Category: NBA

The Cleveland Cavaliers traded out of the first round of this most recent draft, but still ended up with a player on the NBA Summer League First Team.

Cleveland’s second-round pick, Meleek Thomas, joined Cameron Boozer (Memphis Grizzlies), Brayden Burries (Milwaukee Bucks), Yaxel Lendeborg (Golden State Warriors) and Caleb Wilson (Chicago Bulls) on the NBA Summer League First Team. Thomas was the only player from that group who was selected outside of the lottery.

Thomas’s spot is well-deserved. He led Summer League in scoring with 27.3 points per game on an incredibly efficient .500/.438/1.000 shooting splits over four games. This included an impressive 35-point outing to defeat the Miami Heat on July 23.

Judging a rookie exclusively by how they perform in Summer League is foolish. The competition level and the role they will play in the NBA aren’t close to the same. Excelling in Las Vegas doesn’t necessarily mean they will do so in the league. At the same time, how poised Thomas was in this environment is encouraging.

Thomas showed that he has the skills to be an effective natural scorer. His fluidity, ability to create off the dribble, and lethal shot were on display in every game he played. Defenders weren’t able to stay in front of him. And when Thomas got to where he wanted on the court, he scored efficiently.

Thomas likely won’t be an on-ball scorer early in his NBA career, at least not if he’s sharing the floor with the likes of James Harden and Donovan Mitchell. Yet, the skills that made him such an elite scorer in Summer League (shooting, ability to attack closeouts, midrange shooting) can translate over to more off-ball roles, if he chooses to apply them in that way. We’ll get our first idea if they can during preseason.

It’s too early to declare that the Cavs got the steal of the draft. We’ll wait until after the season to see if a discussion like that is necessary. But as of now, the Cavs have to be happy with what they’ve seen from their most recent draft pick.

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The second-apron environment the NBA has operated in the last several years was designed to produce parity. Keeping contending cores together for multiple years is incredibly expensive and comes with numerous team-building downsides. The simplest way to combat this is by replenishing your rotation through the draft.

The Cleveland Cavaliers have taken swings over the last three years at finding players later in the first round or early in the second round that they could develop into rotation pieces.

Jaylon Tyson was selected in the second half of the first round in 2023. After not having a large role his rookie season, Tyson exploded onto the scene last year. He provided energy in the regular season for a team that desperately needed it with all of their injuries. This was coupled with a revamped three-point shot that allowed him to become a valuable offensive threat on and off the ball.

Last year, the Cavs took Tyrese Proctor in the second round and immediately signed him to a standard deal. While Proctor didn’t get much playing time his rookie season, the minutes he did get showed enough promise to make you believe he could be an impactful role player down the line.

Cleveland’s most recent selection, Meleek Thomas, showed tremendous promise during Summer League. He led all scorers in Las Vegas with 27.3 points per game. That, unsurprisingly, earned him a spot on the All-Summer League First Team.

All three of these selections have shown promise in different ways, but which one has the brightest future? Let us know what you think in the survey below, and tell us why in the comments.

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Wizards fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

In this week’s survey, grade how the Washington Wizards performed in NBA Summer League. We’ll share the results this weekend.

Bucks guard and 2026 Draft No. 10 overall pick Brayden Burries was named to the NBA’s Summer League First Team. Burries, who appeared in four Summer League games, averaged 23.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 4.3 assists on .500/.364/.667 shooting splits. He’s the first Bucks nominee to the Summer League First Team since Sandro Mamukelashvili, now a rotational big for the Lakers, in 2022.

Burries impressed throughout his time in Las Vegas. He looked like a bona fide future NBA star, getting to his spots effortlessly, converting an array of tough finishes around the rim, and creating for himself and for teammates. Burries has been the go-to three-level scorer his tape at Arizona suggested, and he also looked willing to do the dirty work: diving for loose balls and switching onto more physical defenders. He even scored a game-winner in the Bucks’ final Summer League game against Philadelphia, divebombing through a clustered defense and levitating in the air to finish at the rim.

“You can see it,” Bucks Summer League coach Patrick St. Andrews said about Burries, per HoopsRumors.com. “Two-way player. Obviously, the offense shot it really well, but the defense as well.

“And the cool part is he wants to get better. You can feel it. He’s asking, ‘I need more individual clips. I need more, especially on the defensive end.’ For a young guy to ask, that kind of stuff is impressive. Speaking up in the locker room, you can feel his maturity for his age, which is super impressive. And then obviously, you see the talent.”

After an impressive Summer League outing, Burries will attempt to insert himself into a guard rotation that will include Ryan Rollins, Tyler Herro, Kevin Porter Jr., Kasparas Jakucionis, and more. Starts might be hard to come by, but Burries certainly has proved that he’s deserving of real, meaningful minutes on this rebuilding Bucks squad.

