2025 NBA Draft Thread



NBA Summer League 2022: Best and worst performances and what it all means

For all the time we spend watching and analyzing it, sometimes it feels like NBA Summer League only makes you dumber.

Between the overwrought takes on small samples of games, the loss of brain cells from off-court debauchery (I’ve only heard stories, I swear) and the searing heat of a Vegas summer (don’t worry, it cools off to a pleasant 106 at night), the entirety of summer league can feel a bit like a fever dream by the time fall rolls around and training camp starts.

Often, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Not just our brief dalliances with Zavier Simpson’s hook shots or Luke Travers’ mullet or the Knicks playing for a championship either. I’m talking about entire takes about that year’s draft ecosystem.

Just think about the 2021 summer league if you can remember any of it. Atlanta’s Jalen Johnson made first-team All-Summer League before disappearing into witness protection during the regular season; Phoenix’s Jalen Smith was a first-teamer too but had his third-year option declined. Detroit’s Luka Garza made the second team; Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley did not.

Seeing results like that, it’s fair to ask if there’s anything from the two weeks in Vegas that we can carry over into the season beyond an ill-chosen tattoo? But that mindset might be leaning too far the other way. Vegas may not have a massive predictive value given the small sample of games. But despite some odd recent results, it does have some — we’re still playing basketball here.

This is particularly true once you look past a certain archetype of player who thrives in summer league — the shot-happy, shoot-first, undersized guard. Cam Thomas winning back-to-back summer-league scoring titles is certainly notable, but we’ve been burned by too many similar players before. It will be hard to say how much it translates until autumn.



Speaking of autumn, that seems far away, doesn’t it? Welcome back, offseason. We missed you. With the last degenerate diehards at summer league decamping Monday morning on the first thing smoking, a weary league begins its first real offseason since 2019.

We’ll still have our transactional drama, don’t get me wrong — situations remain unsettled with several high-profile players (Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Russell Westbrook, Collin Sexton, Donovan Mitchell and any other Utah player old enough to shave).

But after the NBA accordioned three playoff-draft-free-agency cycles into 21 months, don’t be surprised if some phones around the league are shut off for a few days — if not flung overboard from a cruise ship into the azure waters of a distant sea — before the action starts picking up again. Deadlines create the urgency to get transactions to the finish line, but the only important deadline on anyone’s calendar in the next few weeks is for booking the shore excursion in Ibiza.

Before we put the Vegas experience to bed and find a cozy hammock, however, we do need to talk at least a little bit about what happened on the court. Some of this stuff did matter, or at least seem to. Some rookies played well enough or badly enough that it should make us reconsider their futures. Some others came out of nowhere and played well enough to get the entire league’s attention. And a few other random stories caught our eye as well.

Let’s take a look:

The top rookies

One of the most encouraging developments from the summer league was how strong the top of the draft looked, even though a few players had to exit early due to unfortunate injuries. Portland’s Shaedon Sharpe didn’t even make it to halftime of the first game, and New Orleans’ Dyson Daniels and Detroit’s Jaden Ivey both had their summer leagues ended early by injuries. San Antonio’s Jeremy Sochan and Atlanta’s AJ Griffin didn’t play a minute.

But man, the top six picks were lights out, backing up their high lottery-pick status. Paolo Banchero, Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith Jr., Keegan Murray, Ivey and Bennedict Mathurin all showed enough to get their teams’ fans lathered up with excitement for the coming season, even if their respective clubs all are likely to take their lumps. All except Smith finished with PERs above 24 for the summer, and Smith made enough laugh-out-loud good defensive plays to more than offset whatever quibbles one might have about his offensive output.

Since nobody talked about him, though, can we chat about Mathurin? The Pacers wing was the sixth pick in the draft, and he was awesome in his three games in Vegas before being shut down with a sore toe. Mathurin averaged nearly a point per minute (19.4 per game in 22.4 minutes), only had two turnovers in three games, scored comfortably at all three levels and padded his résumé with a couple of emphatic poster dunks. His 31.8 PER was the best of any summer leaguer who played at least 60 minutes, and it wasn’t driven by crazy outlier shooting percentages either.

In addition to Mathurin, the other eye-popping summer rookie outside the top five picks was Detroit’s Jalen Duren. We’ll need to see more from him on the glass (a 10.0 rebound rate ain’t gonna cut it), but between blocking shots above the square, picking out teammates on passes out of the interior and running the lane for alley-oops, he looked every bit like a capable starting center.

