Sam Vecenie
@Sam_Vecenie
I write about basketball. And watch movies. Senior Writer at @TheAthletic on the NBA/NBA Draft. Host of the Game Theory Podcast. Email: [email protected]
The 2025 NBA Draft Guide is here. -198 pages and 160,000 words of evaluations and breakdowns on prospects in this draft class. Very deep dives on player scouts, tendencies, etc. -My final top-100 rankings (barring surprise international (Link in threaded tweet below).
Bryce and I went way too into summer league and dug into a significant majority of the relevant players who played.
PROGRAMMING NOTE… If you missed NBA Summer League, @Sam_Vecenie & @MotorCityHoops have you covered! Two episodes & nearly 5 hours of analysis breaking down so many player performances out in Vegas this year! Fully timestamped on the @GameTheorySamV YouTube channel!
Going live now with @motorcityhoops to chat about the vets at NBA Summer League this year! Lot of Jazz, Wizards, Wolves, and more to hop through and talk about: youtube.com/live/BW2stwwow…
Hello! Going live here in five with @motorcityhoops to talk about the rookies at NBA Summer League! Come hang out and watch us chat about Cooper Flagg, Harper, Tre Johnson, Kon Knueppel, and way more. youtube.com/live/X6H-ZuZj3…
Very simply: why would you be mad about WNBA players advocating for more money? Truly at the root of the issue, what’s the point of being mad about these women asking to be paid more? Are you guys rocking Cathy Englebert hats and rooting for the league to win its negotiation?
Going live here with @motorcityhoops to talk about some of the offseason stuff that has occurred! -Bradley Beal to LAC -Marcus Smart to LAL -Dame back to PDX! -JDub extension Plus a few other things. youtube.com/live/TNUqQTSEo…
Max-Dustin absolutely ripped. Just about everything you could have hoped for from that fight. What a war.
Smart is a good gamble for the Lakers. But it’s for sure a gamble. Not sure we know exactly what he has in the tank after the last two years of injuries and missed time. Might be a huge get. Might not quite have enough left at 31. But he is what they need if he’s still good.
Just a quick heads up on the podcast. We’ll be back Sunday. Decided to take a week off just because these travel weeks always end up crazy for me. Some Summer League, some free agency stuff, and more on Sunday. Then will have a couple more episodes throughout the week.
Books read from the last 5 or so months, will pick up the pace a bit here over the summer.
If the Blazers are doing Lillard as their vet, great, I’m for it. But that makes the Jrue trade repetitive now even if they’re different players. Only so many minutes to go around for the guys on their roster, and you’d think a lot of them are expecting big minutes in 2026-27
This is not a shot at all at DPM as a stat, think it’s for sure an interesting, useful number. But we gotta stop with the individual player charts as if they’re the be-all, end-all of a player’s value. See them used way too often without context just to advance silly agendas.
🥞NBA DAILY🥞 🏀WAY TOO EARLY NBA AWARDS 🏀Who is ROY and MVP?? 🏀Does Ayton have a chance at MIP???? 🎙@DaveDuFourNBA 🎙@Sam_Vecenie 🎙@JustEsBaraheni pod.fo/e/2fc2d0
lol Jordan Walsh just got ejected from a summer league game for a truly ridiculous choice to shove Pelle Larsson, then Larsson got up, he shoved him again, got ejected and gave him a Ric Flair “Wooooo!” Summer League basketball is glorious.
🥞SLAM+JAM🥞 🏀@Sam_Vecenie on Summer League 🏀Rookies and Sophomores that matter 🏀TRIVIA WITH A TWIST 🎙@AndrewKSchlecht 🎙ALEX SPEERS podfollow.com/nba-daily
FWIW, think this level of accountability is exactly why Ware is in the best spot he could have possibly landed in.
Spo makes it clear that Kel'el Ware needs to improve his "professionalism." How he approaches every day, playing with force, what he does in the gym, etc. Strong and purposeful statement from Spo. Here's a clip: