Earthquake Prompts NBA Summer League To Suspend, Postpone Games After Giant Crowd Filled Thomas & Mack For Zion Debut Game Friday; WNBA Aces Suspend Second Half of Game Against Washington Mystics

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

That was not a Zion Williamson thunderous dunk. That was a 7.1 earthquake 150 miles from Las Vegas that prompted the NBA Summer League to postpone three games after the quake rocked Thomas & Mack Center and its center-hung scoreboard on the UNLV campus.

Williamson’s Pelicans were leading the New York Knicks, 80-74 in the fourth period, when the NBA Summer League suspended the game after that one-year-old jumbotron scoreboard hanging from the arena ceiling was swaying from the earthquake centered near Ridgecrest, California in SoCal. NBA Summer League organizer Warren LeGarie was seen on an ESPN video looking upward at the swaying center-hung scoreboard equipment.

What a night. The earthquake suspended the NBA Summer League hoops around 8:20 p.m. and the Magic-Spurs and Suns-Nuggets games were also postponed in addition to the suspension of the Pelicans-Knicks game. Day 1 attendance hit 17,500 — the third sellout in NBA Summer League history. Saturday’s Day 2 is also a sellout.

About a mile away west at the Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Strip, the Las Vegas Aces also postponed their game against the Washington Mystics with the Mystics leading 51-36 at the half. There were also concerns about the hanging scoreboard at Mandalay Bay Events Center and crews will check it out before the 10,000-seat arena is used for another event. That scoreboard is also relatively new, a little more than a year old when Aces owner MGM Resorts International installed the new center-hung scoreboard as part of a $10 million remodeling of the Mandalay Bay Events Center, the Aces’ home court.

 

 

 

Raiders owner Mark Davis, a regular Aces attendee, told LVSportsBiz.com at the Aces game: “Earthquakes are following the Raiders to Las Vegas.”

 

 

 

The Aces and Mystics have to figure out a date to play the second half of Friday’s game.

LVSportsBiz.com freelance writer Cassandra Cousineau was attending the UFC Hall of Fame in the Pearl Theater at the Palms when the earthquake struck Las Vegas during Rashad Evans’ acceptance speech. “The whole place started swaying.” Cousineau wrote in a text. “The lights overhead were moving so much that people started to get out of the area because the earthquake lasted so long.”

Over at Thomas & Mack at 6:50 p.m.  well before the earthquake, the big crowd roared.

The NBA’s number one draft pick — bigger-than-life Williamson from Duke — and his New Orleans Pelicans teammates took the court inside a packed Thomas & Mack

 

Media with video cameras propped on their shoulders lined the baseline as Williamson and the Pelicans did their pre-game warm-ups for a prime-time ESPN national broadcast game with the New York Knicks and their top draft pick pick — Williamson’s former Duke pal, RJ Barrett.

 

Williamson played the first six minutes of the first quarter and brought the big crowd to their feet when he ripped the ball away from Knicks second-year player Kevin Knox and slammed a dunk for the Pelicans. Williamson then struck an arm muscle pose after the thunderous dunk. Williamson re-entered the game at the end of the first quarter and scored 10 points in the first period.

But it was the Knicks that outplayed the Pelicans, leading 32-23 after the first quarter. The Knicks stretched the lead to 49-29 in the second period and led 56-49 at the half.

The Williamson debut game at the NBA Summer League was still more than four hours away at Thomas & Mack Center Friday, but much of the lower bowl in the UNLV arena was already filled with NBA hoops fans.

Their basketball jerseys showed the teams of the Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, Pistons, Magic, Warriors and the two clubs matched up in a close match — the 76ers and Bucks. During the day, the Philly-Milwaukee game went down to the final buzzer, with the 76ers’ young players holding on to a 107-106 win.

The Zion game was on ESPN live, which has a strong presence at the NBA Summer League.

Devan White travelled all the way from Oklahoma City to witness Zion vs RJ.

“I want to see two high-profile players and see what impact they’ll have on the NBA,” White said. “I want to see their intensity and leadership.”

White, who was wearing an Orlando Magic jersey to support a friend with the Magic organization, added, “Zion and RJ can change those franchises for years.”

The Zion vs RJ match-up was the main event of NBA Summer League Day 1, which also featured the Chinese and Croatian national teams in action. Lakers star LeBron James attended to see his LA team, while undefeated Las Vegas boxer Floyd Mayweather took a courtside seat with three minutes left in the Lakers-Bulls game (the Bulls won by 20 points over the Lakers.) An ESPN TV crew walked over to Mayweather for a video close-up — and the boxer appeared to oblige.

 

The 11-day professional basketball extravaganza features 83 games and costs $35 for a daily all-day ticket, with kids getting in for $25 a day. NBA fans have been known to plan summer vacations around the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas because of the high costs of buying a ticket for an NBA game during the regular season.

Now in its 15th year in Las Vegas, the NBA Summer League includes all 30 league teams and is poised to draw 140,000 fans from Friday to July 15, breaking the attendance record set in 2018.

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