Lessons for Fans Attending Summer League

eleven PM. So you're talking, I mean twenty hours of basketball day. If you see it all like on TV and in person, I mean, it's just impossible to keep up with. You're trying to strategically choose what games you go to based on what executives are going to be there, what stars are probably going to be there, and of

course what rookies are still playing in it. You're strategically making sure that the first round, early first round picks, you got to watch them early because they're probably not going to play after the second game, which is exactly what happened with Paolo, which is what happened to Chet after the third game, which is what happened to Jay n Ivy after the first game, Shade and Sharp after the first game. So you really want to front load the early rookies and watching them wall to wall hoops.

I heard a lot of NBA TV commentators say that the Summer League was the plevalent of summer vacation for the league, and I think that's sort of true. Everyone who's anyone shows up in the NBA space, anyone that you would want to see besides Luca, because I don't know what he's doing. He wasn't there. I think he was with Shack. I saw a video with him. I saw a video with Luca and Shack at a DJ club, DJ Shack that was I thought that was in Vegas, but I don't think that it was. It's very informal,

but it's changed a lot. All the rookies are on the floor trying to make a name for themselves. Guys are switching teams midway through the summer league so that they can go from my man Mac McClung, who at one point I thought was Matt McClung. Nope, Mac mac daddy. He switched teams from the Lakers to the Golden State Warriors midway through the Summer League. He was like, you know what, I already know what team I want to align with, and it's not LA. He's gonna mess around

and probably be a rotation player. He really balled out from Summer League. So you see that a lot. We have plenty of time to break down the rookies and sophomores, but now I just kind of want to like talk a little bit about Summer League and the experience itself if you haven't been there. So it was created in a long ass time ago from a guy named Warren

le Gary and his partner Albert Hall. They went to David Stern and asked if they could create essentially a rookie camp for guys to showcase their talents, for guys to get picked up on two way deals. And after some conversations, they allowed Warren to do that. It was never televised, It was never something that was a fan spectacular. It was a way in a sense to extend the combine atmosphere and get gms and coaches and players all in our room. The players would come to support their

teammates and it was like a convention. It was like inside the NBA convention. And it was the second event as media I had ever been to. In twenty twelve, Damian Lillard's first year, Damian Lillard won Summer League MVP that year. He was electric. So from then on, it slowly but surely started to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So I went in twenty twelve. There was no almost no fans at all. You could go up to gms and they were just sitting in the bleachers by themselves,

no one anywhere close. You're like, oh, yeah, is that a is that pat Riley? No, Just go up sit next to him, watch some hoops, Say hi, no problem, you could see Doc Rivers at the Starbucks. Hey, what's up, big fan? Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Now there's it's like kind of a scene. You have to

go through the NBA in order to get credentials. It's sixty dollars a day if you're a fan to go, which if you want to go for the whole time, it's like almost seven hundred dollars to go, which is kind of bananalantomy and also maybe not even expensive enough considering how fucking packed it was. I have all kinds of ideas on how to fix it. I think every one of those ideas people would say as elitist, so

I'm not gonna say them out loud. But it includes limiting fans, and it includes limiting where they can go and win. Uh, because it's meant for us, right, it's meant for media. I'm very happy that it's televised, that you can see it on TV. But you don't need to be that close to Palo Ban, Carol, you don't like you just see them see him in Orlando on a random Tuesday in January. This is this is like the combine we're trying to get business done here. Uh,

every single game now is televised, every single one. They have some games on NBA TV and the other half games on ESPN. The games, I think the games in the big gym are on ESPN, the small games are on NBA TV, or maybe they rotated in and out, but it is now wild. It's to the point where that you've got to security telling where you can it's telling you where you can sit and where you can stand.

You've got it's just a scene and something that I feel like is only going to get bigger and bigger, and I think now that it's huge, there needs to be a second event. There's also these little gyms off to the side that nobody even knows about. Secret practice is going on. John Morant, Jim Usher, Raymond and his son hooping it up, Carmelo Anthony and his son hooping it up. P Diddy, just random celebrities coming through to this gym called Impact, which even I myself cannot get

an invite to. So that's the next step is to get inside Impact, give you guys the full experience there, maybe take some videos, but that's happening every day. In addition, also on top of Summer League. There's a thing called Sports Business Classroom where young people and old people are like are coming to learn about the business of the NBA. They learn from scouts, they learned from gms, they learn from other talent evaluators and coaches. Basically the business of basketball.

How do trades get done, what's up with the CBA, how do salary caps work? What are the rules of the NBA, how do you scout players? How do you build a franchise off of the lolo price of I think ten g's And you come away with interesting contacts. They give you your meals, they put you up, you know how that whole thing is. That's how I got in the business. I paid to be in the camp for the Adida's Nations. I think I paid like two thousand dollars for three days, which was wild that I

did not have. And I came away with a little mixtape that I could give people to see what I look like sort of on camera. So that's happening. They also have coaches clinics that are going on almost like sloan business, where it's like changing technology in the NBA, almost trying to find ways to extend careers of NBA players.

I have a friend who's a sleep doctor who gives talks on is see paps and surgeries that athletes have on their body in order to extend their careers, increase their ability to lift more all the stamina stuff that

goes on inside. You know, games of an eighty two game season, so a lot of extracurricular activities that are business and then obviously there's a lot of extracurricular activities that are going on with playtime as well, a lot of people going out, a lot of people hitting the clubs, a lot of people ending up going to these long, fancy dinners at pretty much every restaurant under the sun in Vegas that you can find and experience. Definitely something

that I recommend. But if you're a fan, I would recommend you go for like the first two three days and then leave. Just go. Just don't stay. It's not worth it. There's no one there for you to see. There's no players playing in it that you know that you've ever heard of. By like day eight, you're talking about guys I need to look up on the internet. I've never heard of him. It's like him and Sharif O'Neil and Mac McClung and like Namias Keita and Namias

Keda is actually gonna be maybe be a star. But we'll talk about that another time. So that's my advice. Go first three days, go like Wednesday through Saturday and leave. Also, never seen Starbucks prices like that in my life. Iced tea, iced tea and a kind bar sixteen bucks. I said, what I did you ring me up wrong? Did you? I didn't get ten kind bars. I was like Jesus Christ, I spent money on things I didn't even know cost that much. It was like one hundred percent increase and

they're like, oh, it's only a ten percent increase. I was like, no, I don't think it's sixteen bucks for a nice tea and a caim bar at the Starbucks. But you do run into legends there. I ran into Baron Davis at the Starbucks. I ran into Kevin Porter Junior. He's a bucket. He's a bucket. He's a bucket, very sweet, soft energy. He gives off. In real life, Floyd Mayweather, we got to see Floyd Money Mayweather. So the celebrity sighting's got to meet wal A my hero gave me

a big hug. So the celebrity sidings are definitely something that happened in the front end. Those are my overall impressions of Summer League in terms of the sites and sounds. Maybe next year I can convince MGM to bring my producer Brock with me and we can get some shit done. That's my next plan, so we can get some video for you. Big interviews coming, definitely make sure to stick around for those. This is the off season, so the schedule will be more phrenetic and erratic. That is all

the time that we have for the heat Check. We will be back Monday, I think, with a new episode to recap what's popping. Follow us, subscribe, download, tell your friends, review on Spotify, review on the podcast of Apple. I've got some haters in my apples podcast, and if you're from Philly, don't review and follow us on social at this heat check and at Tristan Crick