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LAS VEGAS — The lights are bright, the stars are both on and off the court, and there are games being played by NBA players in both college- and high school-sized arenas. There’s nothing like the NBA Summer League. From seeing Buffalo Bills wide receiver Keon Coleman, walking past star NBA broadcasters Mark Jones and Michael Grady, to casually striking up conversations with DeMarcus Cousins and Jeff Van Gundy, it’s not only a spectacle but also a hodgepodge of some of the most important people in the hoops and media worlds.

Coming into the event, I didn’t know what to expect except for one thing: a lot of networking opportunities. With the games being of minimal consequence compared with regular-season and playoff games, and with all 30 teams playing, most reporters, agents, and members of NBA organizations view Summer League as an opportunity to grow their personal networks and build on already established relationships.

In my first two months since graduating from college, I’ve found that searching for full-time media positions is no fun, let alone easy, and the best way to do it is by building relationships with people, something I’ve been doing since I was a freshman at Syracuse University. I was excited and prepared for the chance to meet so many people I could learn from as I looked for ways to navigate an industry with no linear path.

In a career as competitive as sports media that continues to shrink by the day, connections are everything. In Vegas, I was told by an NBA executive who worked in media for nearly 20 years that if you want a chance to make it, you need to work hard, outlast people, and, most importantly, be someone people want to work with. In most industries, doing those three things would guarantee success, but not in media.

You have to get your name out there. ESPN NBA Insider Shams Charania hasn’t gotten the top scoops for years just because he’s a great writer and broadcaster; it’s because of the relationships he’s built, and the NBA Summer League is the perfect place to make more of them.

No matter who you are, people will most likely talk to you for at least a few minutes if you’re aware of the time and place. You can make an impression on anyone you meet.

Knowing the value proposition of going to Summer League when I had Southwest points and time at my disposal, I did not take this opportunity lightly. At the NBA Summer League, the games come second; meeting and building relationships with people come first. I didn’t just spend time dissecting Koby Brea’s three-point percentage or analyzing Khaman Maluach’s ability to be a force in the paint; I spent hours dissecting who the people were that I wanted to talk to at Summer League in preparation for making my interactions memorable. I even made a plan for how I wanted to introduce myself and the specific questions I wanted to ask certain people.

Sorry about the bad handwriting.

I tried to make every interaction I could have with people as intentional and specific as possible. A lot of people want to talk to a lot of people, especially NBA reporters.

Here’s a question I wanted to ask NBA Insider Chris Haynes that I thought could be really helpful for a young journalist to know. It ended up paying off, as he said I had an “unforgettable first impression.”

To have not only productive but also memorable brief conversations that can turn into relationships, you need to demonstrate to people that you know who you’re talking to and that you want to actually get to know them, not just get something out of them. This becomes especially important when you are starting your career and are not established in the industry.

Along with building new relationships, fortifying older ones is just as important. Getting to see people in person whom you’ve only spoken to on Zoom or FaceTime is a signal that you are eager to build on the connections you’ve made when you weren’t able to see them in person. The impression of approaching people and finally connecting with them after only meeting virtually is especially important and impactful when you are young, just getting started in the sports media industry, or both.

Getting in contact with, let alone making an impact on, executives, agents, or reporters who cover the NBA year-round is already a hard enough task, and being physically around the people who help tell the stories of the game can make you more memorable.

It’s one of the only times on the NBA calendar that the most important people for reporters to interact with aren’t the players. It may be the beginning of many relationships with players, but there isn’t another time when as many executives, agents, and other reporters are within the same mile radius.

While it may seem counterintuitive, you become a better writer by listening. You learn more stories when you introduce yourself to more people, and your coverage gets richer the more perspectives you have. At NBA Summer League, your next byline can improve by talking to other people who publish bylines, not just the athletes who play on the hardwood.

That’s the hidden value of Summer League. The games will end, the box scores will be forgotten, and the next NBA season will take over. But the conversations, relationships, and lessons learned away from the court can have a lasting impact. For someone trying to break into this industry, the biggest opportunities aren’t always found by watching the action. Sometimes, they come from being eager and willing to show up and listen.

I consider myself something of a modern day basketball historian. With the rise of the internet and misinformation, it’s easy for people to get caught up in the hoopla of social media and miss parallels to the past that teach us so much about basketball and life.

That’s what got me thinking about the San Antonio Spurs’ shocking NBA Finals run and their stunning collapse to the New York Knicks.

