What do the stats say about the team’s performance in Las Vegas?
All that’s left of the 2025 NBA Summer League is the assessing. Greg Finberg published grades. Before summer league, I wrote about a study by a team of economists indicating that summer league performance may have predictive power of regular season performance in the following season.
Let’s take a look at what we can learn from the stats.
Before we get to this summer’s Wizards, let’s start with this analysis from Owen Phillips’ F5 Substack: Summer League Stats You Can Trust. Phillips analyzes which stats are “stickiest” — meaning which ones are most predictive of how the player will perform in their rookie year. Give the whole article a read, it’s worth the time.
Phillips determined that these stats (per minute) are fairly sticky — meaning what a player did in summer league approximates what they’ll do next season in the NBA:
- three-point attempt rate (threes as a percentage of total field goal attempts)
- three-point attempts
- assists
- blocks
- total rebounds
- offensive rebounds
There’s some decent news here. Tre Johnson attempted 9.6 threes per 48 minutes and had a 46% three-point attempt rate — he’s likely to be a fairly prolific three-point shooter next season.
Alex Sarr led summer league in blocks per minute, which suggests he could be primed to improve as a rim protector in his second year.
Least predictive categories (“Icky” stats, per Phillips);
- steals
- free throw percentage
- eFG%
- two-point field goal percentage
- true shooting percentage
- minutes per game
- three-point percentage
- +/-
Remember, those numbers are per minute.
Most of these make sense because of the small sample, level of competition, quality of play, and lack of strategic cohesiveness in comparison to the regular NBA. Plus, shooting can swing wildly in a small sample. Even great shooters can go cold (or hot) for a week or two. Over an 82-game season, those streaks balance out. Over a five-game stretch? Nah. (That’s not even considering that players picked higher might get just two games.)
Minutes are contingent on roster, role, and team aspirations. Plus/minus metrics need LOTS of minutes to become reliable. Five games wouldn’t be enough, even for a prospect who got a heavy load of minutes.
I suspect steals make this list for a few reasons. First, they’re a low volume stat category, so even a few extra steals in a small sample can dramatically swing a per minute stat. Second, unlike blocks, which are correlated with height, steals sometimes result from a physical advantage that won’t be present against NBA veterans. And third, steals often stem from offensive miscues — loose ball handling, sloppy passing, poor basketball IQ, plain old mistakes — that won’t be made by NBA veterans.
Enough with that, let’s look at this year’s Wizards. I’ll have the players ranked below according to their score in PPA. PPA is my all-around production metric, which rewards players for doing things that help a team win and dings them for doing things that hurt the cause. In PPA, 100 is average and higher is better. Replacement level is usually 45, but it doesn’t have much meaning in a small sample exercise like summer league.
NOTE: The PPA scores are for summer league ONLY.
- Tre Johnson, G — PPA: 185 — Johnson made the most of his two games, posting a 118 offensive rating (league average was 100.6) and shooting 45.5% from three-point range. Room to improve: non-scoring production was meh, and he had more turnovers than assists.
- Will Riley, F — PPA: 155 — A score this high is related more to the lack of mistakes than strong production. On the plus side, Riley made the few shots he attempted (4-7 from three, 3-5 from two, 3-4 from the free throw line). He had just one turnover and three fouls in 44 minutes of action. His turnover rate was about a quarter the summer league average. And he didn’t foul. Room to improve: Well, everything except making shots, really. He had a 12.7% usage rate and his non-scoring production was almost non-existent. Avoiding mistakes is fine for a mistake-riddled summer league, but it’s not enough to be successful at the NBA level.
- Alex Sarr, C — PPA: 153 — He made twos (55.0% vs. a summer league average of 51.3%) did some decent work on the boards (13 per 48 minutes, including 4+ on the offensive end). Biggest plus: blocked shots — he set a summer league record with eight rejections in the second game and led the league in per minute blocks. Room to improve: He bricked threes and committed 6.5 turnovers per 48 minutes, which left him with a below average offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 93.
- Jamir Watkins, W — PPA: 150 — Non-scoring production! Watkins led the league in steals at 7.7 per 48 minutes (he also led in total steals and per game swipes). Room to improve: Shooting — his eFG% was 39.5%. His offensive rating was 89.
