This Week In π can only be thankful for both the looming men's Olympic basketball tournament ... and a very clutch American Airlines agent
All is explained in the latest roundup of last week's standout developments
LAS VEGAS β This is one of the good summers for hoop heads.
Summer League play in Las Vegas ends on this Monday night, but the Paris Olympics are almost here.
If you suffer greatly when there is no NBA or NBA-adjacent basketball on television, your consolation in 2024 is that you only have to deal with six-ish weeks of true darkness. The Olympics run through Aug. 11. Media Day in the NBA arrives Sept. 30 for the vast majority of teams; it's a few days earlier for Boston and Denver since they'll be playing their first preseason games abroad in Abu Dhabi on Oct. 4 and Oct. 6.
I'm not going to try to convince you that much of August and September will be anything but slow and unbearably hot and draining for the NBA-obsessed. It won't be the funnest time. But an Olympic summer β with further preview coverage of the 12-nation men's field to come here from moi β undeniably helps the cause. I frankly found this month's Vegas Summer League fare to be a routinely difficult watch whenever I was able to tune in on the reporting trail, but these Olympics should be must-watch given the high-level talent that will be assembled in France.
Now for some quickie Monday Musings:
π I realize it is futile to try to tell people not to overreact to what you see in summer league because, well, people love to overreact. Bronny James very predictably struggledΒ but, once again, it is so dang early in his career. I was reminded while in Las Vegas that Stephen Curry shot less than 33% from the floor in his maiden trip to the desert as a Warrior. And that Jalen Brunson averaged 6.8 points per game on sub-23% shooting in his first summer league. I wouldn't dare suggest that Bronny will get anywhere close to what those two have achieved. I'm just saying: This is not the time to draw conclusions. (My pals at HoopsHype, by the way, assembled this handy look at how several recent All-Stars fared in their summer league debuts.)
π I was more alarmed, if you insist on summer league analysis, by Alex Sarr's 0-for-15 game. Sarr, No. 2 overall pick last month by Washington after actively discouraging Atlanta from selecting him No. 1 overall by refusing to work out for the Hawks, missed 17 consecutive shots in one stretch. That just doesn't seem possible for a 7-footer.
π One conclusion I am prepared to draw about this nascent stage of Bronny's career: It sucks sometimes that cameras are everywhere. I genuinely felt sorry for Jaylen Brown in the whole "I don't think Bronny is a pro" blowup since what Brown naturally thought was a private conversation was caught on camera.
π One more conclusion, actually: Playing through (and trying to tune out) whatever criticism and noise comes now, even when it tilts toward needless hysteria, is just something Bronny has to deal with. This is what he signed up for when he put his name in the NBA Draft and signed that four-year Lakers contract. The good news: He seems to understand and accept his new reality rather well. Especially for a 19-year-old.
π As stated: There will be lots more to come on the Olympics, but we had to say something about Saturday's United States 101, South Sudan 100 thriller. The U.S. defense just wasn't anywhere close to acceptable. Defense is always how Team USA overcomes its lack of continuity ... except that it just allowed 58 points in a 20-minute first half to a team with zero current NBA players on its roster. That was the truly worrisome part of Saturday's performance, way worse than shooting woes or turnovers, but it certainly is conceivable that the Americans (as U.S. coach Steve Kerr said) just weren't ready to play in a game with no stakes against an opponent they clearly didn't sufficiently respect. I still believe that this USA Basketball assemblage has way too much talent to win anything but gold. Yet there's no denying that the 40-minute FIBA game, combined with the Americans' always needing more time than you think to adapt to it, is fertile ground for surprises β¦ especially when Nikola JokiΔ, Giannis Antetokoummpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Victor Wembanyama are in the same tournament. Also true: The Yanks are not going to get one bit of sympathy anywhere regarding Kevin Durant's injury unavailability to this point. One more time: Look at that roster.
Onto the rest of the standout stuff (NBA and otherwise) that happened leaguewide (and in my sphere) over the past week ...
Travel Tale of the Week
I got so knock-on-wood lucky late Thursday night.
My flight back to Dallas after four nights in Sin City was scheduled for right before midnight. It was delayed twice before I left the Vegas Strip and, just as I was pulling up to the airport curbside, that's when I saw the first news report that American Airlines, Delta and United β wut? β were all calling for an immediate nationwide ground stop.
