LAS VEGAS — There were people who had free tickets to Sunday night’s Las Vegas Summer League games and decided they’d rather do anything else than head to the Thomas & Mack Center.
In hushed tones in the tunnels and bowels of the arena, staffers and executives from other teams and reporters from across the league asked if the Utah Jazz’s rookies would be playing, and when told they would not, asked, “What’s the point?”
The crowd at the arena was so small that you could hear conversations people were having across the court. Fans poked fun at the Jazz on social media, suggesting that the incoming tanking for the 2025-26 regular season started with the summer games, and large, blown up graphics of Jazz rookies on the outside of the building seemed to be taunting the event and all the attendees.
On Sunday night the Jazz fielded a summer league squad that did not feature a single drafted rookie. No Ace Bailey, no Walter Clayton Jr., no John Tonje. Not even RJ Luis Jr., the undrafted rookie out of St. John’s, played for the Jazz.
Bailey, Tonje and Luis have not played a single game in Vegas and Clayton has played just one game. Though the missing players from Utah are unique in the quantity, the problem of teams holding out the very players that everyone showed up to see is not unique to the Jazz.
VJ Edgecombe, the No. 3 overall pick, has not played for the Philadelphia 76ers after scoring 28 points in his first game at Salt Lake City Summer League. Dylan Harper, the No. 2 overall pick, has played in just one game despite the San Antonio Spurs playing at Vegas and the preceding California Classic.
No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg played for the Mavericks in their first two games in Vegas, but there’s not a single person who thinks he’ll play in another game.
There are some legitimate injuries that teams are being cautious with. For example, Clayton pulled a hamstring in his Vegas debut, and a team source said Bailey is legitimately having trouble with certain movements because of a groin strain.
But there are definitely other factors at work across the league. Teams don’t want their players seriously injured during summer play ahead of a season they want then to see “real” NBA competition. Agents will fight for their clients to be pulled from summer play based on clout, profile or the success of a single performance, or they’ll want their clients not to play, lest they be embarrassed by lower drafted players.
There are two reasons the NBA’s Summer League exists: to make money and to give players their first taste of basketball at the professional level.
The NBA loves showing off anything shiny and new. It especially loves if it can turn that show-and-tell into a money-maker. That’s why Las Vegas Summer League exists and is successful.
All of the players who walked across the stage on draft night (or on one of the now two draft nights — another way the NBA makes money on its shiny new things) come together in Sin City and are showcased in front of crowds that came to the desert ready to spend money.
The promise of that showcase brings together basketball sickos, NBA players, gamblers and everyone in between, but when the shiny new things are missing, it makes for a dismal affair — like a sparsely attended game broadcast on ESPN2 wherein even the NBA stars in attendance split from their courtside seats after the first 20 minutes.
It’s not that the players don’t want to play, because they absolutely do. It’s everyone else that is involved in the decision-making process.
“I want to play,” Jazz second-year player Cody Williams said. “I mean, fly all the way out here to Vegas, I don’t want to fly all the way out here just to sit on the bench.
“Granted, I’ll cheer my teammates on, be a good teammate (if I have to), but if I’m out here, I want to play, I want to compete and get reps and get better.”
The Jazz, like many teams, have long said that they view Summer League as a continuation and important component of player development, but if that’s really how we are supposed to view Summer League, it should go hand-in-hand with the NBA’s promise of showcasing the best talent.
Instead, the first weekend of Summer League, fans can hope to see a few top draft picks unless they get hurt or their agent has succeeded in getting them pulled from play, then over the next week teams often will sit all of the “top” players through the latter games, which turn into glorified G League scouting events.
The Jazz were scheduled to play on the main court at Thomas & Mack on Friday so the fans could see a matchup between the No. 4 overall pick Kon Knueppel and Bailey, the No. 5 pick. That didn’t happen.
The Jazz are scheduled to play the Spurs on Monday night because it would pit Bailey against the No. 2 overall pick and his Rutgers teammate, Harper. Whether that matchup of the two former teammates will happen is anyone’s guess, but I wouldn’t bet on it.