las Vegas Summer League
Former Uconn guard James Bouknight, the 11th overall selection by the Charlotte Hornets in last month’s NBA Draft, will start his professional career in the Las Vegas Summer League on Sunday.
Bouknight, alongside 22nd overall pick Kai Jones of Texas, is one of 14 players on the Hornets roster. The summer league — played largely in Las Vegas with some sessions held in Sacramento and Utah — is geared toward preparing and evaluating first- and secondyear players as well as veterans looking to establish themselves in the league.
Charlotte will play four regular-season summer league games, starting Sunday against the Portland Trail Blazers at 6 p.m. at the Thomas and Mack Center, with the playoffs beginning Aug. 16. Training camp begins on Sept. 28, and the regular season kicks off on Oct. 19. Three of Charlotte’s games will be broadcast on NBA TV, with a fourth — Aug. 12 against the San
Antonio Spurs — on ESPNU.
Bouknight, a 6-foot-5 Brooklyn native, played two seasons for the Huskies and averaged 18.7 points and 5.7 rebounds in 15 games as a sophomore and earned firstteam All-big East honors. He became the highest drafted Uconn player since Andre Drummond (ninth overall, 2012) and the program’s 21st first-round pick.
Bouknight has talked about the prospects of playing with Charlotte’s Lamelo Ball, the NBA Rookie of the Year.
“I think we’re both young players that play with a lot of flair and have a lot of swag in our game,” Bouknight said. “It’s going to be exciting to watch ... just playing with a lot of flair and a lot of excitement, we’re going to be box office.”
The Hornets went 33-39 in 2020-21, good for 10th in the Eastern Conference. Bouknight will join Ball, whom the Hornets drafted third overall in 2020, and 27-year-old guard Terry Rozier in the Charlotte backcourt. Expected to contend for the playoffs this season, the Hornets signed 25-year-old forward Kelly Oubre Jr., who averaged 15.4 points and six rebounds for the Golden State Warriors in 2020-21, this week.
Fellow Husky Amida Brimah, a 27-year-old center who went undrafted in 2017, will play for the Indiana Pacers’ summer league team. An NCAA champion with Uconn in 2014, Brimah bounced around the G-league from 2017-21 and won a title with the Austin Spurs in 2018. He made his NBA debut with the Pacers this past season, and averaged 2.6 points in five games.