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Bronny James was back in Cleveland, where his father played his first seven NBA seasons and then returned for four more years after a four-year stint with the Miami Heat. Entering the game, there would be plenty of cameras on father and son, so it was smart marketing to break out this particular shoe on Wednesday. There’s also a lot of interest and money to be made with the Bronny brand. Bronny’s NBA Summer League jersey sold at auction for $38,400 in 2024. And Nike sold Bronny’s jersey with his name during his lone college season at USC, making him the first men’s basketball player to have his jersey for sale as part of the NIL era.
7-foot center James Nnaji has committed to Baylor and will play the second half of the season with the Bears, a source told On3. He’s been granted four years of eligibility by the NCAA. The 21-year-old Nigerian big man was selected 31st overall in the 2023 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons, but his rights were moved to Charlotte. Despite being drafted, he never signed a standard NBA contract. In 2024, his rights were moved once again, this time to the New York Knicks, as part of the three-team Karl-Anthony Towns trade. After not appearing in an NBA regular-season game, Nnaiji continued his professional career overseas, most recently playing for FC Barcelona in the Spanish Liga ACB and the EuroLeague before mutually parting ways with the team in August. Earlier this year, Nnaji appeared in NBA Summer League with the Knicks, averaging 3.2 points and 3.6 rebounds across five games.
The NBA and Las Vegas have been linked for many years. A summer league has been held in the city annually since 2004, and Team USA basketball also trains in Las Vegas — though sources close to the program said it could look for a new location to train for 2027 FIBA World Cup and and 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. While a city might want to propose hosting the NBA Cup final, the league could stick with Las Vegas and allow the event to grow as it did with Las Vegas Summer League, which has become a signature event for the league that many veterans make a point to attend.
Tony Allen: That man gave me $1,000 a dunk when he first met me. Zach Randolph: Well, you were trying to dunk, you were athletic? Paul Pierce: He had like five dunks that day. Randolph: He wanted to give you money. Oh, it was the Summer League. Allen: He had just won at the tables. He just won at the tables. He walked in. Pierce: I said ‘I won about 50,000. Allen: He just walked in with the bankroll like, ‘Yeah, I just won at the tables. I need some excitement. I got $1,000. I heard dunk? I said, ‘What? A thousand?’ And you know, November ain't hit yet. It's Summer League. I don't have an NBA dollar. That man said a thousand? I had five dunks in a row. No cap.
I can share, from my own reporting, that team officials have tried as hard as they can to operate as normal in the wake of ESPN's report earlier this week that Antetokounmpo and his agent Alex Saratsis have re-opened discussions with the organization about the player's future. It's an approach Milwaukee has maintained since unveiling Myles Turner as its marquee free agent addition in July at a press conference set up adjacent to a concourse at the Thomas & Mack Center during Las Vegas Summer League.
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Pedro Martínez worked with Jordi Fernández on the Nets this past summer, just before the New York team traveled to the Summer League, where Anna Cruz was on Brooklyn's coaching staff. Atkinson reiterated his respect for Martínez. “There are plays we ‘stole’ from him. I’m not going to tell you which ones because I don’t want to give anyone any clues, but I watch a lot of EuroLeague games, Spanish league games in the offseason, I’m always learning. Yes, I’ve ‘stolen’ some things from his concepts, especially on offense,” Kenny Atkinson added.
George’s breakout didn’t come by accident. His summer schedule was packed — first at NBA Summer League in Las Vegas, then in Nicaragua for the 2025 FIBA AmeriCup, where he represented Team Canada. The international tournament provided exactly what he sought: meaningful minutes in competitive games. He averaged 15.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 4.3 assists while shooting 56.4 percent from the field and 52.4 percent from beyond the arc, earning multiple Player of the Game honors. “To me there’s nothing better than actually applying what you worked on in a real game,” George told RG.org. “Especially in AmeriCup, where it’s really like a high-stakes game — you’re trying to win a medal. And to play in a different environment too, it shows different aspects that you didn’t necessarily think about when you were working out on your own and stuff like that. So I think it’s just to gain experience and get reps in.”
“It was unfortunate that he missed a little bit of time, because he had such a great offseason,” Spoelstra said, of Larsson thriving with the Heat at summer league and then helping push Sweden to the country’s first-even berth in the knockout round of EuroBasket. “I reminded him all the time, that all that work didn’t go away,” Spoelstra said. “It’s just a matter of getting healthy, getting back in rhythm, and it takes a little bit of time. “The rotation already was set. But I even mentioned it in front of the team, Pelle will find a way. It doesn’t have to happen now or whenever, but he’ll find a way.”
Shareef Abdur-Rahim is president of the G League. One of the league's newest players refers to him a bit differently. The reigning G League champion Stockton Kings drafted Jabri Abdur-Rahim -- Shareef's son -- on Saturday, taking him with the 29th pick in the first round. Jabri Abdur-Rahim played with the Sacramento Kings in NBA Summer League.
Some referees have been wearing earpieces during this preseason as the league tinkers with ways for better communication methods. There’s been talk at the league of sending alerts to smartwatches about decisions on calls. And at summer league this year, there was even a sensor placed inside the ball to help collect data. The sensor weighs about the same as a raisin does. Hundreds of players used the ball, which typically weighs somewhere around 600 grams; nobody noticed that it was about a gram heavier than usual.
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Brian Lewis: Egor Dëmin (plantar fascia tear) and Haywood Highsmith (knee) are the only #Nets listed as out for tomorrow's preseason tilt vs. the #Suns in Macao. That could mean the debut of first-round pick Drake Powell, who missed Summer League & the opener w/ knee tendinopathy. #NBA
The Portland Trail Blazers have signed forward Andrew Carr, General Manager Joe Cronin announced today. Per team policy, terms of the deals were not disclosed. Carr (6-11, 235), a member of the 2025 Trail Blazers Summer League roster, played five collegiate seasons at Delaware (2020-22), Wake Forest (2022-24) and Kentucky (2024-25).
Last season was marred by a knee injury and saw little of his old explosiveness. Whitehead skipped summer league to work on his body and has done so, but now that needs to translate on the court, because he’s facing a numbers crunch at his position. “I can tell you he’s gotten better. You look at his body from the summer, how hard he’s worked, he’s already gotten better and keeps taking advantage of his opportunities. That’s a big part of it,” said Nets coach Jordi Fernández, who warned, “This training camp and preseason games are going to be important. And we want all of our players, not just Dariq, to try to take advantage of that.”
After Quentin Grimes' gaudy production in March, Bauman has pursued a salary approaching $25 million in average annual value. The Sixers' offer, when it finally came, landed shy of $40 million over four seasons. Sources say that there were conversations between the parties in Las Vegas during Summer League and throughout the offseason about various frameworks and salary cap percentages, but those talks never generated a substantive offer from Philadelphia until this week because the Sixers realized how substantial the gulf between the sides really was. And the sides remained far apart as of this writing. Bauman spelled out to The Stein Line that Philadelphia's first official offer to Grimes on Wednesday was indeed a four-year $39 million pitch.