ORLANDO -- Summer league basketball in the Magic City is summer league without the pretense. There are no fans on hand to watch a bunch of guys few of us have ever heard of run up and down the Magic's practice court in nondescript practice jerseys. There are only agents, execs and media people ringing the court, along with the ubiquitous presence of international coaches and scouts.
A postcard from the other summer league
The action on the court at Orlando Summer League is nothing compared to the whispers in the back hallways. While Las Vegas commands the attention, Orlando keeps its hold on the summer scene.
Fernando Medina/NBA
In a few days this whole crew will relocate to Las Vegas, where there will be twice as many teams and far more headaches for the in-game operations people tasked with trying to turn this annual summer exercise into something that resembles actual basketball competition. No one’s all that happy about that, by the way. Everyone would rather just get on with their summer.
Photo credit: USA TODAY Sports Make no mistake, the games are still important in their own ways. Fringe players are trying desperately to make a name for themselves while touted rookies make first impressions and talented second-year pros try to stake out their own turf after lackluster rookie seasons. All of that is fine for what it is. But, as in Vegas, the real action is taking place in the hallways and back corridors, where agents scurry for deals and media try to extract intel from executives.
A small scene: While talking with a representative of a team in the alcove of a hallway, a guy working for an agency tried to interest the rep in some of his still-available players. That bit of business done -- or not done, in this case -- we returned to our conversation about free agent deals both rumored and real.
Everything is off the record, of course, because nothing in this league is ever on the record, or at least nothing but platitudes and pro-forma quotes. Rumors and speculation drive the league. They drive the traffic metrics on websites and fill up column inches in newspapers. They all started somewhere and what better place than a practice court filled with nothing but industry people and not much else to do.
It’s a strange bubble here, with everything and everyone being confined to such a tight space. The press room is adjacent to the court and there are snacks and televisions, so it’s a natural meeting place for mingling and small talk.
There we all were on Wednesday afternoon when Argentina and the Netherlands drew a comparable crowd to the game between the Nets and Sixers. The Europeans murmured and mumbled through the action, while the Yanks tried to make sense of the extra time rules. The match over, the talk returned to the other game.
So hey, how about that Gordon Hayward max offer? Insanity, several people said. The Chandler Parsons deal? Why not four years, wonder what they're up to.
Meanwhile, out in Vegas ...
That's where everyone's attention truly was, because that's where LeBron James was at the moment with his summer camp. That was never more obvious than when the Miami Heat summer team took the court, while the franchise's brain trust -- Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg -- were in Vegas prepping for their face-to-face with James. The game went on, but with little fanfare for anyone but the participants.
"I don't watch that at all," said Miami's first-round pick Shabazz Napier. "I have no idea what's going on. I have no clue at all. I'm just out here trying to figure out how to adjust to the game much quicker. That's my job."
Until LeBron decides where he's going, everything else is in a holding pattern. From Carmelo Anthony to Chris Bosh to the long-delayed Kevin Love deal, almost all of the major summer action is waiting on Bron. One exec suggested that the Wolves might wind up holding on to Love into the start of the season, which would have the potential to make for a mighty fine mess. But really, someone else said with a sigh, we need things to start happening.
That’s the nature of the business. The timeline may be a little drawn out this summer, but the waiting game is nothing new.
"It's pretty much that's how it always goes, you know," said Stan Van Gundy who's now running things for the Pistons. "There's certain things you end up waiting on in this process."
In Van Gundy's case, he's waiting on Greg Monroe. His restricted free agent big man will likely command a great deal of money from someone at some point, given that he's an 18-and-10 guy even in the weird systems in which he's been forced to play during his time in pre-SVG Detroit.
Until LeBron decides where he's going, everything else is in a holding pattern.
“He’s more important than anyone on the free agent market to us, to the Detroit Pistons, so I wanted to be in there first and talking to him,” Van Gundy said. “He’s extremely important and we’re prepared for any eventuality in this, but there’s obviously things we would rather have happen than other things.”
Asked if that meant matching any offer that went up to the max, Van Gundy contorted and strained until giving the most honest non-answer a man like Stan Van Gundy can offer, given that he’s one of the few brutally honest interviewees in the league.
“I’m not going to get into the business side of things and I’m certainly not going to help other teams help in terms of building their strategy or anything else,” he began. “I’m just going to say that Greg Monroe is a very important part of the puzzle in Detroit and we want him back very, very much. We’ll see what happens in the next few weeks, months. However long it takes.”
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