Biggest Stories of the Week

NBA — 2026 Summer League Hoops Delivered
With the Las Vegas Summer League tournament kicking off this past Monday, we’ve already seen some great performances from the top-3 draft picks and a handful of other players selected in the lottery. But it’s the players who go right outside lottery to late-lottery that prove to be real gems like Cameron Carr for the Lakers. Who's had the best showing in Summer League so far?

CBB — College Hoops Just Got Deeper
College hoops’ star power just got a major boost. FC Barcelona wing Nikola Kusturica has committed to UCLA where he’ll have to play at least two years of CBB before going to the NBA due to age. Not to be outdone, the No. 1 player in the class of 2027, Marcus Spears Jr., has reclassified to 2026 and committed to Texas, where he'll suit up for the Longhorns this upcoming season for at least two years as well.

In today’s issue:

👀 The Read — Boston blew up a contender

🔥 Clutch or Cap — Who’s balling so far in Summer League

Brown Out in Boston

Clippers
The LA Clippers have a lot on their plate at the moment from dealing with a lawsuit, Kawhi leaving, and optimizing "The Wall." As they move on from the Kawhi chapter, they started by drafting Keaton Wagler, a phenomenal scorer who went from unranked to the No. 5 pick. Wagler had a rough Summer League debut (7 PTS, 1-7 FG) as most rookies do, but the future is still bright as he bounced back in game 2 with 23 PTS (4-7 3PT), including 18 in the third quarter.

The Harden trade landed Darius Garland and the Kawhi deal brought in Brandon Ingram, a real buy-low since his atrocious playoff stats came on a bad heel that ended in surgery. Add Rui Hachimura and a retained Bennedict Mathurin and one of the league's oldest rosters got younger and faster overnight. Dumping Zubac and Collins leaves Brook Lopez as the only real center, but the bigger question is who's the guy? Every contender out West has one, and right now the Clippers are betting on Garland who couldn't get it done or stay healthy in Cleveland.

Celtics
Boston made the wildest trade of the offseason, shipping Jaylen Brown to the 76ers for Paul George, and as bad as it looks on paper I actually see the vision. This team lives on threes and offensive rebounds, and they just improved in those two areas. George shot a career-high 49.3% from deep in the playoffs and Mitchell Robinson is one of the best offensive rebounders in the league.

Boston finished top-2 in the East without Tatum last year, and with his usage expected to spike plus more touches for Payton Pritchard and Derrick White, I still see a top-5 team in the East. Not to mention Boston’s young guys who they were unwilling to trade, like Hugo Gonzalez, could add tremendous value to this roster. The only concern is George's health, because if he can't stay on the floor this goes down as the worst trade in history not named Luka.

Rockets
Moving on from the KD files era, Houston is getting their starting PG back in Fred VanVleet who they desperately needed last year. Outside of Kevin Durant they didn't have many scoring options, and they finished as one of the worst clutch teams in the league, bottom-10 in clutch win percentage and dead last in points allowed off turnovers in crunch time.

With KD staying put despite all the Detroit noise, Houston finally has the one-two punch every contender needs, with Sengun, Amen Thompson, and a healthy Steven Adams back from ankle surgery rounding out the core. They also added Marcus Smart and Bogdan Bogdanovic for shooting and ballhandling and are betting on another Reed Sheppard leap in year three after he jumped to 13.5 PPG on 39% from three. Houston finished top-5 in the West and retained its key players, so the real question is simple: does getting Fred back finally fix the shooting and the late-game execution that cooked them last year?

UCLA
Mick Cronin landed the biggest recruiting swing of his seven years in Westwood, pulling Serbian FC Barcelona wing Nikola Kusturica out of Europe on a reported two-year deal worth around twelve million, and the kid backed the hype by dropping 37 on Team USA in the U17 World Cup final while earning the tournament's top defensive award. The catch is that one five-star wing does not fix a roster that got depleted on both ends. UCLA's offense quietly carried the team last season, finishing 26th nationally in KenPom's adjusted efficiency while the defense slipped to 49th, a soft mark by Cronin's defense-first standard.

The Bruins lost their best shooter in Tyler Bilodeau and one of their best perimeter defenders in Donovan Dent, and Skyy Clark, the guy everyone assumed would fall back to Westwood for a fifth year, chose the NBA instead. That leaves Trent Perry as the only proven returning guard next to new additions Jaylen Petty and Azavier Robinson, though the frontcourt stays familiar with Eric Dailey Jr. and Xavier Booker back. In a top heavy Big Ten with Michigan, Illinois, and Michigan State, UCLA's top five hopes ride entirely on whether an unproven backcourt and an 18-year-old scorer can replace what left.

