Two Former UL Stars To Play In NBA Summer League
Two former Louisiana Ragin' Cajun basketball standouts will have the opportunity to increase their chances of making an NBA roster next season, beginning next week.
Former UL stars Shawn Long and Jay Wright will be participating in NBA Summer League, which begins on Friday of next week.
Long, who played for Louisiana from 2012-2016, will be playing for the Chicago Bulls, while Wright, who played for the Cajuns from 2014-2017, will be competing for the Orlando Magic.
A forward/center, Long, in his second year at the professional level, averaged 14.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.4 blocks for the Delaware Blue Coats of the NBA G League, after beginning the 2017-18 season with the Xinjiang Flying Tigers of the Chinese Basketball Association, where he averaged 12.0 points and 6.0 rebounds per contest.
Long appeared in 18 games for the Philadelphia Sixers during the 2016-2017 NBA season, averaging 8.2 PPG and 4.7 RPG in just 13.0 minutes per contest.
Prior to signing with the Sixers, Long was a standout in the G League, averaging a double-double (20.2 PPG, 11.1 RPG) in 39 games for the Delaware 87ers, an affiliate of the Philadelphia 76ers.
The 25-year old Long was traded to the Houston Rockets in the offseason, before being waived in September.
A native of Morgan City, scored 2,342 points and compiled 1,447 rebounds in his career at UL, becoming the first player to school history to score 2,000 points, while also pulling down 1,000 rebounds.
Long’s career points are the third-most in Cajun basketball history, while his rebound number ranks first.
The 6-foot-9, 248-pound Long was named a first-team All-Sun Belt Conference selection three times.
A former teammate of Long's, Wright averaged 3.7 points, 1.2 rebounds and 0.9 assists during his first season in the NBA G League with Lakeland, an affiliate of the Magic.
The 2017 Sun Belt Conference Defensive Player of the Year and a member of the Lefty Driesell Defensive All-America Team, Wright led Louisiana in scoring team in scoring (16.2), assists (3.9) and steals (2.0) while ranking among the league leaders in all three categories, while starting all 33 games during his senior season.
Wright, a guard, finished his career with 1,148 points, the 44th player in school history to reach the 1,000-point mark in his career.
NBA Summer League, which features all 30 NBA teams for the first time, will tip off with 10 games on Friday, July 6, and will continue through Tuesday, July 17 at the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Games can be seen on NBA TV, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, and the ESPN app.