First-rounders who struggled

Not every first-rounder was lights out, however. A few had struggles notable enough to perhaps raise concerns heading into the season:

Johnny Davis, Washington: Look, I was down on him heading into the draft, but I wasn’t this down on him. Davis played three games for the Wizards and never got going, shooting 8 of 27 and making a limited impact in the other box score categories. Washington had him mostly playing off the ball, which also was how he played at Wisconsin, but it was odd to see how uninvolved he was given the lottery pick investment in him. Overall, his 4.9 PER was the third-worst of any draftee in summer league, and the other two weren’t lottery picks.

The greater question resulting from his performance is the one of what his differentiating skill is at the pro level. He can jump and defend but he doesn’t have a point guard’s handle, is not a knockdown 3-point shooter and the midrangers he subsisted on in college are much tougher looks against NBA length. Perhaps his struggles in Vegas only end up as a mere blip, but perhaps it’s a sign of something more serious.

Jake LaRavia, Memphis: The consensus on draft night was that the Grizzlies reached on David Roddy with the 23rd pick but were more in line with most draft boards when they took LaRavia at No. 19. In Vegas, however, LaRavia struggled while Roddy thrived.

Across six summer-league games (the Grizzlies also played in Salt Lake City before coming to Vegas), LaRavia was inert offensively with just 29 points in 148 minutes. He had nine 2-point attempts and only drew two free-throw attempts and posted a pathetic 6.4 rebound rate. While his defensive activity was of less concern (15 “stocks” in six games), the Grizzlies will need him to be a more impactful offensive force … or he’s in danger of being passed by two other rookie fours (Roddy and undrafted two-way Kenneth Lofton Jr.) who fared better in Vegas.

Peyton Watson, Denver: We perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that except for a 19-point effort against Cleveland, Watson struggled. The Nuggets rookie hardly played at UCLA and was nabbed as a developmental pick at the end of the first round. He shot 3s willingly but not capably (2 of 17 in four games), only made 4 of 11 free-throw attempts and committed a whopping 15 turnovers. Watson’s 4.2 PER was the worst of any first-rounder and nearly the worst of any drafted player (see chart below).

Worst Summer League PER, Drafted Players

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Watson’s athleticism and defensive potential are the main things that got him drafted, and Denver’s player development machine has a strong track record. What the summer league showed is that the 19-year-old is starting from a low base offensively; the Nuggets’ development coaches have their work cut out for them.

Notable late picks

While many of the league’s second-round picks took their lumps (see chart above), a few exceptions stood out by making an immediate impact, raising hopes that their respective teams may have found a steal:

Jabari Walker, Portland: The 57th pick in the draft built on a strong combine showing with one of the most productive summer leagues of any rookie, helping the Blazers win the summer title and earning a full roster contract. The 6-9 power forward from Colorado made six of his 14 3-point attempts but sparkled on the glass with a 21.1 rebound rate. His 30.9 PER was nearly the best of all rookies with only his former Pac-12 rival Mathurin outpointing him.

JD Davison, Boston: An athletic guard who slipped to 53rd in the draft due to concerns about his shooting and reading the game, Davison proved readier than expected for the step up in competition. Some of this might be outlier shooting — he made 7 of 15 from 3 and 12 of 14 from the line, shocking anyone who saw him at Alabama — but he also dished out 41 assists in five games and left an impact across the box score. Despite Davison being a late pick, don’t be surprised if the Celtics sign him to a roster contract; having his rookie minimum on the books would offer seven-figure luxury-tax savings.

Second-year stars

For players in their second year, the expectation is that they’ll be able to come into the summer league and be among the best players … if they haven’t already graduated out of participating in the event in the first place. For a variety of reasons, it doesn’t always work out that way, but we had a few notable performances in Vegas from players who didn’t see much playing time in their rookie seasons:

Trey Murphy, New Orleans: The Pelicans shut him down after two games, but Murphy is closing in on the Pantheon of all-time-great summer leaguers. In six summer-league games across two seasons, he has a 30.7 PER with 67.7 percent true shooting. This time around, his two-game stint featured 53 points in 63 minutes with him leaving money on the table by missing some open 3s (he only made 4 of 15). I strongly suspect this was his last summer league.

Isaiah Jackson, Indiana: Several second-year bigs had encouraging summers. A big shout-out to Day’Ron Sharpe, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Santi Aldama, Neemias Queta and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, among others. Of those, however, I thought Jackson showed the most pop and translatability to real NBA basketball this winter. The Pacers shut him down after three games but not before he blocked 10 shots in 66 minutes, knocked down a 3-pointer and generally made everyone feel good about the idea of him being in the Pacers’ rotation next season.

