2024 California Classic Recap
Before the Summer League attention shifts to Las Vegas, here's a review of the four days of the California Classic in Sacramento and San Francisco.
While the main event of Summer League begins tomorrow in Las Vegas, the summer portion of the NBA schedule is not just limited to Sin City. Orlando Summer League has come and gone, sadly, but other locations have arisen to take its place. While there were plenty of fun games in Salt Lake City for Summer League, the NBA’s summer calendar opened up with this year’s sixth annual California Classic.
This season, the California Classic slate was split between Golden 1 Center and Chase Center, with two Sacramento Kings squads (one in each city) joined in San Francisco by the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and Miami Heat. In Sacramento, where I was fortunate enough to be in attendance for the games on Saturday and Tuesday night, the main Kings team matched up against the Charlotte Hornets, the San Antonio Spurs, and Team China. Across the slate in both cities, there were plenty of impressive performances by recent top draft picks and relative unknowns alike. Here’s a review of the four-day, two-city event, with in-person reports from two of the days of games in Golden 1 Center.