The Grizzlies and Heat met in the Summer League Final after achieving perfect records in Vegas and the Heat were crowned champs after a hard-fought 120-118 overtime victory.

Summer League creates an opportunity to enjoy basketball for a couple of weeks if you’re a fanatic, but it is always worth saying that we can’t lean too heavily into everything we see. Some players already have their NBA deals and are just trying to show improvements or experiment with new things in a bid to gain minutes in the future. There are guys desperate to show something to earn a contract, whether that’s in the NBA or overseas. Some players already have a secure role and are being put in uncomfortable positions in an attempt to grow their game, like the Kings throwing Keon Ellis out there to get a bunch of on-ball reps. The overall result can be some sloppy basketball, and that is further enhanced by the fact that many of these teams are thrown together in the weeks leading to Summer League. So inefficiency and high turnovers are a norm and that can also inflate players’ steals and blocks – so keep that in mind whenever I quote those numbers. Not to mention the foul rates with guys playing hard, but sometimes not-so-smart basketball and the rules give them 10 fouls so they don’t have to worry about it. It is also a small sample size and some of these guys may not have played competitive basketball for months.

We should examine the general execution (better shot mechanics? looking more comfortable with on-ball reads?) and look for players doing what they should do. Did player X run the pick-and-roll well but just didn’t have the avenues to capitalize on it because of the team around him? Did the third-year player show the physical dominance and maturity (not being sped up, reading advantages/disadvantages quickly, and so on) that they should with multiple years of being in the NBA environment? Even some of that can be flawed, since again, team context can make it difficult to truly comment on every aspect of play. It also isn’t possible to have seen every second of every play in Summer League, so stats do come into play, but if a multi-year NBA player averages 7.5 PPG on sub-30% shooting it feels like a safe guess that they weren’t doing many of the things mentioned above, or were overtasked in their role depending on the context.

These are basic takeaways, but it should hopefully still provide some fruitful thought.

I won’t go through every rookie or every older/returning player because repeating known things about every player would just make this a cumbersome read, but I will give a few short mentions to some guys who affirmed their previous outlooks. If I say one of the rookies needs to improve their shooting for example, that is derived from their past reputation before entering the NBA, not just the small Summer League sample.

Official Summer League Awards

Summer League MVP: Jalen Wilson (Nets)

All-Summer League First Team:

Reed Sheppard (Rockets)
Scotty Pippen Jr. (Grizzlies)
Jordan Miller (Clippers)
GG Jackson II (Grizzlies)
Kel’el Ware (Heat)

All-Summer League Second Team: 

Bub Carrington (Wizards)
Jaime Jaquez Jr. (Heat)
Jarace Walker (Pacers)
Jalen Wilson (Nets)
Donovan Clingan (Blazers)

Summer League FInal MVP: Josh Christopher (Heat)

Now for the good stuff.

Rookies

Alex Sarr averaged just 5.5 PPG on 19.1% from the field but 7.8 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.5 blocks per game are encouraging. The offense was horrendous, but Sarr was a tad overtasked, taking the type of shots you’d see from top NBA wing scorers or just being forced into bad situations by teammates. He should hopefully do more “big man” stuff with the real Wizards team, but the passing flashes were an unexpected plus in addition to improved rebounding in his final two games (20 in total) as his coaches apparently asked him to emphasize it. He may be eased in off the bench behind Jonas Valanciunas and Kyle Kuzma at PF/C, and while a 0-of-15 game is poor you’d hope it inspires some extra work and that better players (even on a chaotic Wizards team) help him to get better looks. Don’t overreact here.

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