Texas
Sean Miller turned a Sweet 16 Cinderella into a legitimate contender in one offseason, headlined by landing Marcus Spears Jr., the No. 1 prospect in the 2027 class who reclassified to 2026 and committed to the Longhorns. That commitment vaulted Texas past Duke for the No. 1 overall team rankings in the country per 247Sports, and the wild part is Spears might come off the bench behind a starting five built almost entirely from the portal. Isaiah Johnson (17 PPG) from Colorado, Elyjah Freeman from Auburn, and David Punch (14 PPG, 6.8 RPG) from TCU headline one of the best transfer classes in the nation, all anchored by returning center Matas Vokietaitis.

Losing Dailyn Swain to the Bulls at No. 15 hurts, but this roster is built to fix last year's real flaw, a defense that ranked 83rd on KenPom while the offense sat inside the top-15. Texas went 9-9 in the SEC and snuck in as a Cinderella last year, but with this haul the Longhorns are a lock for the tournament and a top-3 SEC team. This time it would not be a Cinderella run, it would be an expected one.

Louisville
Pat Kelsey rebuilt the whole roster from scratch through the portal, landing the No. 1 transfer class in the country in his third year at the helm. The headliner is Flory Bidunga, the Kansas big who won Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year averaging nearly three blocks a game, and Kelsey paired him with Oregon lead guard Jackson Shelstad to form a one-two punch. Add Karter Knox from Arkansas, Iowa's Alvaro Folgueiras who buried the game-winner over Florida in March, and returning guard Adrian Wooley hunting a bounce-back to his 18-PPG Kennesaw State form, and the starting five is dangerous on paper.

This roster lost Mikel Brown Jr. to the NBA and is put together almost entirely from new faces, so the questions are health and chemistry more than talent. Shelstad is a real answer at the point, but the bench leans on unproven pieces like five-star freshman Obinna Ekezie Jr. and a 7'5” shot-blocker in Gabe Dynes who has to prove he can produce. In a top-heavy ACC the Cardinals have the star power to finish top-5, but whether that portal-built roster gels and stays healthy is the whole ballgame.

The Race Is On

Twenty and Out
Kyle Lowry retired as just the 12th player in NBA history to play 20 seasons, signing a one-day deal to walk away a Raptor on 7/7.

Rookie Record
AJ Dybantsa dropped 27 in his Las Vegas Summer League debut, tying Blake Griffin for the most points ever by a No. 1 overall pick in his first Vegas game.

Buckeye Business
Bruce Thornton dropped 27 in his Summer League debut, the most ever by a Rockets rookie in a Summer League game.

Duke Found a Stud
Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje led Team USA in points (19.6), rebounds (10.9), blocks (2.1), and efficiency (29.3) on his way to U17 World Cup MVP and gold before he ever suits up for Duke.

The 2028 Race Is Set
Duke's Boumtje Boumtje, Texas' Marcus Spears Jr., and UCLA's Nikola Kusturica all reclassified and are locked into two years of college before they're 2028 draft-eligible.

CBB x Thanksgiving
Last year's Arkansas-Duke Thanksgiving Classic drew 6.81 million viewers on CBS, the most-watched regular-season college hoops game in 32 years.

The Debates Driving Basketball

Two weeks into Summer League and I already got my biggest sleeper, Cameron Carr, who's making 23 teams regret passing on him. The Lakers traded up to grab him at 24 and all he's done is drop buckets, 19 points with 5 threes on the Warriors, then followed it with 26 and 8 boards in a double-OT win over the Heat, shooting 9-of-20 from deep across the two. Carr’s got a beautiful jumper and he’s exactly the three-and-D wing a Luka-led offense has been begging for (although the defense could use a little work).

But the standouts run deep this summer, because Bruce Thornton dropped 27 in his debut, and Meleek Thomas has been a straight bucket for the Cavs with a 20 and then a 30-point, 7-assist night against the Pistons. Add in Labaron Philon looking like an instant bench scorer for the Sixers, Allen Graves stuffing the sheet with 22 PTS and 13 REB for Toronto, and 49th pick Bryce Hopkins going for 24 on 69% FG, and the post-lottery value this year looks stacked. Shoutout Tyler Nickel as well, he’s shooting 10/21 from three in his first two Summer League games and looks to add more spacing to an already elite Knicks offense.

