The NBA Summer League returns to Las Vegas beginning tomorrow for the first time since 2019, with the Hawks and Celtics tipping-off the 10-day slate of games at 4 p.m. EST on Sunday.
This year’s tournament is more likely than any other to feature a more mixed array of needs for players at various points in their careers, with the Summer League typically introducing NBA style and plays to rookies, providing cameo appearances to sophomores and try-outs to others.
"Obviously we want to win the whole thing," Pacers summer coach Mike Weinar said. "But certainly the biggest priority would be to instill our culture and our way of doing things from a basketball front ... getting those things ingrained."
The Celtics are the quintessential example of a more complicated summer for some teams, bringing two rare third-year players in Romeo Langford and Carsen Edwards, along with a second-year tandem in Payton Pritchard and Aaron Nesmith, who played regularly last season. Rookies in Yam Madar and Juhann Begarin came to push to try to make the team in some capacity. Two-way signee Sam Hauser is also on the roster. These players haven’t assumed concrete NBA roles, landing them back in Summer League, but due to the thinning nature of Boston’s roster will assume those positions this season, ready or not. These five games will become their pivot into final opportunities to showcase potential this fall.
Boston assistant Joe Mazzulla will balance implementing new playbook language and individual improvement plans drawn up by Ime Udoka (who’s been in Japan). Mazzulla, a Brad Stevens hire, worked individually on improving a player like Langford in the past and will continue to facilitate the team’s array of personal goals in Las Vegas.
“For Romeo it might just be staying healthy and having continuity in his schedule and being in the weight room everyday and being on the court,” he said. “The interesting thing about him is he hasn’t had a training camp or a summer league because of injury. It’s having consistency in those habits.”
Langford, who emphasized losing his last two offseasons to finger and wrist ailments, found his spot minutes through his first two seasons as a defensive specialist. Losing Evan Fournier’s wing size on the perimeter opens opportunity for Langford to provide more of that, hammering down his shot after his most sustained minutes in the NBA Playoffs saw him convert 6-for-17 outside (35.3%) and flash some playmaking as a secondary ball-handler.
He’s only played 50-of-144 (34.7%) of possible regular season games in his first two seasons. Keeping him healthy may limit how much Langford we actually see, but the Celtics and Langford just want him to play. Two NBA seasons saw him run fewer than 20 pick-and-rolls, shoot 68 spot-up jumpers and receive 16 plays cutting to the basket. Sunday somehow marks his first Summer League game.
“I kind of was able to choose if I wanted to play summer league but kind of not,” Langford said “Basically I had to play Summer League, and I really didn’t care. I wanted to. It was basically a chance to finally go out there and just play freely.”
Muzzulla saw Nesmith go through a similar entry into the league. Stevens commented on his conditioning in last fall’s training camp after suffering a foot injury during his final Vanderbilt season and having limited five-on-five opportunities during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. An abbreviated camp, no summer games and trouble adjusting to Boston’s defense largely landed him on the bench within weeks of draft night, so he turned away from his typical focus on shooting toward hustle plays and sprinting all over the floor in a Marcus Smart-like fashion.
Once his role stabilized, Nesmith closed the season converting 44.4% from three on 34 looks to settle at 37% for the season. His offensive rebounding impacted games, he put the ball on the floor a little and earned enough trust from Stevens to largely remain in the rotation into the postseason. He’ll factor heavily into a Boston team with limited back court shooting and needing an extra rotation wing alongside Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
“(I’m) working on different reads,” Nesmith said. “Making sure I can come off cold and some days I’ll come in and do my shooting routine, sometimes I won’t just to emulate coming off the bench and not getting time to warm up and just having to make my first shot after sitting down for like 15 minutes.”
Mazzulla wants to see trigger-happy Edwards be able to find where he’ll consistently get his shots from during regular season minutes. Extended runs during blowouts led to him shooting unsustainable amounts of shots and he averaged 14.2 per game during the 2019 Summer League. He admitted last week to needing to find a niche that can fit on this team aside from volume scoring. An Isaiah Thomas role would likely fit him, but it’s not available on this team. Summer League may be an audition for him to some day get one of those roles elsewhere for some like Edwards.
As for Pritchard, a backup point guard role may be available depending on how the rest of Boston’s offseason shakes out. He grasped that kind of production early in the year, before stints of higher and lower minutes led to him honing in on becoming one of the most effective catch-and-shoot specialists in the league. Mazzulla will feed him ample pick-and-roll opportunities, where he only shot 39.4% and produced a low 0.75 points per possession in 118 sets as a rookie, which prevented him from filling in effectively when Kemba Walker and Smart sat.
“Can he lead a team?” Mazzulla quizzed. “Can he make others around him better? … they’re all in different spots in their career and we’ve done a decent job communicating where they’re at and what we need to do to get them where they want to go.”
Who else to watch in Summer League?
The Celtics will face the Hawks, featuring 2021 selections Jalen Johnson from Duke and Sharife Cooper from Auburn. Cooper is a smaller guard who slid from first-round projections, with high play-making upside. Boston passed on with the No. 45 pick in favor of a likely draft-and-stash player in Begarin.
