THE NBA Summer League, which the Mavericks begin on Friday in Las Vegas, is a remarkable creation.
It brings together about 400 basketball players, most of whom will have little or no success in the NBA.
And yet, it’s a happening.
The cable networks love it. Fans thirst for it at a time in July when football has yet to return and, unless you’re a diehard baseball fan, sports entertainment is hard to come by.
And it’s fun.
“These guys aren’t making $40-million,” said Greg St. Jean, Jason Kidd’s assistant who is serving as the Mavericks’ summer-league head coach for the second season in a row. “But at the end of the day, it’s just basketball and we try to make it as good an experience as possible.
“Those guys are fighting for their professional lives. And so there’s an intensity level defensively that’s a little higher than maybe they’re used to. We want to give them a great experience, an NBA-level experience because then we can properly evaluate them.”
While only a few of the 14 players on the Mavericks’ summer roster will make it back for training camp in the fall, that doesn’t mean it’s not a meaningful event – for players and for teams.
And, of course, it’s not just the Mavericks evaluating their talent. All 30 teams and their front-office movers and shakers will be at the summer-league games. The Mavericks open play Friday at 3 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center against Chicago’s summer-league squad. It will be televised on ESPNU.
The play began Thursday and will continue through July 17. Each team will play at least five games.
“Everybody’s fighting for something,” said Moses Wright, the second-year big man who spent last season on a two-way deal with the Mavericks and was named to the all-G-League first team. “For me, I’m not going to be no Luka (Dončić). I got to come in here and whatever role they tell me to do, I got to do it at the highest level. If they tell me to jump over a building, I got to find a way to do it.”
That’s what the summer league is about for the players: finding some way to impress coaches and GMs. There are exceptions. The top draft picks usually play a game or two and everybody looks forward to their performances.
Winning? That’s nice. But it’s not really the bottom line.
“We’re looking to build habits,” St. Jean said. “We got our second-round pick in Jaden Hardy here. We’re looking to give him a good foundation to go into September when the season starts.
“At the same time, this is a great evaluation period. At the end of the day, the wins and losses, we’ll figure that out. We’re going to compete. Obviously, everybody likes to win. That makes stuff more enjoyable, but at the end of the day, we want to build good habits.”
Hardy, who grew up in Henderson, Nev., a short drive from the Las Vegas strip, is well-familiar with the summer league. He watched it every year while growing up.
Now, he’s in it.
He’ll try to duplicate what Oklahoma City rookie and second-overall draft pick Chet Holmgren did in his debut at the Salt Lake City summer league on Tuesday. He rolled up 23 points, seven rebounds and six blocked shots.
“I feel like the first two days of training camp were real good,” Hardy said. “It’s been fun. We’re ready to get out there.”
And fans are ready to see what he has in store for them.
Twitter: @ESefko
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