5 Reasons to Look Forward to Summer League

Five reasons to get excited for Summer League play.

It seems like ages ago, but before Steve Kerr became the winningest rookie coach in NBA history, he got his hands dirty in his first-ever head coaching experience with the Warriors in last year’s Las Vegas Summer League. Now, while Kerr and the Summer League Dubs didn’t exactly experience the same kind of success as they did in the regular and postseasons – a seemingly impossible task - Golden State’s time in Vegas laid the groundwork for the endless sequence of achievements that would occur within the following calendar year. And with the conclusion of the NBA Draft last week and the commencement of free agency yesterday, it’s time to do it all over again.

The Warriors will once again be competing in the Las Vegas Summer League, and for the third consecutive year, it will follow a hybrid-tournament format. Teams will compete in three preliminary round games from July 10-14 before being seeded in a tournament that starts on July 15 and concludes with the Championship Game on July 20. The 24-team field at LVSL is composed of 14 playoff teams from last season, nine lottery teams and one NBA Development League Select Team, with each team guaranteed to play at least five games. Fans will be able to watch games live on NBA.com and via the NBA Game Time App.

Golden State will open up Summer League play on Friday, July 10 in a rematch of the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers. In case that doesn’t spark your interest, here are five more reasons to get you excited for Summer League play:

The Warriors snagged Kevon Looney out of UCLA with the 30th pick in the NBA Draft, and so naturally he is perhaps the most intriguing name on the Warriors’ Summer League roster. Only 19 years old, this will be our first chance to see Looney go up against NBA talent on a daily basis, and it sure will be interesting to see what he can do. Looney is a versatile power forward who has the ability to score inside, but also handle and push the break. As you might expect, Summer League play tends to be a little more free-flowing than the increasingly grind-it-out style of the regular season on into the playoffs, which would seem to be a good fit for Looney and may give him a chance to thrive. It’ll be important to keep in mind that again, he’s still only 19 and not yet a finished product, but as arguably the Warriors’ most promising first round pick since Harrison Barnes, all eyes will be on Looney and for good reason.

Summer League will be our first chance to see Looney in a Warriors uniform, but that won’t be the case with several other names that Dubs fans should be more than familiar with by now. Current Golden State Warriors James Michael McAdoo and Ognjen Kuzmic are on the Dubs’ Summer League roster, and after winning both an NBA and D-League Championship this past season, they’ll be looking to make it a perfect 3-for-3 by adding a Summer League Championship to their resume. Both of those guys spent plenty of time in Santa Cruz last season, where they played alongside two more members of the Warriors’ Summer League roster in Aaron Craft and Dominique Sutton. Craft, the reigning D-League Defensive Player of the Year, is a premier and relentless defender at the point guard position who played a prominent role for Kerr on last season’s Summer League team. Sutton, 29, is by far the eldest member of the Warriors’ Summer League roster, but he’s a dynamic wing player who’s excelled at the D-League level for the past few seasons. It’s highly likely that all or most of these familiar faces form the vast majority of the Dubs’ starting lineup, and it will be interesting to see how their respective games have developed over the last year.

And just in case the ties to Santa Cruz weren’t enough to familiarize you with the members of the Warriors’ Summer League roster, there’s a few local connections as well that Bay Area residents may recognize. Chasson Randle and Stefan Nastic of Stanford University, and David Kravish of Cal have joined Golden State’s Summer League roster after going undrafted last week. Randle, a point guard and two-time All-Pac-12 First Team selection in four years at Stanford, finished with 2,375 points and became the school's all-time leading scorer. Nastic, a center and fellow Cardinal, averaged 13.4 points and 6.5 rebounds while reaching double figures in all but six games last year. Kravish, meanwhile, shouldered most of the offensive load in the Bears’ frontcourt last season, and possesses solid rebounding skills and an above-average jumper at the power forward position. Considering the depth of the NBA roster, it’s unlikely any of these local connections will make the immediate jump from undrafted to the NBA, but if they perform well in Summer League, they certainly could go the route of McAdoo and find themselves as members of the Santa Cruz Warriors this coming fall.

While the Warriors have their own group of Summer League youngsters to be excited about, the same goes for the vast majority of other teams participating in Las Vegas. Almost all of the most recent draft picks will be active on their respective team rosters, and this will be our first chance to see the newest generation of NBA players go at each other in an actual game. No matchup is more anticipated than the second game of LVSL when Karl Anthony-Towns and DeAngelo Russell, the first and second overall picks of last week’s NBA Draft, face off in a battle between the Timberwolves and Lakers. Eight of the last 10 NBA Rookies of the Year have played in the Las Vegas Summer League, and considering the talent of this summer’s crop, it should come as no surprise if that trend continues.

The Warriors, specifically, have had their fair share of Summer League success stories in recent seasons, and history tells us that someone unexpected is going to make a name for themselves with their play in Vegas. For instance, two seasons ago, Ian Clark put on several incendiary shooting displays for the Warriors’ Summer League team, and was immediately signed to a two-year NBA contract by the Utah Jazz following its conclusion. Just last season, Justin Holiday put his name on the map with consistent offensive barrages that ultimately earned him a spot in Santa Cruz, and eventually, in Golden State with the big club. And, if we want to take it back further, players such as Jeremy Lin, Anthony Morrow and Reggie Williams all capitalized on their time with the Warriors’ Summer League team to carve out successful NBA careers. We don’t know who the diamond in the rough will be; we only know that there will be one, at least. Whoever that player turns out to be will have a great shot at sticking with the organization, or perhaps earning an NBA contract with another franchise. In any case, if we’ve learned anything over the years when it comes to the Warriors and Summer League, it’s to expect the unexpected.