Two Big Name Rookies Expected To Miss Summer League With One Possibly Missing The Whole NBA Season

In a surprise to no one both Luka Doncic and Michael Porter Jr., are expected to not play in Summer League.

However, both are for two wildly different reasons. Doncic has played basketball for essentially 10 months straight with EuroBasket, EuroLeague and the Spanish League. His season essentially just ended last week and the Mavs want to give him some time to rest and get stronger. Part of what Dallas wants to do is continue to work on Doncic’s strength and conditioning, so he will be in Vegas with the Summer League team going through workouts. It is a bit upsetting for those who haven’t gotten a chance to watch him yet as he’d be going up against other big name rookies and second year guys out in Vegas.

Then there’s Michael Porter Jr. The biggest story of the Draft was him sliding to the last pick of the lottery and Denver taking him at No. 14. If you watched his introductory press conference you saw a slight limp in his step and it’s been reported that it’s doubtful he’ll play in summer league. It’s even more than that though.

The Nuggets can be a bit picky here. They took arguably the biggest upside guy, especially relative to where he was drafted, in MPJ at No. 14. They have that core of Nikola Jokic, Gary Harris and Jamal Murray, all of whom should be locked up for the next 5-7 years. They are all under 23 years old as well. We saw them miss the playoffs on the last night of the regular season, so they are starting to compete now. They don’t need to rush MPJ for any reason as they aren’t title contenders and they also aren’t just going to stink.

Everyone knows the story with Porter now. He missed all but 54 minutes of last season after a back injury and now another reported hip injury. Coming into the year he was viewed as a top-3 prospect and one of the favorites to be the No. 1 overall pick. It’s smart for the Nuggets to be cautious with him like we saw the Sixers do with Embiid and Simmons. There’s no need to rush him into the league right this second.