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So far their have been a total of 5 summer league games played and just 16 rookies have participated. For those reasons I thought it would be a great idea to predict which of those players would make the biggest impact on the league of the course of the season.

The rookies who have seen minutes so far are: Darryn Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Kingston Flemings, Aday Mara, Bennett Stirtz, Otega Oweh, Yaxel Lendeborg, Darius Acuff, Cameron Carr, Arthur Kaluma, Adou Thiero, Tarris Reed, Maliq Brown, Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Ryan Conwell, and Jahmir Young.

Yes, we will be including the rookie who have not participated yet.

1st Team PG: Darius Acuff, Sacramento Kings

If you got the chance to watch Acuff play this weekend you would say this is the correct pick. 25 points, 2 rebounds, and 4 assists. That would be an incredible stat line for any player but to do it in your moments of NBA paced games is special. He also showed a willingness to give up the ball. In the final play of the game he found teammate Clifford with just over 6 seconds left and he hit a three giving the kings a win. Even though he led his team to the win he was extremely inefficient. Shooting 9/29 from the field, 1/9 from three, and 5/7 from the free throw line. That’s a total of 31% percent which would rank him dead last among all eligible players in the NBA last season. While this does raise concerns I think it’s easy to see this percentage smooth out over an entire seasons and that’s why he’s is my pick to be the best rookie guard in the NBA

1st Team SG: Darryn Peterson, Utah Jazz

In his summer league debut Peterson dropped 28 points a high so far for the summer. Peterson’s performance helped the Jazz clinch a hard fought win over time against the hawks. He also stuffed the stat sheet in other ways with 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks. It wasn’t all rainbows for Peterson though fellow top 10 pick Kingston Flemings forced him into 8 turnovers. This is acceptable due to heavy usage at point guard, but it can’t continue if he wants to have a long career in this league. In addition to leading the Salt Lake City circuit in points he did it extremely efficiently shooting 52.4% from the field and 57% from three. A few reasons I expect him to have a great season are him having one of the best pick and roll partners in the NBA in Damontes Sabonis, Being the clear top scorer when it comes to volume of shots he’ll take, and he seems like one of those guys who with a adaptation to the pace of the NBA I could easily see being in MVP and All-NBA teams.

1st Team SF: AJ Dybantsa, Washington Wizards

Dybantsa is set to make his debut in a few days against the number 2 pick Darryn Peterson and the Utah Jazz. Since we haven’t seen him play I don’t have any stats to overreact about this time so I’ll just talk about his college numbers. Dybantsa led the entire nation in scoring averaging 25.5 PPG and 6.8 boards in an utterly dominant freshman season at Brigham Young University. He won the Julius Erving award for the nations top small forward in unanimous fashion. He is viewed as one of the best prospects in NBA history and I agree that this was a slam dunk pick for Washington. His slash line included: FG% 51, 3P% 33.1, 2P% 56.8, and FT% 77. All incredibly efficient and I’m glad the Wizards didn’t overthink it and took this absolute beast at 1.01. I’ll move because there’s not any summer League time to talk about.

1st Team PF: Yaxel Lendeborg, Golden State Warriors

In my opinion Yaxel by far has been the biggest winner of the summer league so far. He performed in utter dominance against the Lakers on Friday. 19 Points, 6 Assists, 5 Rebounds, and 2 Stocks. On 100% percent shooting, he did not miss a shot all night. Including four 3 threes and 2 free throws. Those shooting numbers along with lock down defense is incredible. When I was first thinking about this exercise I didn’t have him on here, but after watching him play and looking at his stats, I knew I had to over react like so many of us do so far from the season and added him to the team. He had played an almost perfect game until the end of the fourth quarter where he had his only four turnovers of the night. He said that those ruined the near perfect he had going in his head. To that up he just dominated the game and like Peterson I think will be in MVP conversations a few years from now.

1st Team C: Zuby Ejiofor Atlanta Hawks

First of all I just want to say: “STEAL OF THE DRAFT”- Jude Kiphart July 5th, 2026. Zuby Dominated the glass in his debut against the Utah Jazz Grabbing 11 boards. (7 offensive and 4 defensive) He now leads all of summer league in rebounds and second in steals behind teammate Kingston Flemings with 3. He also had 8 points which could be better due to the fact that he had 7 offensive boards, but that’s something that can be fixed. Now for the big problem. He was an absolue zero when it came to efficiency in this game. With a total of 28.6% total and 0-2 from deep. This would have ranked dead last among players last year in the NBA. Now while this was more acceptable for Acuff due to the fact that he missed from three consistently, when Zuby was missing 2’s. Still I believe he was one of the most dominant players in college basketball last year and I think he can take his game to the next level. I know for a fact the Atlanta Hawks got the best center of the class with the 23 pick of the draft.

Please note that the official All-Rookie teams will be positioned less, but for the sake of the exercise I put positions. So if there are 4 guards on the team I will not be surprised in the slightest, But these are the players at these positions that impressed me the most in their debuts.