The Brooklyn Nets will be pretty next season, in year one of a rebuild leading up to a much-hyped draft class with an even more hyped prospect who is the overwhelming favorite to go #1 overall in Cooper Flagg.
And yet, Nets basketball is only sort of back today, Friday July 12, the first day of Las Vegas Summer League. Because, well, it’s Summer League, and even the NBA’s worst teams deserve more respect than the type of basketball that often gets played at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center at this time of year.
The combination of unfamiliarity within the rosters and admirable hustle of fringe-NBA players trying to climb over the edge, not to mention the AAU-like atmosphere of the wall-to-wall schedule gives you results like Victor Wembanyama shooting 2-of-13 in his debut, or Trae Young shooting 23% from the floor over his first trip to Vegas.