I recently asked The Center Hub contributors to pick someone who stood out to them at this year’s NBA 2025 Summer League. 

Here’s who they went with:

Caleb Mueller: Koby Brea can flat out shoot the ball & shows an understanding of where to get his shots in the flow of the Phoenix Suns’ offense. He is continuing to develop as a dynamic creator on the ball, but he has a grasp of the core concepts of being a connector. If he can hang defensively against wings & small forwards, Brea is going to have a presence as a scorer in the NBA for at least a decade.

Conrado Pascual: After a strong and exciting rookie campaign with the Memphis Grizzlies, Japanese point guard Yuki Kawamura separated himself from his Summer League peers. The Chicago Bulls rewarded him with a two-way contract for the 2025-2026 season. After 5 SL games, Kawamura displayed his all-around game with averages of 9.6 PPG, 2.4 RPG, 6.6 APG (3.4 TO), and 2.2 SPG while shooting 39.1% from 3PT.

On a team with young, athletic forwards and bigs such as Matas Buzelis, Noa Essengue, and Lachlan Olbrich, Kawamura fully-embraced the pure PG role by managing the game while adjusting pace, tempo, and cadence to feature and maximize the skills of each of his frontcourt teammates. Because of his elite court vision and quick reaction time, Kawamura can execute some of the most precise passes despite being 5’8″. Kawamura is an automatic paint touch who can create wide cutting lanes or shooting pockets by shifting the defense via dribble penetration.

Moving forward, Kawamura should be looking to fight for a spot on Chicago’s 15-man roster and establish himself as one of the Bulls’ rotational guards. Although he is an opportunistic defensive playmaker, Kawamura can earn himself more playing time by showing consistency as a positional man-to-man defender. In addition, his willingness (and aggressiveness) to pull up from 3PT in transition would go a long way in allowing the Bulls to play uptempo as well as stretching the floor for his rim-running forwards/bigs.

Julian Mendelsohn: Ron Holland looked significantly better as a shooter at Summer League. His motion looks much more fluid and he seems a lot more comfortable extending his range.

Holland’s explosiveness and strength were major assets for him on the offensive end, and will continue to help him thrive in an 2-way off-ball role.

Couple of things to work on: Ron has possessions defensively where he seems to be in no-man’s land. He also still drives with his head down a bit too often and needs to be more of a passer on drives. There’s still an avenue for Holland to be at the very least a high-end role player with a bit of star potential, but the flashes just need to become more consistent.

Kam H: Kyle Filipowski provides the Utah Jazz with three-level scoring and positive playmaking with good rebounding value on both ends.

Based on his Summer League showing, he still needs to improve his shooting from the FT line and his defensive discipline.

Flip should be able to provide plenty of offense and defensive versatility as a third big or rotational starter at the 4 spot for Utah.

Matthew Kostoff: Nae’Qwan Tomlin was exceptional for the Cleveland Cavaliers during Summer League. He is currently on a two-way deal following a successful first season with the Charge in the G League.

The 6-foot-10, 210-pound forward moved with the fluidity of a gazelle, showcasing his remarkable athleticism. He consistently pushed the pace in transition, demonstrating impressive ball-handling for his size, and effectively stretched the floor.

Tomlin’s willingness to embrace contact and finish aggressively around the rim stood out, alongside his fluid three. He rebounded and used his length on defense. What truly impressed was Tomlin’s court vision: his adeptness at handling the ball in pick-and-rolls, finding the roller, and initiating fast breaks while spotting out the open runner.

Given his Summer League showing, Tomlin has made a compelling case for converting his two-way contract into a full-time deal and possibly cracking the Cavs’ frontcourt rotation.

On Ball Creator: This could be a make a break season for Jordan Walsh’s NBA career, but his Summer League performance gave reason for optimism. He should get a chance for a decent amount of playing time with the achilles injury to Jayson Tatum, as well as departures of other key players from last year’s Boston Celtics squad.

Walsh shot the basketball well from deep, played hard, had a high motor and showed the ability to beat opposing teams down the floor to finish easy baskets in transition.

While overall his defense was solid, Walsh fouled a bit too much (4.7 PF/36 mins) which has been an issue dating back to college and he was unable to keep his cool vs the Heat, resulting in an ejection.

Steven Bagell: One of the most impressive SL performances was David Jones-Garcia, who averaged 22 points, 5.9 rebounds, 3.4 assists and shot 52/51/87 splits in Vegas and the California Classic summer leagues.

Jones-Garcia just turned down a 2.2 million euro deal per year from Olympiacos of the EuroLeague in hopes of making an NBA roster. Jones-Garcia displayed his scoring repertoire in a variety of ways, as seen here.

Wilko Martínez-Cachero: Egor Dëmin ran 442 possessions as the pick-and-roll ballhandler in college at BYU, but he was really used as a wing by the Nets during Summer League. 23 of Dëmin’s 27 field goal attempts were three-pointers, and he only shot two free throws in 75 minutes of action.

The Russian playmaker started to answer questions about his three-pointer (43.5 3P% on 10/23 shooting), but it’s too early to come to definitive conclusions. He’ll likely be asked to shoot on decent volume in the regular season, though. That will be important next to Nolan Traore and Ben Saraf especially.

Going forward, Dëmin still needs to address how he’ll create space and score in the half-court.

Over on the west, Bronny James put together an encouraging Summer League. The Lakers guard was aggressive (14p/3r/4a) on high volume (26.5 USG%), looking for his own shot and getting his teammates involved (29.8 AST% but 0.9 A/TO).

Looking towards his second season as a pro, Bronny’s biggest improvement point is his half-court playmaking. He remains more of a connective passer, while his scoring is largely confined to spot-up shooting at the NBA level. James is a very decent positional athlete who needs to build on his slashing flashes.

The former USC playmaker was the youngest player on the Lakers Summer League roster, but he might’ve been the team’s best performer. Year 2 seems too early for Bronny to crack the Lakers’ rotation in a substantial way, especially after the team’s recent moves and championship hopes, but he made genuine progress towards becoming an NBA rotation guard.

Wilko is the creator of FLOOR and CEILING on YouTube and Substack. You can follow him on X @wilkomcv.