The days right after Labor Day is when the great migration of NBA players usually takes place. Like geese heading south for the winter, they board planes and fly to the city where they will get paid to ball — weeks before training camp opens — to start working out and playing pickup with their teammates at team facilities.
Not this year. Players are locked out of team facilities. They can’t even talk to coaches and trainers.
So a number of them — upwards of 50 with others expected to drop in — are headed to Vegas for the Impact Competitive Training Series. This new series is two weeks of organized workouts and pickup games that will be open to the public (and streamed online). The games start next Monday (Sept. 12). Everybody involved has (or recently had) an NBA contract. Big names such as Zach Randolph, Chauncey Billups and John Wall will be there, among many others.
The Suns Jared Dudley said this is the chance for teammates to start building that chemistry that would normally be growing on team facilities right now.
“Like myself, guys are trying to get a couple of their teammates to come out there so they can play with them,” Dudley told ProBasketballTalk. “So myself, I called Channing (Frye), Hakim (Warrick) is coming out, Aaron Brooks is going to be coming out.
“A lot of guys are bringing a couple of their guys in, so then in the morning you’ll train, you’ll work out, then go home and rest. Then at night you come back and play in games that will be open to the public, but you’ll be playing with guys you’ll be playing with in the season. So it helps their chemistry, something you would have potentially lost. It’s not going to make a huge factor, but it’s a factor.”
Fans love watching these types of games — whether it be the official (but cancelled this year) NBA Summer League or pro-ams like the Goodman League — but these games also get knocked for the lack of defense.
Dudley counters that guys will be focused defensively, and while you may not see mid-season defensive rotations, you will see effort.
“It’s just competitive because nobody wants to go out there and get fried, nobody wants to get embarrassed, so people are going to go out there and play defense. People are going to go out there and try to score…” Dudley said. “If Tayshaun Prince is out there killing me, and the game is going to be live and streaming, if SLAM Magazine and NBC Sports can write about it, I’m going to be finding a way to stop him.”
The names of those participating is supposed to come out Thursday, but guys that are in include Wall, Billups, Rudy Gay, Stephen Curry, Stephen Jackson, DeMar DeRozan, Al Harrington, Jermaine O’Neal, DeAndre Jordan, Chase Budinger, Omri Casspi and Eric Maynor, just to name a few.
For fans jonesing for some hoops, this might be the best thing they can get for a while. If it goes well and the lockout drags on, there could be another session in October.
The gym at Impact only holds about 700 fans, so it’s going to be intimate. Games will take place at 3, 5 and 7p.m. daily. Dudley said it’s going to be interesting.
“It’s interesting to see because nobody has done anything like this” Dudley said. “They didn’t have a Vegas Summer League so it kind of makes up for that. It’s a mix of big names to up and coming names.”
For more details, check back to PBT in the coming days or log on after Thursday to the Impact Basketball website.