Miles McBride, New York: While Quentin Grimes was more of a known quantity and a potential starter for the Knicks this coming season, McBride struggled to establish himself during his rookie year in New York. His summer-league breakout, teaming up with Grimes and Jericho Sims to lead New York to the title game, was thus more notable. After struggling to get separation as a rookie, McBride showed more shot-creation juice in Vegas, converting 18 of 28 shots inside the arc and adding a huge free-throw rate (making 18 of 19). His handsy defense (11 steals) was another positive.

The second-year pro from West Virginia still has his work cut out for him in a crowded Knicks backcourt and will need to show he can carry over his strong summer into the preseason (something he failed to do a year ago), but as a card-carrying McBride believer, I found this to be a very encouraging performance.

Isaiah Joe, Philadelphia: Joe is entering his third year, not his second, but it’s a similar concept: He hardly played in his first two regular seasons, and his career seemed to be hanging by a thread. But he put together a dominant effort in the Sixers’ two summer leagues. It stood in sharp contrast to the production from 2021 first-rounder Jaden Springer (side note: woof), another young guard he’s likely to compete with for minutes next season.

Joe’s game has always centered on launching 3s early and often, and that didn’t change in Vegas. In five summer games, he flung 38 triples and made 20 of them. What was notable was that he filled in enough other places on the box score to make a dominant impact overall, most notably by pilfering 13 steals. Still just 23 years old, the string-bean wing still faces an uphill battle for minutes (let alone just making the squad) on a crowded Philly roster that may still add more bodies, but rebuilding teams in “body-snatching” mode should have an eye on him.

Who dat?

Finally, the best part of any summer league is when players blast out from anonymity with eye-catching performances. A few undrafted and largely unknown players made themselves known these past two weeks. Regardless of whether it turns out to be 15 minutes of fame or the start of a 15-year career, we should acknowledge them. Keep an eye on these players in training camp and preseason:

Jack White, Denver: A forgettable bit player at Duke, Jack White showed he could do a lot more in his summer-league stint for the Nuggets and earned himself a two-way deal (much to the disappointment of several Australian teams, which were hoping to repatriate the Canberra native).

While Duke mostly had him roaming the perimeter for catch-and-shoot 3s, he played more as a traditional big in summer league — only four 3-point attempts in five games — and earned his (white) stripes with defense, rebounding (20.4 rebound rate) and finishing around the cup. While we’re here, keep an eye on another Nuggets summer-leaguer, Adonis Arms, who should be a strong two-way candidate for any team with an open spot.

Darius Days, San Antonio: Days signed a two-way with Miami just after summer league ended after a strong stint with the Spurs, with whom he showed himself capable of playing the role of a high-IQ, floor-spacing backup four. He needs to dial back on the fouling (14 in 66 minutes is a wee bit much even for summer league), but he posted one of the highest rebound rates at the competition (22.7) despite standing 6-7 and playing mostly below the rim and despite being away from the paint enough to launch a triple every four minutes.

Jeff Dowtin, Toronto: A 6-3 guard for Rhode Island who had cups of coffee with a few teams last season, Dowtin showed notable improvement. He went from a blah G-League player in 2020-21 to one of the G-League’s stars in 2021-22 and had a dominant four-game run for the Raptors in Vegas that should earn him a contract somewhere. Highlights included 17 assists against just two turnovers and 67.1 percent true shooting; the visual is that there is enough slippery quickness to offset the fact that he’s a bit caught between the two guard positions.
 
But also, you probably got 7 inches on that defender. Get into the post. Nah I'm just playing, that's nice. IDK how he'd pair with Chet and Poku though. That's like 22 feet of wingspan and under 600 lbs. Just play a zone and stand there with your hands up and touching each others in the center of the court
 
Once he puts on the weight he’ll get in the post. He just needs to be strong enough to establish position down there. Easy hook shot/drop step/fadeaway after
 
Its just a matter of when those legs snap on Wembanyama
Wayyyy too long to be moving like that crossing people up
Thats not sustainable
 
Why do ppl do this? :smh: ….Just enjoy his talent and wish yo the best, injuries happen but no need to try to predict it ahead of time like it’s guaranteed

Not only this....but when does **** like this actually happen?

When's the last time a guy's leg snapped because he was too tall and too long to be doing crossovers? :lol: Like what the **** do people be saying?
 
Not only this....but when does **** like this actually happen?

When's the last time a guy's leg snapped because he was too tall and too long to be doing crossovers? :lol: Like what the **** do people be saying?
Yea More likely to get hurt in the paint with somebody falling into or bumping legs

Predicting/wishing injuries always been weird to me
 
No reason whitehead couldn’t project to be a great 2nd option if not better

No OG slander either

Feel like whitehead has a high floor too
 
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