Friday, May 21, 2004 | 10:24 a.m.
Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
While I've never seen an NBA summer league game, I was told Thursday that it closely resembles the NBA's fall, winter, spring, late spring and early summer league. In other words, the players wear real NBA uniforms and the officials ignore traveling.
This July, you can judge for yourself. Six NBA teams -- make that five NBA teams and the Wizards -- have committed to sending their draft picks and other young players in need of seasoning to Las Vegas July 13-18 for a series of 13 glorified scrimmages at Cox Pavilion.
In other words, think Marcus Banks and a bunch of guys representing the Cavaliers, Nuggets, Suns, Magic and Celtics who would be assigned jersey numbers in the 80s were this baseball spring training.
I guess The Reebok Vegas Summer League Stars of Tommorrow -- try saying it before the 24-second clock expires -- is a pretty big deal for our city. That would explain Channel 8 airing a telephone conversation with Suns CEO Jerry Colangelo saying so on the 11 o'clock news a couple of weeks ago, like they do on CNN when somebody witnesses an assassination or some other monumental occurrence.
It might have helped to have one of those NBA Jerrys -- Colangelo, West, Sloan, heck, even Stackhouse -- at Thursday's news conference at the Thomas & Mack Center to confirm what the T&M suits claim. That this alliance between the NBA and Las Vegas, allegedly some six years in the making, is the most hip thing since Dr. J's Afro or Dr. Jack Ramsay's plaid slacks.
Alas, the league was not represented on the dais. There wasn't a single Jerry. Or anybody named Stern, which would include David, Howard or Daniel, the actor. Not even a guy in a gorilla suit. Or a Clippers ball boy. Or Paula Abdul, or any other Laker Girl past or present. And the news conference broke new ground, in that it was the first one touting a pro basketball by-product here for which a former UNLV star was not on hand.
I've been covering events like this one around here since 1987. Briefly, that is, because they usually come and go before the first TV timeout. Yet, were it not for Las Vegas being Las Vegas, there's no reason that a semi-legitimate offering such as the NBA summer league shouldn't be able to succeed in a city our size.
I mean, one can watch the 51s play Fresno only so many times.
But unless LeBron James makes a cameo with the not ready for prime time Cavaliers, it's hard to imagine Las Vegans plunking down $20, the price of a general admission ticket, to watch some college kid of which they probably never heard attempt to block the shot of some Eastern European guy of which I'm certain they never heard.
What's needed here is a creative approach.
While it's hard to think of July being basketball season, the NBA's Endless Summer (i.e, the playoffs) notwithstanding, that's just what it has become around here. In addition to the NBA summer league, there's the Big Time and myriad high school extravaganzas, Pete Newell's big man camp and ESPN's "Street Ball And 1 Mix Tape Tour" hip-hop-dunk show over at the Orleans, featuring a dribbling whiz known as The Professor, a bunch of Globetrotter wannabes and a guy who walks through the stands rapping and yapping about them on a wireless microphone.
So why not combine them all into one gigantic slam dunk orgy? Get the shoe companies, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and anybody who manufacturers baggy clothes to pool their resources and throw a summer hoop festival like no other.
Call it Spencer Haywoodstock. Or Hoop-a-palooza. Or the Tournament Playaz Club at Summerlin.
Let's set up some portable baskets and invite Gus Macker, too. Name Dickie V. grand marshall. Let Sir Charles, Magic, Clark Kellogg, Jay Bilas and anybody else who thinks he still can play have "winners." Of course, there would be golf and blackjack tournaments and other companion events, such as Shaq shooting free throws against the 2003 Kansas Final Four team. Closest to the hole gets a tricked-out Hummer. Or a line pass at "Rain," whichever is more valuable.
Getting back to reality, the guys wearing the suits at the T&M say the NBA summer league will serve as a test balloon for future endeavors -- like an expansion team, for instance? -- between the league and our city.
But the real reason the NBA may have picked this time to run a few lottery picks up the flag pole in Las Vegas is that Boston, one of the markets in which the summer league stopped last year, is not available due to the Democratic National Convention holding court at the Fleet Center.
So if you think $20 is unreasonable to watch The Reebok Vegas Summer League Stars of Tommorrow run up and down the court in their short pants, this is one you can't pin on George Bush.
archive
