Which teams are actually good at Summer League?

The 2017 Summer League was so much hotter than any other Summer League, ever. Now the games are on ESPN in primetime — in the middle of the MLB season — instead of just in the tranquil quiet of mornings on NBA TV. The Summer League has officially jumped from an obscure scouting exercise to a bona fide part of the basketball calendar. At the least, Summer League is way more fun than the preseason.

Although, just like the preseason, we still don’t really know what the Summer League actually means. It certainly seems like it’s a good thing to be, y’know, good at the Summer League, but those performances don’t always translate to November and beyond. Anybody remember who preceded Lonzo Ball as the Las Vegas session MVP? I definitely had to look it up. It was Tyus Jones. Honestly.

Beneath the swirling take vortex of insta-re-drafts, I wanted to know some concrete information about which teams are best at the Summer League. True success at the Summer League isn’t about your win-loss record — the Bulls didn’t earn any extra points for winning the Las Vegas session last year. Actually, nobody can even remember that they did that. (Again: had to look it up.) True success at the Summer League is about finding individual talents who can hold their own in the big, bad regular season.

Read More: Las Vegas Summer League feeds the NBA rookie hype train

So I looked back at the last 10 years of Summer League to see which NBA teams get the most out of these difficult-to-watch weeks. A few ground rules:

• I’m only counting players who were signed in the offseason after they went undrafted. This means we’re really focusing in on which teams do a great job at building the deep end of their draft board. My rule here eliminates players like Rodney McGruder, who was a regular starter for the Heat in 2016-17 after joining their Summer League team last summer. But McGruder had gone undrafted in 2013. Discovering him was an accomplishment for the Heat’s professional scouting department — and not a result from their amateur scouting/drafting process.
• I’m only counting players who have over 100 career regular season appearances or who had a sufficiently promising rookie season in 2016-17.

And again: I’m looking at Summer Leagues from 2007-16. That’s a monster length of time. Surely each team has managed to get at least a handful of hits over that decade? Well, nope.

Tier 1: The Process Needs to be Trusted

A whopping 14 teams do not have a single hit. Over a decade! In alphabetical order, they are: the Bucks, Bulls, Clippers, Hornets, Kings, Lakers, Magic, Nuggets, Pacers, Pelicans, Pistons, Timberwolves, Thunder and Trail Blazers.

Tier 2: A Success, Once

16. Hawks: Mario West

The Hawks got a hit! West was on their team for three whole seasons, 2008-11. The success was, indeed, modest: among all players in league history with at least 100 career games, West has the lowest career minutes average, at 4.9 per game.

15. Celtics: Phil Pressey

Pressey is one of my favorite fringe players to ever pop up at the periphery of the league. Was Pressey’s career field goal percentage 34.1 percent? Yes. Clearly a big problem. But do highlight reels of his assists rival the game’s very best? Also yes.

Tier 3: Still Under Construction — 2016 Discoveries

14. Nets: Yogi Farrell

As we move up these very subjective Power Rankings, I am going to bump down the teams who didn’t hold on to the talents they had just worked so hard to discover. (This is an issue that comes up a surprising amount of times.) Even though Farrell was released by the Nets in December, he would incredibly end up tied for seventh among all rookies in Win Shares after becoming a fixture in the Mavericks’ starting lineup.

13. Grizzlies: Troy Williams

Just like the Nets did to Farrell, the Grizzlies cut Williams loose midway through the season — even though he had logged 13 starts for Memphis. Houston picked up Williams in the middle of the season, and they just re-signed him as a free agent this week.

12. Wizards: Sheldon McClellan, Daniel Ochefu

Neither McClellan nor Ochefu showcased the type of ceiling that Farrell or Williams displayed last season. However! Both players managed to earn a roster spot on a contending-now team in Washington, and they remain on the Wizards roster going into their second season.

11. Raptors: Fred VanVleet

With Kyle Lowry, Cory Joseph and Delon Wright all under contract as point guards for the Raptors last year, VanVleet conquered a significant uphill battle just to make Toronto’s roster. A year later, he’s still there, and the Raptors have traded Joseph away.

10. Suns: Derrick Jones Jr.

A.K.A. the most obscure Dunk Contest entrant of all time, last year Jones was the very rare undrafted 19-year-old rookie — entering the draft after just his freshman season at UNLV. After the All-Star Break, Jones got 20.9 minutes per game with Phoenix.

