SUMMER LEAGUE ROUNDUP
NBA Summer League
FRIDAY AT THE VEGAS SUMMER LEAGUE
David Blatt has coached basketball for teams such as Hapoel Galil Elyon, Benetton Treviso, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Dynamo Moscow, teams with more vowels than Vanna White turns on a monthly basis.
The No. 1 overall pick in this year’s NBA Draft made a strong impression in his Vegas Summer League debut hours after LeBron James announced he was returning to Cleveland, leading the Cavaliers with 18 points in a 70-68 win over Milwaukee and Jabari Parker at a sold-out Cox Pavilion
You see them all around the Vegas Summer League — earnest-looking, college-age young adults in black shorts and white shirts posting signs at Thomas and Mack Center. They’re the 50 interns performing the tasks to keep the 11-day summer league humming at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ Thomas & Mack and Cox Pavilion.
With a new coach in Steve Kerr and a new roster of players, Golden State’s focus has been altered from trying to dominate to learning to facilitate and get comfortable with a new system and a new way of playing.
NBA Summer League officials have a contingency plan to deal if banned Clippers owner Donald Sterling shows up in Las Vegas. “He is persona non grata,” said Warren LeGarie, the founder of the Vegas Summer League.
The league begins its 10th year operating at UNLV on Friday with 24 teams and interest at an all-time high.
With the NBA Summer League rolling into Las Vegas with story lines galore this week, organizers of the annual 11-day event are unveiling new business and fan amenities at Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion.
When rolling the dice two months ago, Khem Birch was hoping to land somewhere in the second round of the NBA Draft. The odds seem to be turning slightly in his favor.
Last year’s successful playoff schedule increased interest among fans and produced better played games on the court. This year’s Summer league tips off July 11 at Cox Pavilion and Thomas & Mack Center.
The Utah Jazz will be one of 24 teams participating in the NBA Summer League this year, up from 22 in 2013.
Now that they have run the table again, in a different format with a playoff bracket and everything, it’s almost too easy to compare the NBA Summer League’s Golden State Warriors with author Roger Kahn’s “Boys of Summer.”
Did everyone in the NBA miss on Ian Clark? For one night, it appeared that all 29 teams whiffed on the undrafted 6-foot-3-inch guard from Belmont.
The Suns’ summer roster is light on NBA experience, but Marcus Morris has two years in the league, and that makes him well-qualified to act as Phoenix’s floor leader.