Not to mention there’s still some guys, like Isaiah Evans, who have yet to perform like we’ve seen in college. And of course the lottery guys balled out, with Caleb Wilson pouring in 35 PTS and Darryn Peterson’s been hooping for the Jazz. Obviously it’s very early, but there's already been a ton to take away, and it'll be interesting to see where these guys go and how they build on it. Which players have stood out to you the most so far?

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The Big Ten had the most Natty-worthy teams in the country last year with Michigan winning it all and Illinois in the Final Four, but if we're being honest the SEC was still the deepest league. This year I've got those two as the clear heavyweights again, with the SEC deep as ever behind title favorite Florida and the Big Ten right there on the strength of its elite top tier. I'm not buying the Big 12 as a top-two league this time, because outside of Arizona, Houston, and Kansas they lost too much.

The Big Ten's top three are locked and deep, and I've got Illinois as my favorite over Michigan and Michigan State, mostly because Michigan lost its three leading scorers while the Illini brought their core back. After that I like Indiana at four, because even though I'm not sold on Darian DeVries after one rough year, that all-transfer, upperclassman-heavy haul is the exact blueprint Michigan just won a title with. UCLA and USC round out a top five, especially with UCLA landing the Barcelona wing Nikola Kusturica. But the drop-off is real, because Purdue lost four of five starters, Wisconsin lost both 20 PPG guards in Boyd and Blackwell, and Iowa's Elite Eight run graduates with Stirtz gone to the NBA.

That's where the SEC still separates itself, because the Big Ten is elite at the top but thinner in the middle than a league that sent 14 teams dancing last year. So the Big Ten is a clear top-two conference again on the strength of its ceiling, but until that middle tier proves it can hang, the SEC keeps the crown as the best conference in the sport.

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The Biggest Headlines in Basketball

💰 Cavs Lock Up Mitchell. Donovan Mitchell agreed to a 4-year, $273M max extension to stay in Cleveland, with a player option for 2030-31 and a full trade kicker. He passed on waiting a year for a bigger supermax, locking in a bag now.

📝 Payday Season. The money moved everywhere, headlined by Victor Wembanyama's 5-year, $252M rookie-scale max, where he took the 25% max over the 30% supermax and left roughly $50M on the table to give the Spurs flexibility. Quinten Post landed a 3-year, $30M offer sheet in Memphis that Golden State declined to match, while Kevon Looney (1yr/$3.9M, Lakers) and Mo Bamba (2yr, Jazz) found homes and the Kings waived DeMar DeRozan, putting a proven scorer on the market.

🔄 Trade Tracker. A six-team blockbuster reshaped the league: Detroit sent Caris LeVert to Milwaukee for Taurean Prince and Gary Harris, Washington shipped D'Angelo Russell to Memphis, the Grizzlies flipped Santi Aldama to Dallas, and Khris Middleton returned to Washington on a 3-year, $17.6M sign-and-trade.

🪑 Coaching Carousel. Mike Boynton had his interim tag removed and signed a 2-year deal as Michigan's full-time head coach after Dusty May left for the Mavericks, while Frank Vogel joined Golden State as associate head coach.

⚖️ College Fraud Scandal. Former Kentucky, Arizona, West Virginia, and Cincinnati guard Kerr Kriisa was arrested and indicted on five counts of wire fraud for allegedly running a $2.2M scheme, posing as family members and claiming his mother needed cancer treatment to con victims out of money.

🔁 CBB Roster Moves. Gonzaga took a major hit as projected starting guard Mario Saint-Supery left for Spanish club Valencia on a 4-year deal, gutting the backcourt of a projected top-20 team, while Alabama landed five-star Anderson Diaz, who reclassified into the 2026 class to suit up for the Tide this season.

📅 Exhibition Schedules Released. Charleston will host an outdoor doubleheader September 27 with Vanderbilt-Virginia and Charleston-Citadel, while Ohio's CareSource Invitational (Ohio State, Cincinnati, Xavier, Dayton) tips October 7.

Moments, Memes, and Culture

Caleb Wilson was frying in his Summer League debut against Memphis:

That’s Volume 25.
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Catch you courtside. 🏀
—Hoopvalor