Does Burries’ play change your stance on Rollins’ place with the Buck? Cast your vote below:

For the second consecutive year, the Gonzaga Bulldogs didn’t put anybody in the NBA draft. For a program that put seven guys into the NBA across the 2021 through 2024 drafts, back-to-back shutouts is an anomaly. But the draft is only the front door. 

Summer League is the NBA’s July proving ground: rookies, undrafted free agents, G League hopefuls, and fringe roster guys getting two weeks of live reps in front of all 30 front offices. It ran in two waves this year: tthe California Classic at Golden State’s Chase Center and Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center from July 3-6, then the main event in Las Vegas at UNLV the following week, where a Summer League champion was crowned on the 19th.

For an undrafted player, everything below the draft is a ladder. A standard contract is a real NBA roster spot. A two-way splits the season between the parent club and its G League affiliate, good for up to 50 NBA games. An Exhibit 10 is a training-camp flyer, a minimum-salary deal that can convert to a two-way or pay a bonus for affiliate time. And a Summer League invite is the bottom rung: a tryout, nothing promised. All five Zags landed somewhere on that ladder, and some made a very compelling case for why they shouldn’t have had to be there in the first place.

Graham Ike — Golden State Warriors

Graham went undrafted this year, but after a busy summer spent working out for about half the teams in the league, he ultimately signed an Exhibit 10 with the Golden State Warriors. Four weeks later he was a Summer League champion. Ike was Golden State’s most reliable big, starting all nine games across the California Classic and Vegas and averaging 9.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.8 assists while the Warriors ran the table to the Summer League title. The pre-draft book on him was that he was undersized and injury prone. Both of which are fair assessments for an organization potentially dumping millions into a player like Ike’s potential. He spent two weeks answering the only question that matters: can you help a team win? It was an emphatic “yes” from Graham. The Warriors went on to beat Memphis 94-90 in Sunday’s final, making Ike the second Gonzaga Summer League Champion and the first since Brandon Clarke walked away with the title (also with Memphis) in 2019.

His best night came a game earlier, in the semifinal against former teammate Anton Watson and the Lakers. Graham finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds on 6-of-10 shooting in a 92-88 win. He didn’t need the offense in the final (six points, nine boards, three assists, and a block), because by then he’d shown exactly what he is: a screen-setting, glass-cleaning big who makes winning plays without needing to touch the ball every time down the floor (a helpful asset when Yaxel Lendeborg is your frontcourt counterpart) Midway through Vegas, Ike owned one of the best box plus/minus marks of any rookie in the field. The Exhibit 10 gives Golden State the option to convert him to a two-way before the season, and the frontcourt fit is obvious. Nothing’s official yet, but of the five Zags in the desert, Ike made the strongest case, and left with the only trophy.

Jalen Warley — Indiana Pacers

Warley’s problem at Summer League is the same one that got him passed over in June: his best work doesn’t show up in a box score. The Pacers brought him to Vegas on an invite, no contract attached, and used him as a combo forward at the three and the four, the connective, defense-first role he filled at Gonzaga. He appeared in two of Indiana’s four games, averaging about three points and three rebounds in roughly 15 minutes a night, and closed scoreless on 0-for-4 in the Pelicans game, Indiana’s Summer League finale.

None of that is the full measure of Warley, and everyone involved knows it. In his lone Gonzaga season he put up 7.1 points, 4.8 rebounds, and a team-high 1.5 steals while shooting 56.6% from the field. He was the Gonzaga’s best perimeter defender and moonlighted as a small-ball five when the frontcourt got banged up. That’s a real NBA skill set; it just doesn’t pop in a July showcase built for scorers. This was a foot in the door with a well-run organization, not a launchpad for Warley, and the likeliest next stop for last year’s Swiss-army man is the G League.

Tyon Grant-Foster — San Antonio Spurs

Grant-Foster needed the NBA’s fitness-to-play panel to medically clear him before he could even sign, and once he did, he landed with the reigning Western Conference champions — where San Antonio’s depth left him boxed out. The Spurs ran four drafted rookies through Summer League — centers Jayden Quaintance (Kentucky) and Tarris Reed (UConn), guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie (Tennessee), and forward Maliq Brown (Duke). Tyon unfortunately spent both the California Classic and his time in Vegas behind them, earning spot minutes off the bench, nothing sustained.

He hit a fadeaway for a bucket against Golden State in the Classic and dropped in the occasional assist in Vegas, but never got a stretch long enough to build rhythm; one representative shift went 0-for-2 in five minutes. No stat line worth quoting, no roster claim staked. The Spurs didn’t hand him the runway, and there’s not much to read into an audition he barely got to take. Nothing’s signed yet. Most likely he lands in the G League with San Antonio’s Austin affiliate if the Spurs keep his rights, and at 26 with a shaky jumper, a standard or two-way deal is a long shot from here.