San Antonio had the Knicks on the ropes in Game 4. Twenty-nine points up. First quarters won by a combined 57 points across the series. Wembanyama blocking shots like he was swatting flies off a porch. And then it slipped, the way these things always slip when a team hasn’t lived through the moment enough times to trust it.

Final result, five games, Knicks banner number four hanging in the Garden by fall. Jalen Brunson walking off with Finals MVP and a stat line that read like a man who’d been rehearsing this exact night since he was a kid shooting in his driveway.The Spurs went home with proof they belong, proof the timeline is real, and, if history is any kind of teacher, proof of how easy it is to waste both.

We’ve seen this movie before. Go back to 2012, a Thunder team built on a rookie scale contract and a prayer, Kevin Durant still growing into his frame, James Harden just getting his beard activated, and Russell Westbrook playing like his hair was on fire. Nobody had that team penciled in for a Finals, and they went anyway, right through the Lakers and the Spurs and the Mavericks.

That’s the part San Antonio just lived. Wembanyama is 22. Stephon Castle is 21. De’Aaron Fox barely got there and is still learning how his game fits inside a team that wasn’t built with him in mind yet. This is a group that shot out of the West at 4-3 over Oklahoma City and took the eventual champion to five games.

Flashback to how Miami unraveled the Thunder. The Heat had LeBron in his prime, Wade still Wade, a roster that had already been humbled once and come back meaner for it. The end result: Heat in five.The lesson OKC took from that series wasn’t written down anywhere, but it should have been tattooed on the locker room wall: young talent might you to the door once. It does not automatically walk you through it again next year, or the year after that, or ever.

That’s exactly where the Spurs are standing right now, whether anyone in that building wants to admit it. San Antonio now knows what it feels like to blow a 29 point lead on a national stage, to watch a grown men in orange and blue outsmart and bully them into playing out of character. You cannot manufacture that kind of film session. You have to bleed for it, and now they have.

Nobody in Oklahoma City believed a fall was coming in the summer of 2012. Why would they? Their core was in their early 20s.The whole basketball world assumed OKC would run it back five or six times over, showing up again and again with more mileage and less rust. Instead the front office traded Harden that same offseason, injuries piled up in the years after, Durant walked in 2016, and that specific version of the Thunder never got back to a Finals. No single move explains all of it. One great run became the assumption instead of the foundation, and everything after that got a little easier to lose.

San Antonio’s got a core this specific, this young, this obviously built around a seven footer who moves like he’s got no business being that big, and the margin between running it back next June and becoming a “remember when” story is razor thin. What happens next comes down to the next fourteen months. The vets they bring in have to teach something instead of just filling a roster spot. This exact group has to get another shot before somebody else’s timeline swallows theirs whole.

History doesn’t owe young, exciting teams a second trip. It only owes them the first one, the trip that gets people talking and eventually ends up in every “remember when” conversation whether or not anything ever comes of it. What happens after that is on them.

Ask the 2012 Thunder how that part goes if you don’t believe me.

Why?

Because you just can’t get enough Johnny Dawkins.

On Thursday, we looked back at Johnny D’s masterful play against Notre Dame in 1986, where he blocked David Rivers at the buzzer to preserve a one-point Duke victory in Cameron.

This play is from his NBA days with the Philadelphia 76ers.

He hits a clutch shot here to boost the Sixers past the Portland Trailblazers, 104-102. Dawkins had 23 points and 10 assists. He was a terrific player before injuries caught up to him.

Also on the Sixers: former Blue Devil Mike Gminski, Charles Barkley, former NC State star Charles Shackleford, and Manute Bol. It must have been an amazing locker room.

Also in the game, but we didn’t spot him here: Alaa Abdelnaby, who was with the Portland Trail Blazers. Portland also featured Maryland star Buck Williams, who is wearing the goggles. You’ll see him guarding Bol.

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The Warriors’ rival report has it’s final opponent in the crosshairs down in L.A. but it ain’t the Lakers. The Clippers are the one Pacific team whose offseason can’t really be graded yet, because the trade that defines it hasn’t actually closed. Before Golden State gets to the part of the summer where every team’s roster feels settled, it’s worth checking in on the one division rival still waiting on the league office to tell them who’s actually on their team.

On paper, the moves are straightforward enough. Quiet business: re-signings, a small trade for center Johni Broome, a two-way deal for center Jamarion Sharp. The one that actually reshapes the roster is the deal sending Kawhi Leonard to Toronto for Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick, along with a package of picks. Everyone covering the team, from beat writers to fan sites, has spent July writing rotation projections that assume this trade is basically done.

