The Summer Pro League, officially known as The Southern California Summer Pro League (SPL) is a basketball league held every summer in Long Beach, California where first and second round draft picks in the NBA are able to improve their skills. It is also a place where undrafted players are able to showcase their talents in hopes of garnering a spot on a pro basketball team. Since its inception in 1969, every NBA team has sent players to the league with over 800 players having participated in it.
The SPL moved to the Walter Pyramid on the campus of California State University, Long Beach in 1995. Before then, it was held at various sites in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, including UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and Pepperdine University.
Notable alumni include Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, and many others.
In 2007, no NBA team sent players to the league. This was due to a conflict with the schedule of the adidas Vegas Summer League, at which 22 NBA teams participated. But Gino Kwok, one of the SPL's owners, told the Long Beach Press-Telegram that he hoped that NBA teams would return in 2008. Before '07, the last year without an NBA team in the SPL was 1998, during the league's extended lockout that summer.
Famous quotes containing the words summer, pro and/or league:
“A worm tells summer better than the clock,
The slug’s a living calendar of days;
What shall it tell me if a timeless insect
Says the world wears away?”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“The upbeat lawyer/negotiator of preadolescence has become a real pro by now—cynical, shrewd, a tough cookie. You’re constantly embroiled in a match of wits. You’re exhausted.”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)