They say what happens in Las Vegas stays in Vegas—but when it comes to 2024 NBA summer league, our writers are pulling back the curtain. These mini dispatches come from the Thomas & Mack Center, where Reed Sheppard made a strong first impression, the Wizards fielded the most incongruent starting lineup of the weekend, and lots more happened. There’s plenty of basketball still to be played in Sin City, but these are the five most interesting things we saw during the first weekend.
Reed Sheppard may already be too good for summer league.
At first blush, Sheppard looks like one of the many squat game managers in Las Vegas toiling for their next contract. But from his very first summer league action, the 20-year-old rookie already looked too good for the early July showcase. Sheppard, the no. 3 pick, immediately displayed a steely confidence and command of the Rockets offense, penetrating into the teeth of the defense with quick, decisive moves and making fast reads and pinpoint passes to the open man—often Cam Whitmore, the reigning summer league MVP, who is again too big and too athletic for the competition. Sheppard’s lack of size will obviously elicit questions, but he is a surprisingly springy athlete (three blocks against the Lakers) and has awesome hands on defense (five steals against the Wizards). Shooting will likely always be the calling card for a player who hit more than half of his college 3-pointers—indeed, his shot looks as smooth as advertised—but his deep shooting has felt like a bonus to his across-the-board production and firm grasp of the game. Sheppard clearly belongs at the NBA level; the question now may be how quickly he can outplay a reserve role on a very deep Rockets team. —Justin Verrier
The Wizards’ starting lineup underscores just how far this rebuild has to go.
Three 2024 first-rounders started for the Wizards against Houston on Sunday: no. 2 pick Alex Sarr, no. 14 pick Bub Carrington, and no. 24 pick Kyshawn George. Along with 2023 first-rounder Bilal Coulibaly—who’s skipping summer league as he prepares to play for France in the Olympics—this trio represents the Wizards’ future.
Washington’s long-awaited rebuild promises to be methodical and slow. Sarr scored just 9.4 points per game in New Zealand last season and remains incredibly raw offensively; in two summer league games thus far, he’s made just eight of his 26 shot attempts. Sarr is 19 years old, Carrington is 18 for another week, and Coulibaly was also drafted at age 18 a year ago.
Symbolically, the most interesting member of Washington’s summer league starting lineup is Johnny Davis, the no. 10 pick in 2022. It’s not a great sign for a lottery pick to still be summer league material three years in, but that’s where Davis finds himself after underwhelming in his first two largely anonymous seasons: Thus far, he’s split his playing time almost evenly between the NBA (1,036 minutes) and G League (1,029 minutes), and he’s averaged just 4.0 points per game on 39 percent shooting at the higher level.
Davis’s disappointment underscores just how meager the Wizards’ foundation was before this most recent draft. The Wisconsin point guard was the last first-rounder of the Tommy Sheppard regime—before the Wizards fired their GM and replaced him with Michael Winger—for a reason. Before Davis, the Wizards had drafted Corey Kispert, a fine role player, and Deni Avdija, who blossomed into a solid two-way contributor before the team traded him to Portland—for a package that included the pick they used on Carrington—this summer.
But the remaining Wizards are mostly some combination of inexperienced, inconsistent, and outright not ready for the NBA. The best news for Sarr is that, while he has a long way to develop to fulfill the typical expectations of a no. 2 pick, it might take an equally long time for his Wizards to play another game that matters—when he’ll need to be better than he is right now. —Zach Kram
Gregg Popovich will have a hard time keeping Stephon Castle off the floor.
One of the pleasures of being an NBA elitist is getting the chance to introduce fresh new faces to the broader basketball world, so let me be the first to report that Stephon Castle is pretty awesome. There was simply no way to know this about one of the best players on the best team in college basketball last season because the only true crucible is summer league—the purest version of the game, spared from distractions like order and game plan and on-court chemistry. We can see the truth of Castle’s game in a glorified AAU tournament and, better yet, the single game of a glorified AAU tournament, before Castle withdrew from competition in Vegas with a wrist injury.
But what a game it was. Even in the summer league slop, Castle is an engine for intuitive, winning plays, connecting dots that lesser prospects wouldn’t see and manifesting plays that lesser athletes couldn’t create. The questions about Castle’s shot and position are inevitable, but those are almost beside the point; what’s most striking about watching him play against quasi-pros is realizing how difficult it will be to take him off the floor in the earliest days of his career. Why would the Spurs deprive themselves of a guard who comes by impact plays so naturally? Throw Castle into the mix and see what he can turn up, whether by jamming opponents up at the point of attack or slicing his way through the defense. Toolsy, theoretical players are fun and all, but so are the dudes who make shit happen almost incidentally, as if it were an entire way of life. —Rob Mahoney
Cam Whitmore is absolutely electric.
It comes as a huge surprise, but last year’s summer league MVP award did not translate to immediate NBA success for Whitmore. He didn’t break into the conversation on the Rockets’ main roster until the start of January, and even then, the scope of his touches was narrow: catch-and-shoot looks (where he did well) or attacking in transition and handoffs on the move (where he is an absolute handful).
There’s a level that certain players hit when their athleticism is so outrageous that even their failed conversions send a shock wave through the building. Whitmore is decidedly there. His activity on both ends serves early Westbrook vibes. He’s been the most impressive all-around athlete in Vegas, and I don’t think it’s particularly close. Even when on-ball defenders obstruct his path on straight-line drives, he seems to repel them like a running back who’s ping-ponging reporters as he slows himself after running out of bounds. On one sequence, he caught a so-so lob from Sheppard (the two of them together have probably been the most entertaining duo overall) that was nearly disrupted; Whitmore not only wrangled it at the top of his jump over the 6-foot-10 Colin Castleton, but also seemed to regain his composure in midair and land with control before instantly jumping again to stick it in. I don’t want to overreact, but most people would be dead if they attempted this.
This superpower can make it difficult for an athlete like Whitmore to both unleash the best parts of himself and recognize when helpers are scrambling to the scene to disrupt him, and he is very much still searching for that balance. Cam had one of the lowest assist-to-usage marks in the NBA last season, and his ability to get the ball to the second side during the two games I saw was a mixed bag of positive signs and chaotic collisions. But in a league of chefs and patrons, the Rockets have some Joey Chestnut–level eaters, and I think Whitmore might have the best long-term chance at becoming both. —J. Kyle Mann
Las Vegas summer league remains a singular spectacle.
Wizards-Rockets. Night three. Sheppard doing his Lost Price Brother routine. This jersey will come untucked over his dead body. Also, here are all those 3s you asked for.
Washington’s own Jordan Poole is in Thomas & Mack. He’s got his back to the court, a gaggle of fans in front of him, pens and phones and basketballs the size of cantaloupes in their hands. They say his name. They say it a lot, over and over—Jordan, Jordan, Jordan. Poole signs and smiles awhile, stays nice, then keeps moving. The Michelob Ultra Courtside Experience looms. A woman stops him and gives him a hug. Sequins on her boots, red, same color as her sunglass lenses. The frames are colossal and disappear her face. He keeps moving, makes it another 10 feet, and gets stopped again. It’s Quin “Mousse” Snyder. They dap. Snyder’s hair glows black opal. Then, faintly, a chant, a name. “Draymond Green. Draymond Green. Draymond Green.”
It wasn’t the whole arena; it wasn’t even most of it. It was about four people, halfway up, and they clapped their hands and said that name and wanted some help and nobody gave it to them. Poole stayed cool, gave it no attention, and the hollering died out. —Tyler Parker