The Big W is checking out of the NBA's summer league after two games, and that's the most intelligent thing I've heard since the days of the USFL, when the late John Bassett told Donald Trump he was going to deck him if he didn't shut the hell up.
The Big W, if course, is Victor Wembanyama, and after he went for 27 points the other night the San Antonio Spurs decided they'd seen enough. So they'll sit him down for the rest of the summer league, whose purpose the Blob has yet to divine.
Look. The list of stuff the Blob doesn't get is longer than Godzilla is tall, so it could well be the summer league has some intrinsic value I'm missing here. But I can't figure out what it is other than the obvious, which is to help the NBA and its teams add to their pile.
Summer league? To me it's the What The Hell League.
That's because to play even a handful of games after you've already played 9,000 games in an endless regular season seems counterproductive, not to say stupid. For one thing, it practically begs for guys to get hurt. I mean, did you see what happened to Portland Trail Blazers top pick Scoot Henderson in his very first summer league game?
Suffered a shoulder strain that kept him out of the next two games, Scoot did. And for what?
Beats me. I mean, it's not like the Trail Blazers don't already know the kid can play, having likely watched a million hours of tape on him. And in less than three months, another long, looooong NBA season commences. So what's the point of playing games in the summer, other than to add that much more wear and tear on already overextended bodies?
Oh, sure, I suppose a lot of the guys playing summer league games are vying for roster spots. But isn't that what training camp and the preseason are for? So, again ... seriously, what's the point?
Other than to give your top draft picks more chances to get hurt, that is. And to give ESPN, which airs summer league games 24/7 as if they matter, an apparently much-needed revenue stream.
As it stands now, summer league play finishes up on July 17. NBA training camps open in a shade more than two months after that, on September 27. Preseason games begin on the 30th and run through October 14. The 82-game regular season opens four days later.
Two days after that, some high-end pick who played all the summer league and preseason games will blow out a knee and be done for two or three months. Or something like that,
I'm not saying it'll be because he played a handful of worthless games in July on top of a long college or overseas season. But who knows?
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