The NBA Summer League has played in Las Vegas since 2004, but the NHL is the only professional sports league to have a Vegas franchise in the Vegas Golden Knights reach the finals in their sport.
Las Vegas is a complicated thing. Luckily, they have the Vegas Golden Knights to keep things together.
I’m from Detroit, so I’m used to going south to have fun. I’m from Detroit, so I’m used to going south and left to get to Las Vegas. I’m used to going south to get into Canada. This means I know hockey.
If that doesn’t make sense, that’s your fault.
Now that we’ve established facts, I would like to turn attention to professional sports leagues.
The NHL is not used to smashing solid barriers. When you break the ice, typically you fall about four circles and end up in Pittsburgh. Up until about 2014, that hell was being made to nurse Sidney Crosby’s most recent injury. Since then it’s been to lay Evgeni Malkin on a couch and apply DBT in an attempt to explain why he should be really, really good but, you know, not too good.
Then the Vegas Golden Knights happened.
But before the Knights came the Las Vegas Summer League ran the town. The Summer League had players like Andre Drummond, Dwight Howard, LaMarcus Aldridge, DeMar DeRozan, and Brandon Roy.
I don’t know how, but the Las Vegas Summer League never made it to the NBA Finals. In fact, the Summer League has never played a single NBA game. All their best players have gone on to play for other teams. Some won championships, some were All-Stars, some would flame out elsewhere without ever returning to Las Vegas.
The Knights have something special. Not only do they have professional players, but they have a professional team.
I think that’s where the NBA went wrong.