Lester Quinones has played only 54 games in the NBA.
He spent an extended period with the Golden State Warriors in the 2024 season, scoring 164 points and shooting 32 for 88 from three in 37 games. But he has mostly played in the G-League, averaging 23.3 points per game and shooting 41.0 percent from three in 36 regular-season games with the Osceola Magic.
Quinones is the kind of player knocking on the door of the NBA and waiting for the right chance to burst through.
Players like him are the ones who make up most of the rosters in the NBA's Summer League. Their goal is to seek attention and stand out in some way.
Almost every G-League player -- even those playing with affiliated teams -- is a free agent. Even if they are on one team's Summer League team, they are auditioning for every team in the league -- and around the world.
There is always that temptation of trying to go at it on your own. There are plenty of Summer League stories of players who take a ton of shots and try to make it about themselves.
The only way for a player to look good is to prove that he can help his team win. The only way for a team to find success and get what it wants out of Summer League is to get everyone to work together.
"Just emphasizing our pace, getting up the floor, running the right lanes in transition and just having the right spacing," Lester Quinones said after the Magic's practice Friday. "Summer league can tend to be a lot of isolation basketball, a lot of me guys. We kind of want to emphasize action and not sitting there isolating and really getting into things that make the defense react."
Summer League is difficult because of all these contradictions.
Players are trying to showcase themselves to land that elusive NBA opportunity. They need to stand out and shine.
But try to do that too much and you can derail the team's hopes and look out of place. After all, very few players playing in Summer League will be the stars of their team when they arrive for training camp in the fall.
Coming together quickly
Similarly, the team itself is trying to work on specific things, perhaps even putting rookies in specific situations. The Orlando Magic are trying to instill the identity and foundations from a new coaching staff. The roster may not exactly fit the vision the coaching staff is seeking.
And then there is the hurried nature of a Summer League. They have a five-day training camp to install basics and come together as a team with all of these competing and contradictory interests.
"Honestly, just getting the flow of Orlando's offense and defense and continue to improve on my game. Everybody sharpening the iron. It's always good," Phillip Wheeler said after the Magic's practice Friday. "We're big on defense and running the floor and spacing the floor so we can create everybody's opportunity to create a free run."
Wheeler is trying to make it in the league too. He only has five NBA appearances, all in 2024 with the Philadelphia 76ers. He averaged 14.9 points per game and shot 39.9 percent from three in 36 games off the bench with the Osceola Magic last season.
Wheeler and Quinones were two of the more impressive G-League holdovers in Thursday's Summer League debut.
Wheeler had four points on 2-for-5 shooting, missing all three of his 3-pointers. Quinones had 10 points and four assists on 4-for-11 shooting.
It turned into a rough game for everyone as the team's better ball movement slowed in the second half. This is still a team coming together. The team also hopes that reviewing tape and getting that first game under the belt makes for a more cohesive unit in the second game.
"Really just getting the chemistry together," Quinones said after practice Friday. "That was our first real game together. And you can kind of see there were a lot of things where we were not on the same page. I feel like we will fix a lot of our mistakes."
Getting on the same page is the battle in Summer League. But once a team does, everybody helps each other.
Standing out together
The best way to stand out to teams is to prove they can work together. When one person does well, the team does well and everybody does well.
It is no coincidence then that the Magic have a lot of their own G-League players on this roster, coming into Summer League with familiarity with each other and Osceola Magic coach Dylan Murphy.
In all, nine players on this Summer League roster spent some time with Osceola last year -- including Noah Penda and Jase Richardson's spot games throughout the season. There is that level of familiarity within this roster already.
There is not much time. But that should help players highlight each other.
"It's always a blessing to play with people and see them down the line and play with them again," Wheeler said after practice Friday. "It's always a blessing to get up and own with the guys you are familiar with and hopefully build a connection in the game like me and Alex [Morales] usually do."
That still needs to show up on the court.
The Magic raced out to a 10-point lead in their debut game Thursday and then slowly watched the lead dwindle in the second half as fouls and offensive rebounds did them in. There is a lot for this team to fix ahead of this weekend's back-to-back against the Miami Heat and Portland Trail Blazers.
And the point of the Summer League is to continue making progress. The Magic hope for a better effort.
If they are going to find success, they will need to find it together.
Add us as a preferred source on Google