- Kyshawn George, W — PPA: 127 — I loved the non-scoring production — lots of rebounds, assists and steals. Good two-point percentage (58.8%). Room to improve: Shooting (23.5% from three), turnovers, excessive fouling (7.6 per 48). His offensive rating was an anemic 90 on 25.9% usage.
- Dillon Jones, F — PPA: 107 — Terrific final game after a lackluster week of play. Room to improve: Lose a few pounds and improve conditioning.
- Akoldah Gak, F — PPA: 101 — Long, agile, decent rebounding, produced assists when the Wizards ran out of bodies and stuck him at center. Room to improve: Kinda everything, especially shooting. He’s not the 6-11 wing claimed by some of the online scouting reports I read, but I can see a future where he’s gotten stronger and become a contributor as a backup five.
- Bub Carrington, G — PPA: 87 — Solid non-scoring production (7.1 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 2.4 steals per 48), good shooting from three (44.4%). Room to improve: Converted just 28.6% of his two-point attempts and elevated turnovers (4.0 per 48). Overall, kind of a lackluster performance from the second year guard.
- Leaky Black, W — PPA: 85 — As Matt Modderno says, Black is probably a good three-point shot from being in an NBA rotation. His non-scoring production was strong. My guess: he’d find playing overseas more lucrative than trying to catch on with an NBA team.
- A.J. Johnson, G — PPA: 69 — I’ve been hearing about how Johnson’s actual play was less impressive than his box score. I’m not sure what box scores people were looking at because his box score numbers are pretty lousy too. He shot 18.8% on threes and committed lots of turnovers. He grabbed some rebounds, which was nice, but the Wizards need better decision-making and playmaking from the guard position. I commented multiple times during Playback that Johnson’s play reminded me of Jordan Poole, which was not intended as a compliment.
- Keshon Gilbert, G — PPA: 53 — Generated lots of paint touches and did some playmaking (that at 1-1 assist-to-turnover ratio). Weirdly for a guard, he had zero three-point attempts in 60 minutes of action.
- Jonathan Pierre, F — PPA: 48 — Shot okay from three, avoided turnovers, and…umm…wore a unique number?
- Liam Robbins, C — PPA: -119 — Shot poorly and didn’t do much else. He might have put enough on film that his agent could scrap together a short highlight reel to help him land a job overseas.
Zeke Mayo (PPA: -37) and Kadary Richmond (PPA: -63) each appeared in a couple games. Richmond flashed perhaps the outlines of an NBA role player (if he can learn to shoot) in his 37 minutes, though he did not play well. I’m sure I saw Mayo’s minutes, but I have no recollection of anything he did.
Notable PPA Scores
- YODA favorite Asa Newell, Atlanta Hawks — 174
- Kendall Brown, Boston Celtics — 178
- Egor Demin, Brooklyn Nets — 93
- Kon Knueppel, Charlotte Hornets — 159
- Ryan Kalkbrenner, CHO — 146
- Caleb Grill, Chicago Bulls — 123
- Noa Essengue, CHI — 68
- Cooper Flagg, Dallas Mavericks — 44 (only two games)
- Ron Holland, Detroit Pistons — 226
- Reed Sheppard, Houston Rockets — 93
- Taelon Peter, Indiana Pacers — 119 (without shooting a high number from three)
- Bronny James, Los Angeles Lakers — 80
- Kasparas Jakucionis, Miami Heat — 133
- Erik Stevenson, MIA — 110
- Joan Beringer, Minnesota Timberwolves — 153
- Rocco Zikarsky, MIN — 128
- Derik Queen, New Orleans Pelicans — 23
- Jeremiah Fears, NOP — -41
- Dink Pate, New York Knicks — 231
- Brooks Barnhizer, Oklahoma City Thunder — 195
- Nikola Topic, OKC — 54
- Jase Richardson, Orlando Magic — 194
- Johni Broome, Philadelphia 76ers — 176
- V.J. Edgecombe, PHI — 125
- Rasheer Fleming, Phoenix Suns — 239
- Boogie Ellis, PHO — 208
- Yang Hansen, Portland Trail Blazers — 54
- Devin Carter, Sacramento Kings — 132
- Maxime Raynaud, SAC — 111
- Dylan Harper, San Antonio Spurs — -58
- Collin Murray-Boyles, Toronto Raptors — 139
- Kyle Filipowski, Utah Jazz — 221
- Walter Clayton Jr., UTA — 116
- Cody Williams, UTA — 162