Ryan Nembhard: Dallas Mavericks → Atlanta Hawks

Nembhard was the one Zag in Vegas who didn’t need the audition. He arrived already made, a year removed from going undrafted and playing his way from a two-way onto a standard NBA contract midway through his rookie season, with Dallas picking up his team option for 2026-27. So Summer League was just a tune-up, and a brief one. He played two games, put up 8.0 points and 8.8 assists, then sat the Mavericks’ final three with an illness. Even in that brief window of floor time the passing was the story.

Then the offseason moved him anyway. On July 19, the same day the Vegas bracket wrapped, Dallas sent Nembhard to Atlanta in a three-team deal built around Lu Dort, with former No. 1 pick Zaccharie Risacher going back to the Mavericks and three second-round picks landing in Oklahoma City. A new Dallas front office and coaching staff simply had other plans. In Atlanta he reunites with former Zag Corey Kispert and fellow Canadians Dort and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and slots in as backcourt depth behind CJ McCollum and rookie Kingston Flemings (I want to say emphatically that I don’t believe there is a world in which Kingston Flemings is a better point guard than Ryan Nembhard). He walked into July with an NBA job and walked out of it with a different one. 

Atlanta just had its best season in years: 46-36, sixth in the East and first in the Southeast Division, and they broke through to the playoffs outright after four straight years stuck in the Play-In tournament. Ending up on Atlanta’s roster is no longer the “shipped to Siberia” fate it once was and it’ll be thrilling to watch two former Zags share a floor once again.

Anton Watson: Los Angeles Lakers

Watson’s third Summer League showed why the dude still deserves to be employed by the NBA. He opened the California Classic by tipping in a buzzer-beater to steal a double-overtime win over Miami, part of a 12-point, 10-rebound night, then carried that into a strong Vegas run. The Lakers went undefeated in group play and grabbed the top overall seed, and Watson’s fingerprints were all over it. In the opener he drew 7-foot-3 lottery pick Aday Mara, gave up seven inches, and held him to two points on 0-of-3. It was pretty hilarious watching Anton absolutely body the reigning NCAA champion. Against Chicago he chipped in eight points on 3-of-5 with four assists and one turnover. The connective, switchable defense that defined his Gonzaga career translated cleanly.

The run ended cold. In the semifinal against Graham Ike and the eventual-champion Warriors, Watson went 1-of-9 for two points in a 92-88 loss, and Los Angeles ran out of offense. One bad shooting night doesn’t erase the two weeks, but it’s the kind of quiet close that can keep a dude in the G-League for longer than he’d like to be. As for what’s next, the Lakers still hold his G League rights and he’s ticketed to rejoin their newly rebranded Coachella Valley affiliate. A strong training camp could nudge him toward a two-way, but another year in the G League is the likeliest outcome.

Final Thoughts

Five Zags, five different verdicts. Ike left the champion and the best bet for a real NBA deal. Watson did the quiet, useful things again and has a two-way within reach. Warley and Grant-Foster got the thinnest looks and are likely G League bound. Although none got drafted in June, the program still funnels pros into the league. 

And the drought should not last much longer. The 2026-27 roster is loaded with names already popping up on preseason draft watchlists, led by Arizona State transfer Massamba Diop, and followed closely by sophomore wing Davis Fogle. Isiah Harwell and Izan Almansa round out the group of hopefuls. After two straight quiet Junes for the Bulldogs, the draft drought will almost certainly be over by this time next year.

2019 is a year which will live in infamy for New York Knicks fan. That spring, despite having slogged to the league’s worst record, the Knicks were forsaken by the basketball gods, who blessed New Orleans and Memphis with lottery leaps while dropping New York to third. Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were long rumored to sign with them that summer. Instead of Zion, KD and Kyrie, the Knicks ended up with RJ Barrett, Julius Randle and Marcus Morris. Yet the building blocks for a title were in place: RJ, JR and IQ (via the Morris trade) landed the Knicks the second and first runners-up for 2026 Finals MVP, i.e. OG Anunoby and Karl-Anthony Towns.

2019 was a memorable year for the NBA. LeBron James left Cleveland after four straight Finals to take his talents to south California. The Warriors reached their fifth consecutive Finals, the first and only other team to do so since the 1960s Celtics. Kawhi Leonard made an audaciously aspirational series-winning buzzer-beater that bounced on the rim for nearly as long as the investigation into his links with Aspiration, eventually leading Toronto over Golden State to win the title. Do you remember what happened in Game 3 of those Finals?

