Welcome to the Game Thread. Veterans of the Game Thread know how we do things around here, but for all you newbies we have a few rules. Our community guidelines apply and basically say be cool, no personal attacks, don’t troll and don’t swear too much.
First of all, Kings 1* is not a typo. The Kings are fielding two teams for the California Classic Summer League, tonight’s opponent for the Spurs is the team that beat the Chinese National Team 101-50 last night in Sacramento. The Kings 2 team was also in action today, losing to the Miami Heat 102-86 in San Francisco, CA. A bit of trivia, if you’re looking at the scoreboard on the NBA website, SKO is Kings 1 and SKT is Kings 2. As far as I can tell, the two Kings summer league squads will be combined for Las Vegas Summer League, which should give them a good shot at winning that coveted Summer League Championship Trophy.
The Spurs Summer League is coming off a 32 point loss to the Charlotte Hornets, who had several players with extensive NBA playing experience. The only player with a good performance on the Spurs squad last night was Stephon Castle, who somehow managed a positive +/- in a 30 point loss. Neither Castle nor Sidy Cissoko are expected to play tonight on the second game of a summer back-to-back, so if you only like to watch games where the Spurs are winning, you might want to skip this one. We are going to be mostly watching guys who are looking to land jobs … somewhere … but not with the Spurs, who aren’t anticipated to have any open roster spots after they finish incorporating their new players into the squad. But I would expect guys like Jameer Nelson Jr. to play hard for the scouts at the arena to see his game and find him a longer term job that the two weeks of summer leagues.
If you’re a basketball junkie, tonight’s game is for you. Let’s watch a bunch of guys try to prove that they can play professional basketball at a high level. I’m looking forward to seeing Drew Timme, who is on the Kings 1 squad.
Game Prediction:
Yauhen Massalski will play his best game as a pro, and almost nobody will notice.
One final word:
Go Spurs GOOOOOO!!
San Antonio Spurs vs Kings 1 (California Classic)
July 7, 2024 | 9:00 PM CT
Streaming: ESPN
TV: ESPN2
Reminder: It is against site policy to post links to illegal streams in the comments, but it is not against site policy to exchange email addresses, for instance.