I think there’s a clear hierarchy as to who had a good two weeks in Las Vegas, but your milage may vary.
2025 NBA Summer League wraps up on Sunday evening with a pair of consolation games and the league championship contest between Sacramento and Charlotte. Between you, me, and the nearest brick wall, Kings-Hornets is dang near about the most perfect Summer League title game in terms of “what does this mean for the 2025-26 NBA season?” The answer? Nothing at all in the slightest.
In any case, the six former Marquette players aren’t involved in any of the three games on Sunday. That means we can take a swing over to the Summer League stats page and rank all six guys in order of best to definitely not best performances in Las Vegas over the past week and a half.
Here we go!
#1: Kam Jones — Indiana Pacers (3-2)
4 games
26.3 minutes
14.0 points on 50% shooting (5.5-for-11.0)
33% on three-pointers (1.5-for-4.5)
75% on free throws (1.5 for 2.0)
3.8 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 1.8 steals, 3.0 turnovers
+2 overall
The guy with the most to prove came away from Summer League with the best performance of the six guys in my view. The game he sat out was the consolation game after Indiana went 2-2 in their competitive contests, and seeing as word out of Indianapolis was that Jones was still dealing with the hamstring issue that he picked up at the Draft Combine, it’s no surprise that the Pacers put him on the bench for the last one. The rest of the time, he looked kiiiiinda like you’d think Kam Jones would look like taking a slight step up in competition level, and with averaging 4.5 three-point attempts per game, he clearly wasn’t forcing the issue on those shots. Maybe a little high on the turnovers, but also this is Summer League and these guys barely practiced together.
He did get absolutely cooked by Tyler Kolek with the Pacers/Knicks game coming down to the wire, though.
Tyler Kolek goes behind the back, puts his man in a blender and ties it
#2: Oso Ighodaro — Phoenix Suns (2-3)
4 games
29.3 minutes
12.3 points on 57.1% shooting (5.0-for-8.8)
47.4% on free throws (2.3-for-4.8)
8.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.8 steals, 3.5 turnovers
-6 overall
It’s not quite a “why are you at Summer League, my man” performance from Oso Ighodaro, but it’s pretty close, especially for a guy that doesn’t quite project as a superstar in the NBA at this point of his career. Shooting free throws remains a problem for Ighodaro, and he didn’t show anything resembling an indication that he’s interested in shooting three-pointers, either. Still, he was Doing Oso Things in Phoenix’s first four games and the Suns staff sat him down for the consolation game.
#3: D.J. Carton — Portland Trail Blazers (3-2)
5 games
21.5 minutes
11.0 points on 54.5% shooting (3.6-for-6.6)
38.5% on three-pointers (1.0-for-2.6)
77.8% on free throws (2.8-for-3.6)
3.2 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2.4 turnovers, 1.8 steals,
-2 overall
I kind of graded Carton and Cain against each other when it came time to slot them in, as it definitely seems like they’re the middle two. Glance down for a second, and you’ll see that Carton’s ahead of Cain in the “guys who don’t have an NBA contract for next season” competition, although it’s probably close. Is this enough to get someone to enlist Carton’s services for 2025-26? Maybe on a two-way? I think he’s still eligible for those?
#4: Jamal Cain — Minnesota Timberwolves (4-1)
5 games
20.1 minutes
5.8 points on 35.5% shooting (2.2-for-6.2)
26.7% on three-pointers (0.8-for-3.0)
75% on free throws (0.6-for-0.8)
3.2 rebounds, 1.0 blocks
+/-0 overall
Carton and Cain are similar in their impacts on their Summer League teams in that they were clearly not being asked to carry the load for either squad. That sub-27% three-point shooting is a little bit troubling, but Cain’s a 33.6% career shooter in his 81 NBA games through three seasons. If I were an NBA front office, I’d take that a bit more seriously than Summer League numbers, but I’m also not the one pulling the trigger on a contract for a guy with three years of NBA experience. Both Carton and Cain find themselves in a situation where they were playing Summer League for a squad that they were not with last season, so things are a bit up in the air for them.
#5: Tyler Kolek — New York Knicks (1-4)
5 games
26.6 minutes
11.7 points on 32.3% shooting (4.2-for-13.0)
17.1% on three-pointers (1.2-for-7.0)
84.6% on free throws (2.2-for-2.6)
2.8 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 1.6 steals, 4.0 turnovers
-9 overall
My brother in Christ, what are you doing here? The good news is that Kolek shot 50% on his attempts inside the arc in his five contests in Las Vegas, but in a situation where Kolek has a shot to get real rotation minutes from the Knicks with the coaching change to Mike Brown, that three-point shooting numbers is a mega-disaster….. especially after he shot under 30% in 41 games of action this past year.
You can get there on the rest of it — 50% inside the arc, rebounds, assists, defense — although the turnovers aren’t great….. although his turnovers were also not great in his first season with Marquette. He got better after that, so maybe it’s all really a matter of familiarity with teammates?
Clean up the shooting before October, my guy.
#6: David Joplin — Milwaukee Bucks (1-4)
1 game
15 minutes
0 points on 0-for-7 shooting
1 rebound, 3 steals, 1 turnover
-6 in the game
Once Joplin didn’t play in the Bucks’ first game, the writing was on the wall that his invitation to Summer League was a little bit more about the franchise doing some PR work by inviting the local kid who played for the local Division 1 team. That held true for the Bucks’ first four games, and when it came time for their consolation game, Joplin didn’t do anything that showed you that the Summer League coaching staff was wrong in keeping him on the bench up til then.
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