The NBA’s roots extend in Las Vegas with Cream’s historic achievement, the Summer League Games

The NBA has a longstanding relationship with Las Vegas, which once again hosts summer league games starting this Friday.

Since 2004, the Thomas & Mack Center has been the home of the summer event, but its first game in the NBA took place on November 23, 1983, between the Utah Jazz and Chicago Bulls. It wasn’t a show game.

At the time, the Jazz was one of the NBA’s most unsuccessful franchises. Since its inception in 1974 in New Orleans, the team has failed to qualify for the playoffs in all nine seasons, even after moving to Salt Lake City.

Going into the 1983-84 season, the Jazz had been 107-221 since moving from Louisiana, and terrible play on the hardwood was reflected in the seats at the Salt Palace—no one was attending home games.

The crowds were so small that Utah’s bigwigs decided to play 11 games in Las Vegas during the 1983-84 season. The team had the approval of the NBA Board of Governors as long as the Vegas sportsbooks agreed not to accept bets on the Jazz, which they did.

The Jazz went 5-6 during that season in Vegas, but there was an important NBA milestone achieved during one of those 11 games.

On April 5, 1984, in front of 18,389 fans during a “home” game for the Jazz, Los Angeles Lakers star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar received a pass from Magic Johnson in the fourth quarter, faked it to his right, turned to his left as he hooked his unstoppable heavenly hook from nearly 11 feet to surpass Wilt Chamberlain and his 31,419 regular season points to become the all-time leading scorer in the NBA.

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“I’ve always enjoyed being a scorer, and I can’t deny that,” Abdul-Jabbar told the Associated Press after the match.

And another Los Angeles star didn’t mind getting an assist on a record-breaking shot.

“When you got the ball, you waved to everyone,” Johnson said. “The first time, (Bob) McAdoo threw it at him, but he (Abdul-Jabbar) got a triple team. He threw it again and McAdoo missed it. I said, ‘Okay, now’s my chance. I’ll make sure I give it to him.'”

Going into the match, Abdul-Jabbar needed 21 points to top Chamberlain’s mark. Abdul-Jabbar scored 22 goals in the Lakers’ 129-115 victory and finished his career with 38,387 points before LeBron James made his mark this year.

But why break a record in Las Vegas? The Lakers played the Kansas City Kings the next night in Los Angeles, so Abdul-Jabbar could pull off the feat in front of his home crowd.

With the Lakers leading exponentially in the second half, Lakers coach Pat Riley briefly considered sitting Abdul-Jabbar out for the rest of the game.

“I asked Pat if I wanted to get me out,” Abdul-Jabbar said. “I told him no, I’d rather do that. It was a huge burden on my shoulders and a heavy burden on the team’s shoulders. Our goal is to win the World Championship, we can focus on that now.”

And now another tall and lanky star is looking to do just that when he began his NBA career at the Thomas & Mack Center. 1 overall pick and French teenager Victor Wimpanyama, who is just 19-by-7-foot-4, is set to watch his first NBA game during two games in Sin City.

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It’s only Summer League, but Wemby Mania will be on full show, and hopefully, it will have a hook.

Since 2004, the Thomas & Mack Center has been the home of the NBA Summer League. (Jeff Millett/The Athletic)

NBA 2K24 Summer League

Dates: From 7 to 17 July

location: Las Vegas at the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion on the UNLV campus

difference: All 30 NBA teams

Schedule: A total of 76 matches will be played over 11 days.

the tickets: NBAEvents.com

Quad championship: After each team has played four matches, the top four advance to the playoffs and play the semi-final match on July 16. The semifinal winners will advance to the title match on July 17.

Consolation Games: The 26 teams that did not qualify for the playoffs will play the fifth and final match on July 15 or 16.

How to watch: All 76 games will be broadcast on the ESPN and NBA TV networks.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report

(Top photo by David Stern and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

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