What happend to all the Summer Leagues...

The best thing to me about summer has always been the basketball summer leagues.

First the Las Vegas Summer Pro league shut the Long Beach Summer Pro League down. Now I don't see a trace of hope for the Chicago Pro-Am.

As a SPL veteran, I've been attending games since I was a kid. It was the only place during the summer you could watch hoops for fewer than 5-10 bucks, get autographs from NBA players and see new draft picks from the 10-12 NBA teams that annually participated in the Long Beach summer pro-league. Not to mention watching little unknowns showcase their skills on agent squads. I've seen so many guys come through that league...Penny Hardaway, Bo Outlaw, Kobe, Smush, Q.Rich, D. Miles, Drew Gooden, Tracy McGrady, Charlie Ward...man I could go on and on.

It was a place where parents who might not be able to afford to take their families to an NBA game could come and bring all the kids out for fewer than 20 dollars and have a ball.

One thing I respected most about the league is that it was solely run by the interns. I learned this my 1st summer with them. We found sponsors, handled player development, media relations, stats...you name it we did it... months before the league started and for the three weeks while the league ran. We usually got there at 6am and most nights we didn't leave until after midnight for 21 days straight. It helped me develop networking skills and gain better knowledge of the ins and outs of a professional sports team.

The Long Beach league started to go downhill in recent years and once the Las Vegas league started in 05 it was a wrap. Slowly the SPL started losing most of their NBA teams and by 2006 the Lakers were the only team to remain.

Now it appears that the Chicago Pro-Am isn't going to happen this summer. The only thing that troubles me about this one is I feel for guys that wouldn't get that much shine if weren't for these leagues. I've seen many small time guys go through mini camps, get placed on agent teams, scouted, then go on and play overseas or on street ball teams. I mean the sky's the limit right?...

Now most of the leagues are solely NBA oriented. You have the Rocky Mountain review in Utah, the Summer League in Orlando that went down last week and the main NBA summer league taking place out in Vegas.

Where does the young man with skills that doesn't have an agent fit in now? He deserves a chance as well