Hindsight is always going to be 20/20, and nostalgia tends to amplify the memories of things that may or may not have been as great as we remember. But when Los Angeles Lakers fans reflect on their team's 2017 NBA Summer League squad, the hype is every bit as warranted as they remember it being.
That year, the Lakers took home the championship at the Las Vegas NBA Summer League, defeating the Portland Trail Blazers in the final round. Lonzo Ball was named the Summer League MVP for the entire campaign, while Kyle Kuzma picked up MVP honors for the championship game specifically.
Man, those are some throwback names, huh? What a time it was to be a Lakers fan in 2017, when the team's exciting new young core was looking ready to take over the league. Let's dive into the rest of that roster for a minute, shall we?
You of course had Ball and Kuzma, who were foundational pieces of LA's youth movement at the time. Lonzo had just been drafted second overall, and Kuzma was being compared to Jayson Tatum at the time. That obviously sounds crazy to say now, but if you were around and participating in those discussions back then, you remember what it was like.
The Lakers had a stacked 2017 Summer League roster
Then there was Alex Caruso. The now-two-time NBA champion was the member of this Summer League squad that stuck around the Lakers organization the longest, and ended up winning an NBA championship alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis in October 2020. Now, he just put the finishing touches on his second championship run with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Brandon Ingram was also on this roster, along with Ivica Zubac, Josh Hart and Thomas Bryant, all of whom are still playing at a high level in the league today. All things considered, this was simply one of the most stacked rosters of all time as far as Summer League squads are concerned.
And that reflected in this group's on-court performance as well. It wasn't like they just had a bunch of potential talent that we would all make a realization about years later, we knew what we were watching when we saw it. After defeating the Philadelphia 76ers by one in the first round, the Lakers would win three of their next four contests by double digits en route to the championship.
It's just mind-boggling to think of the kind of future NBA talent that existed in that one Summer League locker room in Las Vegas. As Lakers fans look back fondly on this team, they should do it knowing that a team this good and this fun probably comes around in Summer League maybe once every couple of decades.