Mark Stevens shoved Kyle Lowry after the Raptor dove into the first row to save a ball from going out of bounds. Lowry said Stevens also told him “Go fuck yourself” multiple times. Stevens, a Warriors minority owner who estimated his net worth at $10.5 billion last year, was suspended for a year and fined $500,000.

In Game 1 of this year’s Finals, a fan ran onto the court in San Antonio to try and take a selfie with Victor Wembanyama, making it all the way to the Spurs star before being dragged off by security.

He actually got all the way to the Spur star before being dragged off by security. No one was hurt (though someone could have been). The fan showed neither malice nor aggression. The fan was suspended from attending an NBA game for the rest of his life. So was a second fan, one who never set foot on the court. Stevens, who laid hands on a player and cursed him out, was suspended a year and fined $500,000, equivalent to fining someone who makes $100,000 a year five dollars.

But even immunity isn’t enough for the gilded rage. Impunity or GTFO — and the calls aren’t even coming from inside the house. After the attempted Wemby selfie, Yahoo Sports broadcasters Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz called for blood. Below is the transcript from their episode; the original doesn’t offer quotation marks, so I’m not sure between Fenton and Fitz who said what:

“We need to be calling him a dumbass, and we need to stop supporting this behavior entirely.
It took tragedy for us to have metal detectors.
They didn’t even have metal detectors in, in airports pre-9/11.
It’s gonna take one person running out onto the court that has a plastic shiv because he got it through the metal detectors because it’s plastic, that decides he wants to change the outcome of a series, and then we’re all gonna sit there and say, ‘How the hell did we let this happen?’
Why do we need to be reactive?
Let’s be proactive.
I don’t think that’s enough punishment.
I want mandatory prison sentencing.
Put him in a good old federal prison and let him explain what life is like for the next five years while he runs through federal prison for it.
I don’t think there’s a punishment that can be big enough because it takes one moron that has nefarious things on his mind, that has lost his cool, that goes out onto the court and changes everybody’s life forever.”

If likening a fan trying to take a selfie with a star athlete to an act of premeditated violence that killed thousands of people feels like a stretch, that’s ‘cuz it is. Ye old slippery slope fallacy, gone but never forgotten. Yet if a broken clock is right every now and then, it follows to reason that sometimes taking the wrong turn down the wrong road really is all it takes to end in tragedy. But which way is right, and which is wrong?

Six weeks ago, the morning of the Knicks’ championship parade, James Dolan claimed the White House had already reached out to the NBA champs. “We just did receive an invitation from the White House,” he told WFAN, “which we accepted. We still have to figure out the details.”

On Monday, Variety published an interview with Jalen Brunson. In it, Brunson says, “[Visiting the White House is] something that we actually haven’t discussed as a team. And so obviously people are making assumptions and saying everything, but together we haven’t discussed it yet, and so we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Whenever I write something that ties the Knicks in any way to the larger world, some readers thank me. Some are repulsed, even insulting. Sometimes I get death threats. Lotta “I read about sports to read about sports and only sports. Keep your commie nose outta my sports, missy” from dudes kicking back with their “non-woke” beer and getting half a chub-on from the national anthem, military members furling flags and weapons of mass destruction flying overhead. Wanna talk sports instead? Okay. Let’s.

Do you love Jose Alvarado?

Rhetorical question. Who doesn’t? The grand thefting; the clutch 3s; a level of shithousery that’d fit right in with Argentina’s men’s World Cup squad. It’s why we kept seeing features like this throughout the postseason and after. Hometown kid comes home, makes good, makes history. Not everybody *is* a Knick from day one. Anthony Mason was. Josh Hart. Ditto Alvarado.

Riddle me this, sports fans: whaddya think woulda happened during Games 3 and 4 of the Finals — or any Knicks playoff game at MSG — if someone in the crowd heckled Alvarado by yelling that, as a Puerto Rican, he descends from a people who comprise “a floating pile of garbage”? What if it happened within earshot of Dolan? Care to guess?

No need! Because Dolan has been clear about what kind of behavior results in ejection from the World’s Most Boastful Arena. Back in that magical 2019 season, a fan at a game against Sacramento yelled to Dolan that he should sell the team. No profanity. No ad hominem attack on millions of people. He didn’t call Dolan a floating pile of garbage. Just offered his opinion on a matter of business. Serious people do it all the time.

The emperor — resplendent in layers of security personnel — asked if the fan really thought so, and if he wished to be able to keep coming to MSG. The fan said he’d merely shared an opinion, to which Dolan answered, “No, it’s no an opinion. And you know what, enjoy watching them on TV.” Dolan had the fan detained by security, questioned by police, then kicked out of the arena and banned for life.

I lied before. When I said my question was rhetorical. It wasn’t. It’s very much along the lines of the Mark Stevens/Spurs fan juxtaposition.

