Five intriguing NBA Summer League storylines to watch

The 2025 NBA Summer League kicks off on Thursday night in Las Vegas with an exciting matchup between Dallas Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg and Bronny James of the Los Angeles Lakers. Flagg and James are just two of the intriguing players and storylines to watch in this year's tournament of the league's best young prospects.

Let's talk about five of those storylines to watch over the next couple of weeks. 

1. Cooper Flagg 

Honestly, just everything about him is the storyline. Flagg was the most anticipated prospect in the 2025 NBA Draft and landed in Dallas where he is going to have an opportunity to help reshape the organization following last season's fiasco that saw the team shockingly trade away Luka Doncic. 

Given all of that, he is the player everybody is going to want to see, especially as the Mavericks toy with the idea of playing him at point guard. As head coach Jason Kidd put it, he wants to see how comfortable Flagg can be running the show. 

This is going to be a good — and fascinating — test for him. 

2. Ace Bailey's shot selection

While Flagg was the unquestioned top prospect in the draft, Bailey might have been the most fascinating.

Nobody doubts his ability to make shots from anywhere on the floor, and he might be the best pure scorer in this rookie class. 

But while he has a tendency to make difficult shots, he also has a tendency to take some really poor shots and not distribute the ball to his teammates consistently. 

He fell to the No. 5 spot in the Draft after not wanting to work out for several of the top teams in the draft, and he did not seem to prefer Utah as his destination. But things seemed to have cooled in that regard, and now the Jazz have a potential star on their hands — assuming all of his skills develop and he harnesses all of his offensive skills. 

3. Does Bronny James have an NBA future?

As long as he is playing professional basketball, Bronny James is going to be one of the most polarizing players. While he spent most of the 2024-25 season playing in the NBA's G League, he did show some improvement and promise and is going to have another opportunity to shine in this year's Summer League. 

He already played a couple of games in the California Classic, and while he was not a totally finished product, he did show some flashes that are the sort of thing a team can dream on.