Later in the week, Boston will play Bol Bol, Boston College’s Steffon Mitchell and the Nuggets on Tuesday. The Magic will court top-10 picks Jalen Suggs and Franz Wagner along with R.J. Hampton and rookie standout Cole Anthony on Thursday. The Celtics’ scheduled games conclude with Philadelphia on Saturday, featuring Tyrese Maxey, Isaiah Joe and rookie Jaden Springer. The league will play 75 games total, with a championship on Aug. 17 between the top two finishers and the rest of the teams adding a fifth game on Aug. 16 or 17. Past Summer League MVPs include Kyle Kuzma, Jonathan Simmons and Brandon Clarke.
Elsewhere, the Pistons feature No.1 pick Cade Cunningham, last year’s young first-rounder Killian Hayes and Team USA Select choice Saddiq Bey. Sekou Doumbouya and college basketball legend Luka Garza will be fun to watch with the Pistons too.
The Rockets send No. 2 pick Jalen Green, the Celtics’ former No. 16 selection in Turkish prodigy Alperen Sengun, Team Spain standout Usman Garuba along with rising son of an NBA star KJ Martin. Intriguing No. 3 pick Evan Mobley will play with the Cavaliers, while the defensive-minded No. 4 pick Scottie Barnes joins the Raptors.
Heat rookie Omer Yurtseven started hot early in a smaller California summer league last week, averaging 26 points, 13.5 rebounds and blocking two shots per game while hitting 45.5% of his threes in two games, earning him a two-year deal with Miami.
This is also probably a good time to introducing myself. I'm Bobby Manning and I'll be taking over the NBA Notebook from A. Sherrod Blakely going forward weekly after his final column last week. I host the Garden Report alongside Sherrod on CLNS Media, have written for CelticsBlog since 2016 and graduated from Syracuse in 2020. I've also filled in on Celtics and Red Sox coverage for BSJ within the past year. I'll be at Summer League in Vegas next week, hopefully able to provide ample notes for next Saturday. Thank to Greg, John, Sherrod, CLNS and everyone else that's made this opportunity possible.
Extensions solidifying the East
Kevin Durant and Tatum celebrated a gold medal in Tokyo and a new extension that will keep him playing the Celtics regularly with the Brooklyn Nets for the rest of his prime.
Durant signed a four-year, $198 million contract to stay in Brooklyn through the 2025-26 season, starting at approximately $44-million in 2022-23 and finishing close to $55-million at age 37, according to Woj. Kyrie Irving and James Harden maintain player options next summer, and can sign similar extensions after the Nets added Patty Mills, DeAndre’ Bembrey, Jevon Carter and James Johnson while retaining Blake Griffin and Bruce Brown. Brooklyn drafted five players in the 2021 NBA Draft, to begin some level of cost control as keeping the core three will cost Brooklyn well north of $1-billion due to hefty repeater luxury tax payments. Sean Marks said the Nets are married to the tax, as Boston sits less than $1-million over the tax line having not paid tax since a relatively small bill in 2018-19.
Jimmy Butler is staying in Miami through 2026 on a four-year, $184 million extension after Kyle Lowry joined him and Bam Adebayo this offseason. Julius Randle remains in New York for the same period on a $117-million extension. Trae Young signed with Atlanta for five years and as much as $207-million.
With NBA champion Giannis Antetokounmpo now locked in Milwaukee through at least 2025, the same length as Jayson Tatum in Boston, the east’s hierarchy is essentially set for the immediate future. Bradley Beal, a free agent as soon as next season when he can stay in Washington for $235-million, and Joel Embiid’s contract expiring in 2023 ($190-million extension-eligible) stand as the biggest remaining dominos to fall in the east.
Boston Rumors
The Celtics continue to watch free agency dry up, have not finalized the lingering Tristan Thompson trade with the Hawks and Kings and need to agree to terms with Madar while finding a second two-way player. Mark Murphy reported the trade will likely go through unchanged soon, with Delon Wright headed to Atlanta, Kris Dunn and Bruno Fernando sliding into Boston’s 14th and 15th final roster spots, with Thompson landing in Sacramento.
It’s unclear what the holdup is after Friday’s moratorium and the new league year allow the trade to go through. The Enes Kanter TPE is gone, but the trade can be facilitated through the Kemba Walker TPE. Adam Himmelsbach reported Boston’s intention could be to move off Dunn, while various reports of the Celtics’ interest in Dennis Schroder would unlikely be facilitated via sign-and-trade due to a three-year deal being necessary to acquire a free agent through S&T. Schroder remains in contact with several teams as free agency money dries up. Between the potential creation of a nearly $10-million Thompson TPE, Schroder and Madar needing a roster spot at least one other move is in store for the Celtics. It could ultimately become Jabari Parker, due to his non-guaranteed salary, who ends up being the odd one out.
Smart and the Celtics reportedly engaged in extension talks, with Boston offering slightly less than the full $77-million they could sign Smart to for four more years. Murphy reported Boston is closer to four-years, $68-million. An extension would eliminate the Celtics’ already-narrow chance of clearing max cap space for a player like Beal next offseason, but would enhance its ability to trade for him mid-season or next summer if the opportunity presents itself while leveraging against missing Beal and losing Smart in the same summer.