Alvarado doesn’t “deserve” to be respected because he can help Dolan’s team win a title. He deserves respect as a human being. Just like every Puerto Rican who can’t dribble deserved better than what we got during the Republican National Convention. Better than the Black and Brown children Elon Musk has killed. Better than what our Haitian and Somali brothers and sisters endure, our non-binary loves and whoever else the Fourth Reich hates.

But in a world where to be heard requires one to be seen, even Alvarado isn’t visible enough to make waves. But there are a few players who do. Including the captain of the melting pot’s favorite basketball team.

What happens if Brunson and the Knicks decide they don’t want to be “honored” by a racist rapist? I imagine if they ask agents and financial reps and other wealthy people, they’ll be advised to go, or at least advised against not going. Is that “political”? Some people can’t read that the president hates Black and Brown people and rapes children and women without melting down in a molten puddle of weird fury. Boil away, babes.

Some readers think I write about the Knick owner too much. Confession: there are a list of names of Knick-adjacent characters I wish I didn’t have to type as often as I do here at P&T. One is “Carmelo”; to this day, nearly a decade since he last played here, it still prompts as much passion — and division — as it did then. “Arron Afflalo” is another; I’m a good speller, but my Achilles heel is with words with double-consonants. And I cringe every time I write “Enes Freedom.” Believe it or not, there is not and never has been a day I woke up and wished I got to write about Dolan.

But reality matters to me. More than the Knicks, if you can believe it. So it matters to me when a public figure has the clout and the opportunity to tell a billionaire, “No.” Our politicians won’t. Take it where you can get it, I say.

As high as Dolan may feel he’s riding after the Knicks finally won it all, he’ll still never approach the popularity Brunson has earned. Dolan’s not as popular as Mayor Mamdani. He never will be. I don’t know how much that matters to someone with enough money to literally build an alternate, insular reality that only contains the people and things you think matter. I don’t think Dolan leaves work at the end of the day and wishes more people who are poorer and less powerful than him liked him more. It’s not about him wanting love. It’s about him wanting more power, more authority. And someone needs to stand up and tell him and his ilk, “This isn’t yours.”

This story caught my attention because of the fascinating conflict it potentially could lead to. Dolan, we know, is used to playing with his toys when and where and how he likes, especially showing them off to the Rapist-In-Chief. He doesn’t care what Adam Silver says. Or Mamdani. Or anybody. When is the last time you can remember anyone Knick-related defying the owner in any kind of public way? About anything? And coming out on top?

And yet . . . what if Brunson doesn’t wanna go to the White House? What if half the team doesn’t? How might the owner react if his employees take advantage of the moment and their momentum and just say “no”? A word he and his pals Trump and Harvey Weinstein and Derrick Rose (yes, him too) claim not to understand?

Dolan has all of the (hard) power in this equation. But Brunson is literally closer to god-like status than any New Yorker since Derek Jeter. He has the power to defy Dolan. The Knick players have that power. Will they exercise it? Do they want to? Athletes are among the few people in position to publicly do so without being punished.

Or does the world move on, as always, and sometime this summer I’m hate-watching Hart and KAT laughing alongside the man who kills children in other lands, kidnaps those who live here and condemns all children to the worser world he’s created? I know what I think and I know what I hope. If Brunson and the Knicks refuse to co-sign Dolan’s latest forgery, I will love the New York Knicks 100 times more than after Game 5 in San Antonio.

It’s not always common for a Summer League team to be exciting. The Lakers have had some of the most exciting sides that have ever traveled to Las Vegas in early July, but they’ve also had some absolute clunkers.

Almost universally, though, fans found this Lakers team a pleasure to watch. After a dud of a debut in the California Classic, the Lakers won five straight games, including the first four in the Las Vegas Summer League.

They were the only team to go 4-0 in the regular season portion of Summer League and featured several standout players. Cameron Carr and Adou Thiero were impressive as the two draft picks on the roster. Chris Mañon proved why he was a two-way player and Arthur Kaluma played his way into a two-way deal after a huge 34-point showing.

Realistically, any of them could be picked for Summer League honors and it’d be a worthy inclusion. The NBA, though, took a different approach to recognizing one of the best teams this summer by….

[checks notes]

….giving them no awards?

All four of the aforementioned players averaged double figures, led by Kaluma’s 18.6 points per game, in Vegas. Kaluma also shot 60.9% from the field and 50% from range as well. If anything, his debate should have been between whether he was First Team or Second Team, not if he should be on a team at all.

This is a clear lack of respect for the Lakers and it will not stand. You may respond with the obvious question of “Who cares about the All-Summer League teams?” or “Can you even name who made the team any other year?” and I’d respond to all of those fair points by telling you it’s about the principle!

There’s no doubt this snub will loom large over the rest of the summer for the Lakers and motivate them heading into next season.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.

