It was the first full day of the 2022 NBA Summer League, and we were all in. For the uninitiated, Summer League in Las Vegas is a spectacular mixof glammed-out NBA royals smashed together with geeked-out fans of all stripes and spread across the Las Vegas desert like delicious champagne cream cheese on an all-everything bagel. It’s a middle-aged white guy in a Kawhi Leonard Clippers jersey and jorts looking for an upfront seat so he can snap a picture of Rui Hachimura courtside, decked out in matching neon green shorts and t-shirt. It’s the Star Wars Bar Scene set inside the hottest night club in Miami. And it is spectacular.

We’d been hoping to attend for the last several years and were happy to finally make the trek this time. My sons were excited about the basketball and the auto-hunts (autograph hunting), and I was hoping the trip would push me to write again. After several years of transferring virtually every thought that crossed my mind into words on the internet, these last couple of years have been as creatively barren for me as the Las Vegas desert. So, I set a goal for myself. I set out to find the king of Summer League.

Warren LeGarie is a former vegetables broker and Euro League agent. He is also the father of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. Former NBA Commissioner David Stern (with a lot of help from current Commissioner Adam Silver) gave LeGarie the go-ahead to self-finance and start-up his league in the desert in 2004. Jared Zwerling summed LeGarie’s dream up succinctly in a profile he did for Bleacher Report in July of 2014.