It isn’t. The Clippers and Raptors agreed to it on June 30. Nine days later, both teams announced it was on hold. The Clippers built a roster the league hasn’t signed off on yet. The holdup is an NBA investigation into whether the Clippers circumvented the salary cap to pay Leonard, tied to a since-collapsed endorsement deal with the company Aspiration.

ESPN’s Baxter Holmes reported that the case could stretch into 2027 if the Clippers and the players’ union can’t agree on any findings or proposed punishment. Commissioner Adam Silver has said the investigation needs to wrap before next season starts, but has also acknowledged it’s already gone on longer than he’d hoped. The union has said it won’t hesitate to fight any penalty it sees as unsupported by evidence, and the Clippers have maintained from the start that they never funneled money to Leonard at all.

Meanwhile, basketball analysis has largely moved forward as though the trade is inevitable, projecting Brandon Ingram into the starting lineup and Gradey Dick into the wing rotation before the league has approved any of it. 213hoops’ Robert Flom took the more grounded approach, and it’s probably the more useful one for a fan base trying to figure out what to actually expect this season.

Flom placed the Clippers somewhere in the 9-to-12 range in the West regardless of how the roster shakes out, clearing only the Kings and Pelicans with real confidence. He projected a win total anywhere from the low 30s to the mid 40s, called this the first Clippers season since 2018 without real playoff expectations, and suggested that’s actually not the worst thing, since it might make the year more fun to watch without the pressure of a playoff push riding on it.

So the Clippers enter the season with two different stories running at once. One is a basketball team quietly preparing for a future built around Brandon Ingram, assuming the trade becomes official. The other is a franchise waiting on a law firm and a players’ union to decide whether that trade, and the season built around it, is even allowed to exist as constructed.

Every other team in the Pacific spent the summer answering questions about its roster. The Clippers are still waiting to find out what theirs officially is. Until the league closes the investigation, every projection comes with an asterisk. The Warriors won’t know exactly what they’re preparing for until the NBA decides which Clippers roster is actually allowed to exist.

Victor Wembanyama returned to Nanterre, a suburb of Paris, France, where he played basketball as a teenager. He was there as a guest of honor in the unveiling of a refurbishment to the basketball court.

Per a Spurs press release:

“The San Antonio Spurs revealed a newly refurbished basketball court in Nanterre, France, commemorated with a youth basketball clinic and appearance from Spurs player Victor Wembanyama. Presented by Ledger, the court is part of the Spurs ‘Play Paris’ program, which was launched in 2025 in honor of the organization’s continued commitment to inspire the next generation of elite athletes and provide safe, accessible play spaces across France.“

R. C. Buford was also on hand for the ribbon cutting and the center court logo reveal. The Spurs along with Ledger have launched the “Play Paris” initiative in 2025, a program built to inspire the next generation, provide access to play and create a lasting legacy within the community.

“The opening of this court reflects what Play Paris is all about – honoring legacy and creating opportunities for young people to come together through basketball. Nanterre has helped shape France’s basketball culture in a meaningful way, and we’re proud to invest in spaces where the next generation can continue to develop, build confidence and feel connected to the game that unites us globally.”

The court design features Nanterre 92’s signature green and black. The court is open to the public and will host tournaments, youth clinics as well as free play.

Ariel Wengroff, EVP of Marketing & Communications at Ledger stated,

“The best partnerships are built on shared values, and this court is proof of that. Ledger is a French company with a global community — when the Spurs came to us with the Play Paris initiative, supporting a project rooted in our home country was an easy yes. We’re proud to help bring this space to life for the young athletes of Nanterre, where they can build the confidence and wellness that are the foundation of any bright future.”

Raphael Adam, mayor of Nanterre, succinctly linked the partnership stating,

“Ever since you welcomed a child from Nanterre, an unbreakable bond has been forged between our city and the legendary NBA franchise, the San Antonio Spurs. This court stands today as a symbol of that connection—a source of pride for Nanterre and its residents.”

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Keeping it moving here on the rival report here at GSOM, we’re working through the Pacific Divsion to give a shout out to the moribund Kings. Sacramento is still one of the first teams the Warriors have to solve every season. Before we start obsessing over whatever superteam the rest of the league built this summer, it’s worth looking one exit down I-80.

This is a math problem, and Sacramento has spent three years trying to solve it.

Here’s the full inventory of Sacramento’s 2026 free agency activity: they waived DeMar DeRozan and Isaiah Stevens, they let Russell Westbrook walk without a fight, and they signed Jonathan Mogbo and Adam Flagler to two-way deals. That’s it.

