With the NBA draft and the aftershocks of a wild transaction period in the rearview mirror, the league is back in Las Vegas for summer league to witness the league's newest faces and retooled rosters.
Fans have poured into the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion to watch top rookies like Cade Cunningham do work with their new teams, but have they met expectations thus far?
So what intelligence and buzz-worthy items have our NBA experts gleaned from summer league? Here's what scouts, coaches and top executives are saying about the fallout of the 2021 NBA draft, future moves teams could make and what young players have made strong impressions.
Everybody is in Las Vegas
The last time the NBA convened in Las Vegas for its annual summer league two years ago, only 19 of the 30 first-round picks -- and seven of the 14 lottery selections -- played for their teams. It was a moment that left many wondering if the league's days of showcasing early matchups featuring elite prospects against one another were over.
Fast forward to this summer, however, and that has proven not to be the case. Of the 30 players who were selected in last month's NBA draft, only Usman Garuba isn't playing in Vegas. And he has a pretty good reason: He was in Tokyo competing for Spain in the Olympics.
"I'm shocked," one East executive said.
The result has been high-level showdowns between top draft picks throughout the first few days of action, including Cunningham (No. 1 overall) going up against Jalen Green (No. 2) on Tuesday night.
So what changed? In the past, players would get stuck waiting to sign their contracts, which caused them to miss summer practices and games with their teams. The league has since changed those rules, allowing everyone to hit the ground running.
The NBA is invested in these games happening. It's not a coincidence these high-level matchups are scheduled every year. Still, multiple executives wonder how many games these top players will actually play.
"Yes, they've played a couple, but will they make it through the week?" a West executive asked.
Given where things stood a couple of years ago, the league will happily take the matchups this week displayed -- Green has faced Cunningham and No. 3 pick Evan Mobley, and the Orlando Magic and Golden State Warriors showcased a combined four lottery picks from this year's draft on Monday night.
Those matchups continued with Cleveland playing Orlando, featuring lottery picks Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner, on Wednesday night.
One other interesting subplot this week has been an even weaker back end to some of the summer league rosters than normal. That is a side effect, according to executives, of summer league taking place in mid-August, a month later than usual. It's conflicting with a lot of the players who normally would be on summer league teams already preparing and committing to play next season in Europe. -- Tim Bontemps
Rethinking Cade Cunningham a bit
There's an interesting conversation I've had multiple times this week during summer league: A team employee I'm talking to mentions they're a little lower on No. 1 pick Cunningham than consensus, and I agree.
To be clear, this sentiment has nothing to do with Cunningham's slow start on the court in Las Vegas (12 points on 5-of-17 shooting in his debut for the Detroit Pistons on Sunday before a stronger 20-point performance Tuesday against No. 2 pick Green), which has some predictive power but can be wildly misleading because of the small sample.
It's also not a representative sample, because my contacts tend to disproportionately have analytics backgrounds. Cunningham's statistical projections were not quite as effusive as the scouting perspective.
Instead, I viewed it as more a commentary on reframing the expectations for Cunningham. The early dominance of Luka Doncic might have set the bar too high for another versatile wing with size and shooting ability. That kind of performance is atypical for any prospect, even one as talented as Cunningham.
Growing pains will surely be part of the process for Cunningham, especially as the talent around him continues to mature. If we accept that going in, we'll have a better chance of letting Cunningham grow into the player he has the potential to become -- and have the ability to be pleasantly surprised if he does develop faster than expected. -- Kevin Pelton
The rising excitement of the 2021 draft class
Even with some of the top picks not yet having signature performances, scouts and executives have raved about the competitiveness they've seen from this highly touted draft class, often saying things like "the league is in good hands" and "there's a lot of juice in the gym."
Whether it was Davion Mitchell putting the clamps on James Bouknight, Suggs flying around defensively against the Warriors or Scottie Barnes wreaking havoc with his length on the way to an 18-10-5 stat line in his debut, summer league has felt more competitive than in years past.
In a world that has become so dominated by bite-sized highlight reels that prop up the "home run" plays that don't always impact winning, it has been refreshing to usher in a class of rookies that is littered with competitors. The intensity is bound to fluctuate and eventually tail off given the nature of summer league, but teams have certainly taken notice of the level of play in a draft class we've spent months raving about, especially when you consider the short turnaround. -- Mike Schmitz
On Beasley, Faried, Mudiay and ... yes, LiAngelo
While the summer showcase event is largely for rookies to get acclimated to the NBA and for second- or third-year players looking to improve, some of the older players who came to summer league to try to play their way back onto an NBA roster might see their efforts pay off.
