NBA Summer League 2025

[SparzWizard]

Bronny James going ISO and takes the game-bricking 3 at the buzzer.

Sounds awfully someone familiar on this team on a bad night

[boscel33]

Poor shooting night from Coop but all other aspects of his game look good.

10P, 6R, 4A, 3S

Not too bad for his first game, although 24% needs to and will improve.

[Celtics4ever]

Let's temper that with his shooting stats

It was a rough shooting night for Flagg (5-of-21 from the field, including 0-of-5 on 3s).

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45712191/2025-nba-summer-league-cooper-flagg-debut-takeaways-bronny-james

[DefenseWinsChamps]

Let's temper that with his shooting stats

It was a rough shooting night for Flagg (5-of-21 from the field, including 0-of-5 on 3s).

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45712191/2025-nba-summer-league-cooper-flagg-debut-takeaways-bronny-james

Shooting stats really don't matter much in summer league. Both Brown and Tatum had rough shooting summer leagues. It's pretty common for top picks.

The question is whether or not he was able to impact the game and make plays. He definitely wa.

[Who]

Let's temper that with his shooting stats

It was a rough shooting night for Flagg (5-of-21 from the field, including 0-of-5 on 3s).

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45712191/2025-nba-summer-league-cooper-flagg-debut-takeaways-bronny-james

Shooting stats really don't matter much in summer league. Both Brown and Tatum had rough shooting summer leagues. It's pretty common for top picks.

The question is whether or not he was able to impact the game and make plays. He definitely wa.

Was it Tim Duncan who got dominated in his SL debut by Greg Ostertag?

https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/3635/greg-ostertag-s-legendary-domination-of-tim-duncan

Article also mentions Kevin Durant going 4-19 FG in his 2nd SL game.

UPDATE: Tim Duncan spoke about that experience with Slam's Lang Whitaker: "Jermaine (O'Neal) destroyed me. He was with Portland, was real young ... and Tag (Ostertag) threw my stuff into the first couple of rows a few times."

[Who]

Ooh wow. SL tickets for Cooper Flagg vs Broony were anywhere from $80 to $1,000 dollars. Courtside seats were $2,500. Dang.

For SL? Imagine paying $2.5k for a SL ticket. Wow.

[Goldstar88]

Ooh wow. SL tickets for Cooper Flagg vs Broony were anywhere from $80 to $1,000 dollars. Courtside seats were $2,500. Dang.

For SL? Imagine paying $2.5k for a SL ticket. Wow.

Announcers were saying that the cheapest seat was $200. Maybe that was re-sale, though.

[RMO]

Let's temper that with his shooting stats

It was a rough shooting night for Flagg (5-of-21 from the field, including 0-of-5 on 3s).

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/45712191/2025-nba-summer-league-cooper-flagg-debut-takeaways-bronny-james

Shooting stats really don't matter much in summer league. Both Brown and Tatum had rough shooting summer leagues. It's pretty common for top picks.

The question is whether or not he was able to impact the game and make plays. He definitely wa.

Was it Tim Duncan who got dominated in his SL debut by Greg Ostertag?

https://www.espn.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/3635/greg-ostertag-s-legendary-domination-of-tim-duncan

Article also mentions Kevin Durant going 4-19 FG in his 2nd SL game.

UPDATE: Tim Duncan spoke about that experience with Slam's Lang Whitaker: "Jermaine (O'Neal) destroyed me. He was with Portland, was real young ... and Tag (Ostertag) threw my stuff into the first couple of rows a few times."

On the other side of that, I recall Orien Greene having a monster summer league (though not sure if it was his rookie or sophmore season)

[Vermont Green]

I think you can learn a lot about the players by watching the summer league games, but not by just looking at the stats.  If a player is going to stick in the NBA in the near term, they need to be clearly better than the rest of the summer league.  You should be able to see an ability to separate, get to where you want to get.  If it is there, it will be apparent, even if shots are not going down.  If you can't tell, if they look like all the other summer leaguers running up and down the court, it probably isn't there.

And even if a player does show some of "it", they still need to show they have the shooting touch required by the NBA, unless you are a 7-footer or something.  You will need some level of touch to make it in the NBA, even if you can run circles around the rank and file summer league (example Springer, Walsh).  Touch might not be there from game to game in the summer league, but it can develop (but not always).

[Who]

Why does Miami bring K Ware to SL if they aren't going to force feed him touches? Why have him play the same roll as he has on Miami's proper team. What could he possibly gain from this?

Get him the ball. Let him have some fun. Post him up. Run PnP for 3s.

[Goldstar88]

Charlotte got McNeely too. Team has so much young talent.

[Who]

I see some have Knueppel starting for Charlotte next year instead of Colin Sexton with Sexton coming off the bench as a 6th man.

G: LaMelo
G: Brandon Miller
F: Knueppel
F: Miles Bridges
C: Mason Plumlee

[Who]

Filipowski looks amazing in SL.

What we hoped Kaminsky could be in the NBA but wasn't. Utah have got to be very excited about him. Their future center instead of W Kessler.

[Who]

Charlotte's whole starting 5 are NBA players

G: KJ Simpson
G: Sion James
F: Knueppel
F: Salaun
C: Kalkbrenner

[Who]

Kalkbrenner moves like Brook Lopez.

That is okay. You can work with that as a drop coverage big man. Kalkbrenner has enough size and length to fulfill that role.

Kalkbrenner beating Filipowski up the court in transition multiple times. Partly because of Filipowski's lack of effort in transition defense but also because of strong running by Kalkbrenner. Direct and purposeful. He will beat guys up the floor out of sheer effort. More consistent in his effort than other bigs will be.