Meanwhile the rest of the West is trying to level up. Sacramento enters the season with the league’s tenth-highest payroll, five players making more than $20 million, and more than $80 million tied up in Domantas Sabonis and Zach LaVine alone. One veteran minimum contract pushes them into the tax.

Ian Goodwillie framed the whole non-approach as the smart play rather than the desperate one:

Basically, the Kings likely have to wait until Zach LaVine’s current contract finishes at the end of the 2026-2027 season. Then, nearly $50 million of cap space opens up, and Sacramento can start making moves on the open market. They’ll also have to hand out some extensions to existing players.

For now, Sacramento will have to work with what they have. The Kings have drafted well the last couple of years, made solid trades and signings that will help, and continue the rebuild from there. Once the big-money contracts are gone, they’ll have a strong foundation to make moves from.

The Kings’ inaction isn’t a front office standing still out of confusion. It’s a franchise that understands the math doesn’t work yet, and won’t for another year. Rather than take on bad money just to say they did something, Sacramento is banking on the summer of 2027 and everything happening now is just runway toward that moment.It’s hard to argue with that logic as crossing the first apron this year would’ve meant trade restrictions and buyout limitations on a team that’s nowhere near contending anyway. Why pay the penalty for a rebuild you haven’t finished rebuilding yet?

Ethan Minton took a different angle on this dilemma and quite frankly it’s the one that should actually worry Sacramento. His argument wasn’t really about the money. It was about whether anyone with options would ever pick Sacramento in the first place:

Sacramento has the 23rd-largest population among NBA cities. It doesn’t have the nightlife of Miami, the big-city feel of New York City or the ocean-view high-rises of San Francisco. For young, up-and-coming stars, Sacramento is not the most desirable location. Another reason free agents haven’t tended to pick Sacramento is the culture. The Kings have made the postseason once over the last twenty seasons. A string of poor decisions on draft night and questionable trades by the front office have forced the franchise into a perpetual state of losing.

That’s the split worth sitting with. One writer sees a temporary cap problem while the other sees a permanent market problem. Whether Sacramento is right or wrong won’t really be answered until 2027. The Warriors don’t have that luxury. Their championship window is happening now, which means every game against a team choosing tomorrow over today still counts exactly the same in the standings.

Let’s get back to the Warriors’ divisional rivals out in the big blue Pacific, continuing with the Suns. I previously broke down their draft day strategy and now we’re talking what happened after free agency. Phoenix is the team that ended the Warriors’ season last spring, in a play-in elimination game that still stings a little to write about. Before Golden State worries about the teams that got flashier over the summer, it’s worth checking on the one that already has a recent win over them.

The Suns had a quiet, disciplined offseason right up until they didn’t. GM Brian Gregory re-signed Collin Gillespie, Jordan Goodwin, and Mark Williams, added shooter Luke Kennard in free agency, and traded up in the first round to grab Arizona forward Koa Peat. Smart value contracts, a rotation kept mostly intact, a promising rookie added on the cheap. On paper, that’s a near-perfect summer for a team trying to build without a real cap advantage.

Then they traded an unprotected 2033 first-round pick, along with Royce O’Neale, for Miles Bridges.

That single move is doing all the heavy lifting in how this offseason gets remembered. Everything else Phoenix did was the responsible version of team-building. Bridges is the swing for the fences.

Ben Leibowitz of the Valley of the Sun posted this:

“But now, the Suns are moving forward with Bridges. The 28-year-old veteran has never made an All-Star team in his NBA career, but many Suns fans were (rightfully) more critical of Bridges’ off-court indiscretions. His history of domestic violence, chronicled by longtime NBA reporter David Aldridge, would make anyone with a conscience cringe.“

Despite his past, the Suns’ front office gave up a lot to acquire Bridges even entering a contract year. For most of the summer, Phoenix behaved like a team willing to win around the margins. If Bridges plays like the difference-maker the Suns believe he can be, nobody will remember the quiet work that came first. If he doesn’t, that unprotected 2033 pick becomes the only move anyone talks about. Either way, this is still the core of the roster that ended Golden State’s season in the play-in last spring. The Warriors won’t have to wait long to find out whether Phoenix’s biggest gamble made that team any better.

Out of curiosity, I wondered when was the last time the Phoenix Suns won a title. A quick Google search told me they had been to the NBA Finals three times and had never won it all. If I was a betting man, I’d wager the house that this ignominious streak shall absolutely continue in the next year. Still, the Warriors are gonna see this team alot this year during the regular season and will have to figure these guys out if they want to make headway in the West.