I knew this couldn't be a minor development because the only time in my traveling life that I had ever previously heard the term "nationwide ground stop" was when flying home from La Guardia to DFW on one of the last flights to leave New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Yet the airport was still relatively calm as I arrived and a very helpful American agent β wish now I had taken her name down β deduced that I was likely in for a slew of further delays and suggested I move to the 5 AM departure because both the plane and the crew for that flight were already in Vegas.
What a clutch call by her. The switch meant I would have to stay at the airport from roughly 12:30 AM to 3:45 AM waiting until security lanes opened to start processing Friday morning passengers, but that was a miniscule inconvenience compared to what countless others faced (and still face) thanks to the global tech failure. The flight I got switched to indeed left reasonably close to 5 AM Friday to get me back home. The original flight I was scheduled to take β¦ still not quite sure when it actually left.
#thisleague
Stories of the Week (published here)
Monday: Part 2 of a four-part series compiled by my longtime colleague
β¦ this one focusing on the baffling offseason moves in the Eastern Conference.Monday: This Week In Basketball hat-tips Jalen Brunson from the umpteenth time.
Tuesday: A listing of the top remaining free agents and some other pertinent notes from Las Vegas.
Wednesday: Part 3 from Royce β¦ this one compiling takes from all across NBA Substack on the most fascinating offseason moves in the Western Conference.
Friday: Part 4 from Royce β¦ capping the series with a look at the most baffling offseason moves in the West.
Sunday: My latest compilation of around-the-league NBA notes on a Sunday.
Podcasts of the Week (that I co-hosted)
My podcast partner Chris Haynes of Turner Sports and I had clashing schedules last week. There was little overlap on our respective trips to Vegas.
So β¦
Our next episode will drop this coming week. Please make sure you follow us here so the show comes right to your favorite listening device:
Irrational Purchase of the Week
Missing Paul Skenes' All-Star debut when the game was less than an hour's drive from the ol' Power Rankings dungeon was too much to take.
So β¦
I had to scour eBay for some retail therapy and found a Skenes card in an El Toro HS uniform. Done deal.
NBA Artifact of the Week
Maybe other teams do it and I'm just not aware, but the Warriors got my attention because they still publish a hard-copy, take-home media guide even for summer league.
Thought of loyal reader Yato when I snagged a couple copies and naturally fist-pumped upon seeing that Cal State Fullerton alumnus Jackson Rowe β who has since earned a training camp invite from the Warriors according to my pal Keith Smith β has a whole page inside:
Restaurant Review of the Week
Javier's in Newport Beach was known as one of Kobe Bryant's favorite dining haunts as an Orange County resident.
I had never been there myself, because I have too many other go-to spots on my trips back to Cal State Disneyland and the surrounding areas, but I finally tried Javier's Las Vegas outpost during summer league because it is in the Aria hotel in the heart of the strip where I had a number of meetings.
Among my personal restaurant rules: The chips and salsa have to be ELITE for a Mexican restaurant to get the highest marks here. Javier's certainly qualifies.
How good are the chips and salsa? I realized when I got home that I had no pictures. They clearly never lasted long enough on the table for pictures. The salsa was especially spicy and memorable.
Iβm pretty much guilty of making a daily stop there to visit with various team representatives (and gorge).
Twitter Graphic of the Week
BasketNews.com did a snazzy job with my report Sunday that South Sudan star Carlik Jones can still sign with an NBA team until Thursday as specified by his new two-year contract with Serbian power Partizan Belgrade.
An out clause to accept an NBA offer expires July 25 and, if unused, commits Jones to Partizan next season.
Final Word(s) of the Week
As I've mentioned often previously, I loved loved LOVEDΒ This Week In BaseballΒ in my youth and have frequently compiled what I've referred to as TWIB Notes on this Substack to pay homage to the great Mel Allen and that life-changing showΒ which debuted in 1977. Now my goal is to make it more of a full-on roundup of what I wrote, said, did, saw and maybe even ate, bought, etc., in a given week β¦ with categories that I suspect will evolve as I get a better handle on what this piece should look like. Your feedback is appreciated in the comments section below.
(Editorβs note: After affixing two banners to this file for several weeks in a row, at the top and at the bottom, it is probably time to concede that running This Week In Basketball on Mondays has become a thing β¦ which unfortunately crowds out Monday Musings. The NBA, of course, always names its Players of the Week on Mondays during the regular season, so maybe I shouldnβt fight it.)
