Summer League Flourishes as Show of NBA Hopefuls--and Gratefuls

The Southern California Summer Pro Basketball League isn’t for everybody.

There are no Soviet or Yugoslavian draft choices. There are no women players. There are no playground hotshots who sneaked in or 40-year-olds trying to make a comeback. There are no high school referees trying to earn summer spending money.

What the league has is real players--draft choices, young pros sharpening their games, hungry free agents hoping to be discovered--real coaches and real referees.

The league, which finishes its season at Loyola Marymount this weekend, has National Basketball Assn. affiliation, with eight NBA teams represented. There are several high NBA draft choices playing this summer, along with some established pros.

The caliber of play, league officials and players said, is the next best thing to the NBA.

“You can’t walk off the street and play in this league,” said league President Larry Creger. “You can’t walk off the street and coach in this league. It’s the closest thing to the NBA except the NBA itself.

“More than 100 players from last year are playing professional basketball somewhere. We feel most good about those who make it into the NBA itself--guys like Larry Spriggs, Mark Iavaroni, Jeff Lamp.

“This year is the best talent ever in the league.”

The summer league began in Los Angeles in 1970 and expanded steadily after Creger--a former assistant coach with Bill Sharman in the American Basketball Assn. and a longtime scout for several NBA teams--bought the operation in 1980.

The league provides a threefold opportunity to players:

It gives veterans a chance to stay sharp and be seen in the off-season.

It gives draft choices their first exposure in an NBA atmosphere, usually under the tutelage of one of the team’s coaches. Lakers Coach Pat Riley got his first head coaching experience in the summer league.

And it gives free agents a chance to land a job. The league is scouted extensively, not only by nearly every NBA team but by dozens of international scouts and representatives of the Continental Basketball Assn., which has evolved into a minor league for the NBA.

The league’s most valuable player last season was Laker guard Byron Scott, who is playing again this summer. Past MVPs have included Herb Williams, Lafayette Lever, Roy Hinson and Bernard King, all starters in the NBA.

This year’s players include Lakers Billy Thompson, who was the team’s No. 1 draft pick, and second-year man A. C. Green; Charles Oakley and Sidney Green of the Chicago Bulls; Leon Wood of the Washington Bullets; and No. 1 draft choices Walter Berry, the college player of the year out of St. John’s, and Scott Skiles, the Michigan State All-American. Laker guard Michael Cooper has also played and Clipper forward Marques Johnson may appear in this weekend’s playoffs.

The represented NBA teams include some of the league’s elite: Lakers, Bulls, Boston Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers. There are also two teams of loosely bunched NBA veterans.

Creger said it is no accident that the most successful NBA teams take the summer league seriously.

“That’s why they win--they work,” he said. “I can’t understand why the other teams aren’t here. The teams who are here are the successful teams in the league.”

The summer league is filled out by 10 teams of free agents.

The number of players seeking to get into the league has grown so large that Creger now runs a pre-league tryout camp. The best free agents are chosen to fill out the rosters. They come from everywhere--large and small colleges, European and other international leagues, the CBA.

Their games, usually played earlier in the day in the league’s four-games-a-day format, often draw more scouts than fans. Creger said more than 50 non-NBA scouts had shown up by last week.

He said free agents “see this as the mecca of professional basketball in the summertime. We get most of the better free agents from all over the country. They know it’s the only league where the scouts come in any large number.”

Free agents range from three players under 5-10 to 7-3 Rogue Harris from the University of Hawaii. There are unknown players from places unknown--when was the last time you saw Lincoln Memorial University of Harrogate, Tenn., on TV?--and American players who have put in time overseas.

Leon Wood has no real job pressure. An All-American at Cal State Fullerton and a member of the 1984 gold medal Olympic team, Wood was a high NBA draft choice in 1984 and blossomed last winter after being traded from the Philadelphia 76ers to the Bullets. Local fans are accustomed to his long-range shooting skills, which have been on display since the late 1970s when he emerged as one of the Southern Section’s all-time scoring leaders at St. Monica High.

Wood, a self-described gym rat who would be playing somewhere anyway, said the summer league affords him the chance to see--and be seen by--old friends, while getting in some good competition.

“I’m at home, I work on a few things, you get your confidence going into training camp, you play against old friends. I’m basically having a good time, smiling, talking to people. I love to play so much.”

Without the pressure of having to win a job, Wood said the appeal of the league is the NBA atmosphere. “It’s as close as you’re going to get” to the NBA, he said. “It helps to have teams bring some of their top young players. Here you’ve got top caliber level (players), coaches and scouts can come out and see for themselves. It’s come a long way.”

Wood said he and other established pros play for fun, but when a close game comes down to the wire or they’re in the playoffs, the intensity level becomes noticeable.

“You’re out there to perform. If the game is close, there’s definitely a lot of intensity (that) comes out,” he said.

“I love this league.”

The free agent semifinals are at 1:30 and 3:45 p.m today. The free-agent teams that win today play for the free-agent championship at 5 p.m. Sunday.

NBA team semifinals are at 6 and 8:15 p.m. today. Winners play at 7:15 p.m. Sunday for the championship.