9 Players You Had No Idea Were Ballin’ Out in the NBA Summer League

The NBA Summer League is the preseason before the preseason. In most cases, it’s the first chance that young players have to prove they belong at the league while lacing them up in Orlando, Utah, and Las Vegas. And for the players we’ve highlighted below, their hopes of sticking on an NBA roster come October have greatly improved since it first tipped.

As the Summer League heads into its quarterfinals Thursday in Las Vegas, here are 9 Players You Had No Idea Were Ballin’ Out in the NBA Summer League.

Randle went undrafted in 2015 after helping Stanford win the NIT, but was picked up by the then-defending champion Golden State Warriors. After last year’s Summer League, he signed to play professionally in the Czech Republic’s National Basketball League and led ČEZ Nymburk to the league’s title. He signed a contract with the Knicks on June 26 and did not disappoint, finishing as the second-highest scorer in the Orlando Summer League, only behind Cameron Payne, with 18.3 points per game while shooting 47.6 percent from the field. He also dished out five assists a game and grabbed 4.3 rebounds per.

First of all, Vander Blue is already a dope name, but he can put up some solid stats, too. Blue, out of Marquette, has been on five D-League teams in three years, most recently with the Los Angeles D-Fenders. He even played for two separate franchises in the 2013 Summer League: the Grizzlies and the Rockets. He’s played in five career NBA games—three with the Celtics, and two with the Lakers. This summer, as a member of the Mavericks’ Summer League squad in Orlando, he dropped 17.4 points a game, the third-highest in the league. He led the D-League last year with 26.3 points a game.

Christon was drafted by the Miami Heat in 2014 with the 55th overall pick. He was traded to Oklahoma City and was named a D-League All Star in 2015 playing for the Oklahoma City Blue. Christon is no stranger to this sort of competition, and his 16.8 points per game while balling in Orlando back that up. The former Xavier Bulldog could be making an impression on Thunder brass now that the team appears to be in rebuilding mode.

Graham was lights out. He shot 55.9 percent from the field, the highest in Orlando among those who had at least 50 field goal attempts. After winning the A-10 Tournament MVP in 2015 while playing for VCU, he went undrafted. He joined the Spurs, was released, then signed with the Jazz, then was waived. He then signed with their D-League affiliate, the Idaho Stampede, now known as the Salt Lake City Stars, and dropped 15.7 a game for them, along with grabbing 6.1 boards per game.

Gibson is probably having the best stretch from the guys you didn’t expect to perform. In fact, the Mavs just signed him to a three-year deal after impressing the team while out in Vegas. The former New Mexico Aggie averaged 42 points per game in the Chinese Basketball Association last year. He dropped 30 in an 86-64 win over the Heat on Saturday, while the Mavs as a whole have been struggling to put points on the board this summer.

Another sick name, this time out in Vegas again. Skyes was named three-time First Time All-Horizon League player while at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He never made the NCAA Tournament and went undrafted in 2015. After playing for the Austin Spurs in the D-League, he then worked out for four teams this off-season, but settled with Golden State. In four games in Vegas, Skyes is shooting 40 percent from the field, dropping 16 points a game.

Despite being undrafted in 2015, Williams is just one of two players, along with Bulls’ power forward Bobby Portis, to average a double-double in Vegas. Williams is putting up 15.3 points and 11.3 rebounds a game while shooting 50 percent from the field. The 6’8”, 260 pound power forward played in 10 games for the Suns last year, but he’s making his case for increasing that number this year. After averaging 6.8 minutes a game in the NBA, he’s now averaging 27.3 minutes in Vegas.

Christian Wood was the surprise of the four-day Utah Summer League. The former UNLV Runnin’ Rebel not only dominated from the field, hitting 63.8 percent of his attempts, but his 18.7 points and six boards a game were impressive. Ben Simmons has been the talk of the Summer League so far, but Sixers fans might wanna give this guy a look. He was undrafted in 2015 after being named Second Team-All MWC while at UNLV, but this isn’t just a small sample size; in 32 games with the Delaware 87ers last year, he averaged 17.3 points and 9.4 rebounds a game. Wood was waived and brought back up on 10-day contracts several times last year, but his play this summer just earned him a two-year deal with the Hornets.

Why not finish things off with one more entertaining name in Bryn Forbes, who was undrafted this year despite hitting 77-of-100 3-pointers in pre-draft workouts. He was picked up by the Spurs and is currently playing in Vegas, but during his time in Utah he impressed. In three games, he averaged 16 points a game in 28 minutes per. Forbes signed a one-year, $543,000 deal with San Antonio, which is guaranteed no matter where he plays.