Portland has the two oldest players in summer league in Michael Beasley and Kenneth Faried. Neither player has played in the league since 2019, but both are trying to carve a path back. Faried has combined for 11 points and 20 rebounds in his two games, while Beasley is at 18 points and nine boards.
Portland also has Emmanuel Mudiay, who did not play in the league in the 2020-21 season. Mudiay is averaging a team-best 6.5 assists per game. Brooklyn has veteran point guard Brandon Knight trying to get back into the league.
"With so many teams capped out and needing to take on minimums, I do think some [of those guys] have a chance," one NBA scout told ESPN.
It's not just former NBA veterans trying to play their way back in. One big name trying to make a splash is LiAngelo Ball -- the older brother of LaMelo and the younger brother of Lonzo. In two games with Charlotte, "Gelo" is second on the team in scoring, averaging 13 points per game while going 6-of-12 from deep -- which might be enough to earn him another training camp invitation.
"Just goes to show you how far opportunity goes," the scout said.
It remains to be seen if Ball will get an invite to a training camp, but one thing is clear: He's making the most of his chances in Vegas. -- Andrew Lopez
The ramifications of tampering and draft picks
The NBA's tampering investigations were a hot topic in Las Vegas. Most team executives were quick to blame the competitive market that forces their hand by requiring them to either make offers well in advance of free agency opening or risk being left out in the cold when the market officially opens. According to them, agents approached and informed them weeks before the Aug. 2 start date that their free-agent clients already held multiple offers from teams, prompting them to make bids within 24 hours or risk missing out on the most attractive targets. Executives say the solution they see is to simply allow teams and agents to negotiate without any artificial constraints once the season concludes, and let the free market play out as it will, because enforcing tampering rules is essentially impossible.
What executives don't understand is the NBA's practice of having teams -- like the Milwaukee Bucks in 2022 -- forfeit late second-round picks as "punishment" for their deeds (in this case, tampering with Bogdan Bogdanovic). In their minds, late second-round picks have been devalued so much with the advent of the two-way contract that this becomes more of a punishment for young players hoping to hear their names called.
"Why are we punishing players by reducing the number of picks that are made in the NBA draft?" one executive pondered. "Players work their entire careers to get to the point that they can hear their names called on draft night. It's completely unfair to them to have fewer bestowed that honor because of backroom shenanigans that are entirely out of their control."
One solution that was brought up would be to keep the number of players drafted capped at 60 and award these forfeited picks to teams that either won their division or a potential in-season tournament or perhaps to the team for which the NBA's new Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Social Justice Champion plays.
"How cool would it have been if Carmelo Anthony [this year's winner] went up to the podium at the 60th pick and announced that the Portland Trailblazers have drafted someone?" pondered one Eastern Conference executive. "That would have been a great moment at Barclays Center, shedding light on the work he's done, and tying it to the start of a young player's NBA career, who could maybe follow in his footsteps."
In the meantime, we'll have to continue to make mock drafts with only 59 picks until June, unless the NBA comes to its senses and tries to make the best of a bad situation. -- Jonathan Givony
The end to an unprecedented two-season run
If it's true that the NBA is a family, then summer league has become the festive annual family reunion. Virtually every basketball operations employee in the league is a regular in the desert each summer. The event was canceled in 2020, so this year's edition has provided coaches and executives with a vital chance to reconnect and commiserate.
This summer league marks the end of an unprecedented 17-month run for team employees. The pandemic has rearranged everything and disrupted this community. Games have been canceled. Schedules have been chaotic. Routines have been destroyed. Testing has been invasive, while health and safety protocols continue to disrupt the cadence of it all.
The show must go on, but it has likely been the most stressful two-year period in league history. Much of the buzz over coffee or beers has been about exchanging ridiculous stories from the pandemic and bonding over the shared experiences these hoopers have endured since the pandemic upended everyone and everything in March 2020.
Fatigue is a major topic of conversation. Everyone is gassed and everyone needs a break. Fortunately, as summer league wraps up in the coming days, that's what most of these folks will finally get, a much-needed break -- at least until training camps come around next month. -- Kirk Goldsberry