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Many fans have come to the conclusion that summer league is meaningless.
That might be especially true for Golden State Warriors fans after witnessing Marco Belinelli, Ike Diogu, Anthony Morrow and Anthony Randolph have big summer league performances before underwhelming some of us in real games.
But in an interview with Scott Schroeder of SB Nation NBA, Warriors guard Charles Jenkins described how he's taking advantage of the opportunity.
Charles Jenkins, in Sin City playing with the Golden State Warriors, said earlier this week that he's a huge fan of what Summer League has to offer.
"It's a big difference. I love it. I had the chance to be around my coaches as much as I want and I took advantage of it," Jenkins said earlier in the week. "Even after the season was over, I took five days off and I came right back just because I know that I need to stay in the gym and be around the coaches as much as possible to get better and I'm taking advantage of it."
Obviously Jenkins needs to work on his jumper to cement himself as a NBA rotation player and we've seen some evidence of that in early games.
But as Schroeder also notes, this year's sophomore class is in unique situation: having missed out on summer league last season due to the lockout, they came to Vegas with not only NBA experience but also an understanding of their team's system in many cases. Both Jenkins and Josh Selby describe in the article how it's an opportunity to build chemistry with the coaches and the other young players that one can imagine they didn't have much chance to do during their rushed 66-game rookie season.
It would be interesting to know what, if anything, a player like Klay Thompson got out of his brief experience at summer league given that he had just participated in USA Basketball activities and has established himself as a starter rather than a guy fighting for a spot in the rotation.