The Golden State Warriors took down the Los Angeles Lakers in the Summer League semi-finals. Now they’re opening another series of semi-meaningless exhibition games with another go-round with their Southern California rivals.

The Warriors open the preseason Oct. 6 at home with the Lakers. They’ll also welcome two other West Coast teams, the Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers, with the road schedule to be announced later.

It’ll be the second preseason game for the Lakers, who will visit the Kings at the Golden1 Center one night before they hit the Chase Center, like a mini-California Classic! The Lake Show will show off their new-look team, with LeBron James gone to the Heat/76ers/Cavaliers, or making the correct decision and teaming up with Steph Curry and 2027 Rookie of the Year Yaxel Lendeborg.

Now the Lakers will feature Walker Kessler, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, Matisse Thybulle, Jaden Hardy, first-rounder Cameron Carr, and old favorite Kevon Looney — and probably not Bronny James, since he’ll be joining his dad on the Dubs.

It’s an exciting way to start the preseason and the highest-profile preseason game the Warriors will play, no offense to Darius Acuff, Jr. and the Kings. They’ll also see Damian Lillard showing off his repaired Achilles tendon across the Bay from his hometown and some undisclosed other opponents who probably have a lot of Southwest Airlines flights from the Bay Area to their cities.

Get excited for 12-15 minutes of Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves! Preseason NBA action: It’s fan-tastic!

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Nets fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Nic Claxton is on his way out after holding the reins as the longest-tenured Net. More recently, Clax came out and thanked the fans/organization. Now that that’s out of the way, we’re looking forward to who’s on the roster now and what Egor Dëmin and Mikel Brown Jr. are working with.

Insert two-time All-Star… and good culture guy Julius Randle. Sean Marks made a pre-draft trade that sent out Nic Claxton and the No. 33 pick for Randle and the No. 28 pick, who became Joshua Jefferson.

With the dust settling, how would you grade the trade?

💬 Discussion

Share your thoughts and react, but please be respectful. NetsDaily prides itself on being a safe space for Nets and basketball fans alike to have healthy conversation. Reach out to Anthony Puccio or Net Income with any issues.

There is good news and bad news regarding the center position in Los Angeles.

The good news is the Lakers acquired their A-list center, trading for Walker Kessler. The bad news is they lost the rest of their frontcourt depth.

LA’s starter last year, Deandre Ayton, was traded to the Wizards. Backup big Jaxson Hayes signed with the Jazz. Maxi Kleber is unsigned and could play in Europe next year.

Kessler isn’t the only frontcourt player on the roster. LA signed Sandro Mamukelashvili and center Kevon Looney. Mamu can play the four or the five just fine, but Looney at this point is a very limited player.

If this lack of center depth is obvious to the rest of us, it’s also something the Lakers are aware of. And despite having a full roster at this moment, according to Dan Woike of The Athletic, the team remains interested in trading for a big.

The Lakers are still monitoring the market for big men, team sources told The Athletic. They traded for Walker Kessler and signed Kevon Looney to play center, and Mamukelashvili can play the position, too. The team could address the position either by trade or signing, like with potentially adding Thybulle. The roster is currently at full capacity.

During the regular season, teams can only have 15 players on standard deals. LA has 16 players on the roster after the Matisse Thybulle signing, so they’ll have to trim things down before the start of the year.

LA can still simply sign a center in free agency, but that would require moving multiple players before the start of the season. This is why a trade where the Lakers take one player and send multiple out is more likely.

Also, the best unrestricted center option at this point is someone like Bismack Biyombo, who is more of a veteran leader than an on-court producer. That’s not the kind of upgrade LA is looking for.

The good news is that LA is still trying to improve its center depth. This is exactly what they should be doing at this point in the offseason. They already spent a ton of money trading for Kessler, and they need to invest in his backup.

It’s taken many years, but the Lakers finally have an elite center. The last thing LA wants is awful options if Kessler has to miss some time.

You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.

In today’s Dub Hub:

• LeBron James’ free agency decision has “no timetable,” per ESPN’s Shams Charania.
• Former Warrior Klay Thompson leaves the door open for a potential return to Golden State.
• Yaxel Lendeborg named to NBA’s All-Summer League First Team.

With Summer League now in the rearview, the NBA’s attention has shifted back to free agency as the basketball world waits for LeBron James to announce his next team. The former Los Angeles Laker and four-time NBA champion has reportedly identified several preferred destinations, including the Golden State Warriors. However, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania, there is currently “no timetable” for James to make a decision.

James is certainly no stranger to turning his free agency into one of the league’s biggest storylines, dating back to The Decision, when he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat in 2010. Since then, each major move of his career has effectively put the rest of free agency on hold until he announced his decision—a testament to the league-altering impact a player of his magnitude can have, even at the age of 41.

Likewise, Warriors fans are all too familiar with prolonged offseason uncertainty. Last offseason, Jonathan Kuminga’s restricted free agency stretched all the way into training camp before finally reaching a resolution after Media Day.

Now, Dub Nation finds themselves playing the same waiting game, except this time, they’re waiting on one of the greatest players in NBA history.

For more on this and other news around the NBA, here is our latest news round-up for Tuesday, July 21st:

Warriors News:

Rich Paul: No rush on LeBron decision; teams have done enough | ESPN

“We’re not going to be rushed,” Paul said on the latest podcast episode of “Game Over” with Max Kellerman and Rich Paul, released Monday evening. “We’re not going to be rushed. It’s his choice to make and when he makes the choice, he’ll make it.”

Paul continued to say that teams have circled back with him to see if they should be more involved while James weighs his options and he told them there was no need.

“There’s been several people to call and say, ‘Hey, Rich, is there anything more we should be doing? We could be doing?'” Paul said. “And my answer is, ‘No. We don’t need you to go above and beyond about anything. We understand it. It’s clear. All the messages have been sent.'”

Klay Thompson hints at potential Warriors reunion with three-word statement | NBC Sports Bay Area

A large portion of Dub Nation wishes Klay Thompson still was on the Warriors.

That includes one fan who met the legendary sharpshooter at Fanatics Fest this week, telling him, “We miss you on the Warriors, buddy.”

In turn, Thompson didn’t rule out a potential reunion in Golden State.

“Thank you. I know,” Thompson replied in a video posted to TikTok by user @la_tinapr. “Never say never.”

Warriors Summer League head coach Khalid Robinson on winning the championship: ’It was just an amazing experience’

NBA News:

Lakers agree to 1-year deal with veteran forward Matisse Thybulle: Source | The Athletic

The Los Angeles Lakers have added wing Matisse Thybulle on a one-year, veteran minimum contract, a team source confirmed to The Athletic, giving them a point-of-attack defender they desperately needed on what could be a high-value deal. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity because the deal is not yet official.

NBA reveals 2026 NBA All-Summer League First Team

In case you missed it at Golden State of Mind:

How would Warriors fans feel about adding LeBron James

As James allows his free agency saga to continue deeper and deeper into the offseason, in his quintessential melodramatic fashion, fanbases around the league are dealing with a Schrödinger’s roster, one with and without James at once. A recent poll of Dub Nation from SB Nation Reacts asked Warriors fans how they would feel about signing James, given the team’s prolonged rivalry with the former Cavs, Heat, and Lakers star.

Follow @unstoppablebaby on X for all the latest news on the Golden State Warriors.

You got the feeling when news broke that the Knicks were signing Mavericks rookie center Moussa Cisse to a two-year offer sheet that it wasn’t really going to go anywhere.

As much as we had 10 hours of coping and looking for a reason Masai Ujiri and company would let him go, he was basically their version of Mo Diawara. Would we have let Diawara walk for that? Probably not.

So when Dallas matched it with extreme quickness on Saturday night, it wasn’t too surprising that the Knicks’ quest to fill out their roster and get a third center on the depth chart before the season begins in approximately three months would go on.

For a refresher on where the cap situation is, check here. It’s pretty vanilla, though.

The Knicks have space to sign one more player to a standard contract, regardless if it’s a veteran or a cheaper internal option. The only difference between the two would be how early the team would be able to sign a 15th player.

If the Knicks signed Tyler Nickel to a standard deal at the second-round exception value of $1.36 million, they’d be able to sign a 15th player as early as Thanksgiving, while if they signed a player to a veteran minimum, it would move the window into February right around when the buyout market starts to heat up.

They have some choices, but the remainder of the offseason firmly falls into two categories:

• Filling the final roster spot
• Figuring out the two-way contracts

Objectively, the right decision is to look for a center to fill the final roster spot because of the team’s current lack of insurance behind Karl-Anthony Towns and Andre Drummond. There’s no Precious Achiuwa type who can play it in a pinch. Your emergency center is OG Anunoby.

Who’s available to fill that role? Well, assuming Leon Rose can’t get the Hornets or Pelicans to budge on Moussa Diabate or Yves Missi, here are the top free agent center options (excluding Jalen Duren, obviously):

• Nick Richards (2025-26: Bulls)
• Xavier Tillman (2025-26: Hornets)
• Drew Eubanks (2025-26: Kings)
• Tony Bradley (2025-26: Hawks)
• Jeremy Sochan (this is a major stretch to call him a center)

Woof.

Richards and Tillman are the only ones you’d even entertain. The former seems more likely, as he’s been linked to the Knicks a bajillion times as emergency center depth over the years. A longtime Hornet who appeared to be on the verge of a breakout in 2024, he was traded to the Suns for three second-round picks and regressed big time.

