If you are tracking the NBA news with only one eye and looking for a pool waiter with the other, nobody’s going to blame you. It’s the high vacation season in most of the league’s and the perfect this to visit your favorite resorts in Caribbean or elsewhere. Meanwhile, the NBA circus doesn’t stop.
The teams are still filling roster spots with what’s left of their cap space and exceptions, and the young armada has been spread across the States to showcase their abilities to the NBA scouts and coaches in the Summer League Tournaments. Newly drafted rookies and those who missed the cut, G League (D League got a new manicure) stars and the players who are teams counting on to make a leap soon, gathered in Salt Lake City, Orlando, Las Vegas and high in the Rockies.
For some, it’s just getting acclimatized to the NBA surroundings, but for some, it’s the ultimate chance to sign a pro deal. Teams hope to get a bargain player who’ll work hard to make the team. The league is getting extra exposure during the dead season. Everybody is getting something out of it, so it’s fair to look what kind of a benefit can punters get from the events.
Historical NBA data
Teams haven’t been equally using the opportunity to test out the talents pool over the years, so we still have franchises who have less than 10 total played games in the summer tournaments. This make the historical data mostly unusable. Mostly, because we can still understand which teams are considering this part of the offseason as a significant, while others don’t think it’s of much importance.
Two Texas franchises have had most success competing in these events – Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs. Close third? The Warriors. This means that the winning is a part of the culture for these franchises. If you are going to put on the Rockets, the Spurs or the Warriors jersey, you better be ready to compete to win and not just showcase your crossovers or fadeaways.
On the other side of the specter, not counting the Nets and the Thunder who had played only 5 summer games each, are these teams: the Pelicans, the Clippers, the Lakers and the Sixers. It does tell a story right? While the two Los Angeles franchises switched their roles recently, the Clippers were not that successful after all, and the other three have been struggling for quite some time. It shouldn’t have much connection to these mostly exhibition games, yet the winning and the losing can be contagious.
Individual player performances
You don’t have to go back far in the archive to realize that there’s little to be know about the players’ NBA careers by the small sample of their performances in the Summer League games. Take the first games of Lonzo Ball in Lakers uniform from a few days ago. In the first one, Ball launched 12 three pointers and came up with a dismal shooting night. The next day, he had a triple double. Which performance should you give more weight to? The truth lies in between – most of you will say, but that’s just common sense.
Actually, stats have been very easy to accumulate during these games. So everything should be bloated, right? Not for everyone, not even for the guy from our example, Ball. There’s next to no structure in the summer games, as the players and coaches spend very little time together. Some manage to get the message across, especially if they have a lot of returning players on the NBA Summer League roster.
Usually, is more like a pickup 3-on-3 basketball. Players, like Ball, who need to have some understanding with their teammates to thrive, do considerably worse than the players who like to put more emphasis on creating their own game.
Even with the solo performers, you shouldn’t read much into the individual performances, especially not of a single game. Just take a look at the top 5 Summer League single game scorers: Anthony Morrow (47), Von Wafer, Marcus Banks, Anthony Randolph (42) and Salim Stoudamire (39).
While Morrow and Wafer were considered deep threats during their NBA careers, none of the guys have had much success competing with the top level players. Pretty much the same applies for the top 5 rebounders or assists distributors.
Betting on the NBA Summer League games
To keep it simple – don’t do it. There are obviously books that will allow you to put a couple of dollars on the exhibition games – the limits are extremely small – so you might want to end the long wait until the regular season starts, but there’s absolutely no way you can estimate the odds with a higher precision than the bookmaker.
With no clear idea on what should happen in the large numbers averages, you are trying to play a Nostradamus. This always leads to losing money, and the small stakes don’t justify it. Whenever there are too many unknown variables, you should refrain from investing your money. And the circumstances on these games are quickly changing. Teams sign up a diamond-in-a-rough and insert him to play 30 minutes before he even gets to know the names of his teammates. More established players or high draft picks can unexpectedly get pulled with an injury excuse, as most teams won’t risk losing the high prized player just to indulge the media.
Coaching might differ from game to game, as the staff might want to look at how players react to different pace, game style or environment. There’s no way you can predict such changes that might severely impact the actual fair odds. Keep your money for smarter future investments.
NBA Summer League takeaways
Watching these games can still give you a rough picture on who are the slightly better players in the class (without comparing the distinct groups such as rookies or sophomores). Still, keep in mind that different players might be in different situations. Some might be coming off a serious injury, others might have missed last year’s camp and there are players who are going to strongly benefit from working out with their new NBA employers before November comes.
Keep an eye on how some players are treated. If a team is seemingly overprotecting a player, this probably means that he is already planned in the regular season rotation, possibly even as a starter. Unsigned players play for any spot on any team, not just for the one who had invited them to play the Summer League for. However, most of the players without the contracts are unsigned for a reason, and end up in the development league.
If a signed prospect can’t get to play before an unsigned one(s), and is not injured, that usually means that he’s going to be stashed deep on the bench with hopes of future development. Lottery picks aren’t excused from this either. If they look behind in this environment, they won’t play for the ‘A’ team much. Or, if they project to do so, strongly consider downgrading that team’s rating, if such players continue to disappoint in the preseason games.
In fact, you can treat the NBA Summer League as a preseason to the preseason. Mark your observations to try to clarify or confirm them in the preseason games. This will double on the small sample, but also give more time to the players and to the teams to adjust and correct potential early issues.
