Victor Wembanyama Playing in NBA Summer League After Draft Discussed by Adam Silver

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is unconcerned by the idea of French phenom Victor Wembanyama making his summer-league debut before the league's true summer showcase tips off in Las Vegas.

The San Antonio Spurs, who have the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft, will be competing in the California Classic in Sacramento, California, which falls before the full summer league in Las Vegas.

Silver told the Associated Press' Tim Reynolds he doesn't see a distinction between the two and that "all summer leagues are NBA Summer Leagues."

"I'm very supportive of the Sacramento summer league," he said. "I remember when (Kings team governor Vivek Ranadive) first came to the league and said this was something he wanted to do. I said, 'As long as you have enough other teams who support it and players who want to play in it, it's a good thing.'"

Whereas it once had a niche following among basketball fans, the Vegas summer league has become a big business for the NBA and its commercial partners.

Attendances aren't far off from what you typically see on a given night in the regular season, and Silver explained how the real money is in broadcasting the games.

"What's made the summer leagues so valuable are really the media rights more than the individuals who buy tickets there, because it's a very affordable experience," he said to Reynolds.

The hype surrounding Wembanyama is probably so high it doesn't matter whether he takes the floor in Sacramento or not. His Vegas debut would be treated as a major event regardless of whether he has suited up for the Spurs already.

This discussion overshadows a larger point. The 19-year-old's availability for summer league is no given.

Metropolitans 92 qualified for the finals in LNB Pro A, France's top division. The best-of-five series against AS Monaco Basket will end June 15 at the earliest and could extend to June 20.

The two-day California Classic unfolds on July 3 and 5, and the Vegas summer league gets underway July 7.

The Spurs might prefer to let Wembanyama rest rather than get him back on the court less than a month after his season ended.

As with Wembanyama, Luka Dončić played through mid-June with Real Madrid ahead of making the jump to the NBA in 2018. The Dallas Mavericks included Dončić on their summer league roster, but he didn't ultimately play in Sin City.

That didn't preclude Luka from hitting the ground running as a rookie.

Using that as a guide, fans might want to mentally prepare for the likelihood Wembanyama doesn't debut for the Spurs until the preseason.