Never a diverse offensive big, it’s pretty drastic when a guy like him goes from shooting 64% from the field and 74% from the free-throw line to whatever the hell he did last year. In 48 games with the Suns and Bulls, his efficiency cratered. He tried to shoot some threes after being banished to the Bulls’ tankfest but that didn’t go well either.

As underwhelming as the 28-year-old is, and how the team probably doesn’t want another shoddy finisher after adding Drummond’s notoriously bad touch around the rim, he’s two years removed from being pretty promising. As a third center who would spend much of the season (hopefully) on the bench, you could do worse.

Tillman is the other one that you wonder about. He spent a year and a half in Boston as a reserve big, but made big plays when called upon.

The most we’ve seen from him in the NBA is with the Grizzlies for a few years as a spot starter, where he did okay as an undersized big. The biggest problem with him is just that he’s a center in a power forward’s body who struggles to do much outside the paint and is also ghastly from the foul line. He’d firmly behind Richards to me, but ahead of the other options.

One more thing on the center chase: if we want to be petty, go after this guy the Mavericks really like but don’t have a lot of room for after matching Cisse’s contract. He’s older, but he can fly.

The last bit of business they’ll have to figure out is the two-way math. Last year, the team carried Kevin McCullar Jr., Trey Jemison III, and Tosan Evbuomwan into the season, but swapped Evbuomwan for NBA champion Dillon Jones midseason.

Jones has stayed around the organization during Summer League, so it wouldn’t surprise me if he stayed on a two-way after being a big locker room piece. Tyler Nickel will probably start on a two-way, and if Jack Kayil stays in America, he’ll also go on one.

But the Knicks should want to keep Jemison and McCullar around. It’s been total radio silence for both of them this offseason, but you can do a lot worse than having them on two-way deals.

The Knicks are able to bring as many as 21 guys into training camp without damaging their second apron space, so it wouldn’t surprise me if we see Nickel, Jemison, McCullar, Jones, and another guy or two in camp to compete for those spots. Did Liam Robbins do enough in Summer League to get a tryout?

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the NCAA. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Suns fans and fans across the country. Sign up here to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.

Now that Summer League has come and gone, it’s time to zoom out and look at the bigger picture for the Phoenix Suns. The sights, sounds, and lights of Vegas are fading, and although we have three months until basketball matters again, it behooves us to enter our analytical minds and play out scenarios. Because that is what the summer is for, right?

At this point, the roster is essentially set. Phoenix has all 15 standard roster spots filled, along with its three two-way contracts, leaving very little mystery surrounding what this team will look like entering next season. Sure, there’s always a chance a trade materializes before training camp, but at this stage, that feels highly unlikely. The Suns appear to be who they’re going to be.

There is one important caveat, though. It won’t impact this season’s roster, but it could shape the franchise for years to come.

Both Miles Bridges and Dillon Brooks are eligible for contract extensions. The questions now become whether either player receives one, how much those extensions would be worth, and how long the organization is willing to commit.

When evaluating a potential Miles Bridges extension, the timeline matters because of when the Suns acquired him. If Phoenix chooses to extend Bridges before January 13, the maximum extension it can offer is three years. If the organization waits until after January 13, it becomes eligible to offer four years or more. That timing creates two very different paths for the front office to consider.

We’ve already explored what each of those extension structures could look like. If the Suns opted to go the four-year route, that would put Miles Bridges as the only player currently on the books for the 2030-31 season. The maximum the contract would be for is $143.2 million, or an annual average value of $35.8 million.

The question now isn’t what the contracts could be. It’s which path the Suns believe provides the most value, both for Bridges and for the organization’s long-term flexibility.

As for Dillon Brooks, the Suns can offer him a 4-year extension worth approximately $125 million. That’s the maximum. Do they opt to do that? Or do they offer a three-year extension?

While Brooks unquestionably helped change the culture in Phoenix, you have to wonder what that contract would look like by its final season in 2030–31. Will he still provide enough value to justify that level of investment? That’s the question the front office has to answer before committing to a deal of that length.

That’s what we’ll be exploring in this week’s Suns Reacts poll. Should the Suns extend one of these players? Both of them? Or neither?

The Hawks have been rather busy as free agency seems to wind down in the post-summer league part of the NBA calendar.

In their latest move, the Hawks add a player with three years of NBA experience to their roster on a two-way contract. Michael Scotto of HoopsHype broke the news:

Wilson is a 6-foot-8 stretch power forward who spent his first three seasons with the Brooklyn Nets. In 176 career NBA appearances, he has averaged 7.6 points per game while shooting 40% from the field and 34% from three.

He will join RayJ Dennis and Keshon Gilbert as the Hawks two-way players once the move is officially announced.