Top of the draft board shines at Summer League
The depth and quality of the 2017 NBA draft had teams tanking at the end of the regular season in hopes of vaulting into the top three picks.
With the huge caveat being that it was only summer league action, those at the top of the draft made quite a first impression.
Summer league play ended on Monday night after the Los Angeles Lakers beat Portland in the Las Vegas league championship game. Over leagues played in Orlando, Salt Lake City and Vegas, many of the top 10 picks gave their teams plenty to feel good about before heading into the league’s quiet period for the next two months.
No. 2 pick Lonzo Ball owned Vegas with a pair of triple-doubles and was named Vegas MVP. Top pick Markelle Fultz showed off his wide array of scoring tricks in Utah before sitting out much of Vegas with an ankle injury and No. 3 pick Jayson Tatum of Boston was drawing comparisons to Paul Pierce while dominating both in Utah and Nevada.
The competition these rookies will face will increase exponentially when training camps open in October. And there is a long list of summer league standouts — Nikoloz Tskitishvili, anyone? — who never amounted to anything in the NBA. But for struggling franchises like the Lakers, Sixers, Suns and Kings, seeing some real promise from their youngsters the first time they step on the court is encouraging.
“Lonzo definitely gave the team a lot of confidence as this thing went along,” Lakers coach Luke Walton said. “The way he plays, he’s always got his poise about him, just an incredible basketball player and with the unselfish nature he plays the game, it just becomes contagious and I think other guys started picking up and playing off of that.”
Winning a summer league title certainly doesn’t mean the suffering of the last four years is over for the Lakers. Far from it. The real test comes in a couple of months.
But for several franchises that are in the business of selling hope right now, business is good.
Here are some other takeaways from summer league action:
PACKED HOUSE
Buoyed by Ball and the Lakers, nearly 128,000 fans attended the Vegas Summer League this year.
What started as a gathering of a few teams 13 years ago has turned into a fullfledged event under the guidance of coaching agent Warren LeGarie and Albert Hall. Sponsors are lining up to get in on the action, fans crowd the concourses looking for autographs of the next big things and established stars like LeBron James, Isaiah Thomas and John Wall sit courtside to watch the games.
ESPN and NBATV televise the games and over 500 media credentials were given out for the Las Vegas site alone.
“I told Mayor Goodman that we should get a commission for the NFL and the NHL following in our footsteps,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said last week. “We were here when some leagues weren’t even taking advertising in Las Vegas, and we’re proud to be here. I feel our Summer League has become a fixture in Las Vegas, part of the permanent summer calendar.”
OTHER STANDOUTS
Dennis Smith Jr., the No. 9 pick by Dallas, may have been the best player in Las Vegas, averaging 17.3 points and 4.2 assists per game for the Mavericks and Utah’s Donovan Mitchell averaged 28 points per game in just two games for the Jazz.
Sacramento’s De’Aaron Fox, the fifth overall pick out of Kentucky, displayed his athleticism and defensive instincts for the Kings. Josh Jackson, the No. 4 overall pick by Phoenix, averaged 17.4 points and 9.2 rebounds in Vegas and played with a competitive fire that intrigued many scouts leading up to the draft.
Swanigan was consistent throughout and San Antonio’s Bryn Forbes had a pair of 35-point games to give the Spurs another promising young talent in the pipeline as they wait to hear from Manu Ginobili on his future.