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Tracy McGrady reveals what’s ‘killing’ NBA Summer League appeared first on ClutchPoints. Add ClutchPoints as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The 2026 NBA offseason has been arguably the craziest ever. Blockbuster trade after blockbuster trade has been executed and drastically changed the basketball landscape, and fans are still awaiting LeBron James’ free agent decision. As entertaining as player movement can be, fans still want to see live basketball action.
They get that with the NBA Summer League, a showcase for recent draftees and players trying to earn NBA roster spots. There was a lot of hype entering the Summer League this offseason in particular because of how loaded the 2026 NBA Draft was. However, Tracy McGrady thinks that the Summer League is dying.
“They’re killing Summer League; it is slowly dying,” McGrady told Vince Carter on their Cousins podcast. “It was a lot of excitement about watching these draftees, and coming into that, we are locked in to see how great [these prospects are] and to see how these guys perform. Now it’s like you don’t even know when they are going to play… I don’t even watch Summer League as much as I used to”
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The new trend has been for top prospects to play a game or two, and then for their franchises to pull them for the back half of the tournament as to avoid injury. That leaves little-known players taking up minutes for much of the Summer League. While this does afford unheralded players the chance to prove themselves, at the end of the day, fans want to watch the big-name players play.
The other side of the argument is that it is already tough for rookies to adapt to a grueling 82-game season after playing college basketball, so overworking young players in games that ultimately don’t matter does nothing for franchises. Regardless, McGrady’s concerns are valid and a commonly shared belief.
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