9. Spurs: Bryn Forbes

From the draft to international free agency to the bargain bin of regular ol’ free agency, the Spurs have always managed to fill their roster to the brim before the Summer League came around. Forbes only ever played scattered minutes with San Antonio last year, but just exploded with 24.2 points per game in this year’s Summer League.

8. Mavericks: Dorian Finney-Smith

Finney-Smith was the only undrafted player in 2016 who got regular minutes over the entire regular season: 20.3 per night over 81 games. Finney-Smith’s 7.7 points per 36 minutes is clearly a problem that needs fixing. That same number, however, shows that his defense is just that good.

Tier 4: A Solid Résumé

7. Knicks: Ron Baker, Langston Galloway

Here is the smallest, smallest of silver linings to the Phil Jackson era. Between pickups like Baker and Galloway, plus international free agent finds like Mindaugas Kuzminskas, the Zen Master wasn’t so bad at filling out the edges of a roster.

6. Sixers: Shawn Long, T.J. McConnell, JaKarr Sampson

But of course! If you Trust the Process this much, it makes sense that a team would turn up reliable hits in the Summer League. While Sampson spent last season in the G League, the Sixers just got a second-round pick from the Rockets in exchange for Long and McConnell frequently nudged Sergio Rodriguez out of the Sixers’ starting lineup last season.

5. Cavaliers: Matthew Dellavedova, Samardo Samuels

Does the once-touted high school recruit Samuels hit 100 career games if he doesn’t join the Cavaliers during their LeBron-less drought? Probably not. But Dellavedova though! Despite being so obviously irritating, it’s clear that his career arc, from the Summer League to the Finals, is a truly rare one.

Tier 5: Poach These Scouts

4. Rockets: Tarik Black, Robert Covington, Ish Smith, Garrett Temple

Although Daryl Morey’s Rockets will go down in history for their ambitious and successful attempts to land superstars, this is a pretty remarkable track record of unearthing solid NBA veterans. However, Morey’s constant roster churn has meant that none of these players ever lasted a full season in Houston. (The Rockets did just sign Black as a free agent, perhaps to atone for their past error of releasing him.)

3. Jazz: Ian Clark, Wes Matthews

Two very high-quality hits for Utah, including probably the most accomplished individual player on this list in Matthews. Clark is one of the most unknowable quantities in the NBA, currently in low demand as a free agent despite being a legitimate rotation player for the Warriors over the last two years. Whatever Clark’s future has for him, he was a real member of some of the best NBA teams of all time. Negative points to Utah for waiving him in the middle of his second season.

Utah only had Matthews on their roster for one season, but that’s because the Trail Blazers stepped into Matthews’ restricted free agency with a then-monster 5-year, $34 million offer sheet. (The cap was at a tame $58 million back then.) No negative points to Utah for finding almost too good a player in the Summer League while also having huge financial commitments to a contending core.

2. Warriors: James Michael McAdoo, Anthony Morrow, Jeremy Lin, Kent Bazemore, Dewayne Dedmon

Welp, here’s another part of the team-building process that the league’s reigning overlords are dominant in. No other team has unearthed the sheer quantity of Summer League prospects like the Warriors.

I have them at No. 2 and not at No. 1 because Golden State has honestly done a poor job of retaining these guys. Although McAdoo’s playing time has understandably been limited by the legends in front of him, Morrow is the only player on this list who averaged more than 10 minutes per game in a season with the Warriors. And that was way back in the Don Nelson days. That’s three legitimate NBA starters — Bazemore, Lin, Dedmon — who that the team basically gave away.

Not that, you know, the Warriors have needed any extra help lately.

1. Heat: Tyler Johnson, Joel Anthony

Here we are. Number one. Is it underwhelming? Yes, certainly. But look at this list. The Heat are the only team to both: (1) find two legitimate rotation players in the Summer League and (2) keep them under contract for an extended period of time.

Considering how often that even first-round picks bust, this is getting a huge return out of the Summer League. The best return.

Next: Nerlens Noel’s free agency is a lesson in business and respect

Between Johnson, McGruder, Okaro White, the recent second-round hit of Josh Richardson and the out-of-nowhere signing of Hassan Whiteside, Pat Riley — after decades of building success with ultra-stars — has quietly become the game’s best at finding the needles in the prospect haystack.