{"id":5719,"date":"2008-07-20T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-20T19:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/whatever-happened-to-the-lb-summer-pro-league\/"},"modified":"2008-07-20T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-20T19:06:00","slug":"whatever-happened-to-the-lb-summer-pro-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/whatever-happened-to-the-lb-summer-pro-league","title":{"rendered":"Whatever Happened To The LB Summer Pro League?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the five full years now that I’ve called Long Beach home, I’ve spoken often about the wonderful array of one-off sporting events that the city plays host to.  I came here knowing nothing of the Long Beach Grand Prix, pro beach volleyball, powerboat racing, the AMGEN Bike Tour, Southern California Special Olympics and—<\/font>more recently—<\/font>mixed martial arts and jiu-jitsu fight nights.  Long Beach may be the world capitol of cheap, niche sports.  But its hidden jewel was always the Summer Pro League at the Pyramid.  And I’ll never understand how we lost it.<\/p>\n

Long Beach is not really a basketball town.  There is no pro team, the college teams have fallen on hard times, and our high schools don’t produce pros—<\/font>especially not with the veracity that they do football or baseball.  So suffice it to say that I always found it strange that the SPL was here in the first place.  But for 38 years, it was.<\/p>\n

NBA teams flocked to LB in the off-season for two reasons: to give some playing time to players not yet developed enough for consistent time during the season, and to give their scouts a look at any free agents that could fill a need.  Young players trying to earn tick and desperate players looking for their shot—<\/font>it led to some of the most exciting basketball in the Southland. Plus, the place was packed with scouts, coaches and GMs.  There was enough basketball knowledge in the air to slice and put on a sandwich.<\/p>\n

It was a pure summer basketball atmosphere.  Uncomfortably hot and oozing of raw talent.  Cheap.  All day  A five dollar bill and three ones got you into the Pyramid for the day, where you were welcome to stay as long as you liked.  Three games if you were dedicated.  Eight if you were insane.<\/p>\n

The most I ever did was five.  I walked the few blocks from my house to the ‘Myd and met a friend, who stayed for two games with me.  He left for dinner with his girlfriend.  I watched one by myself next to Stephen Graham while his brother, Joey, made his debut for the Raptors on the court.  I called another friend, who joined me for two more.  I walked home.  It was great.  It was summer basketball.  It was only two years ago.<\/p>\n

Even by that point, the League had been dying and was gasping for its last breath.  There used to be six NBA games (12 teams) packed into one day.  As other summer leagues popped up—<\/font>and marketed themselves incredibly more efficiently—<\/font>the cream of the Pyramid crop dwindled.  In 2006, there were four pro teams.  Last year, there were none.<\/p>\n

Even without any pro teams fielding a squad at the ‘Myd, the Summer Pro League boldly proclaimed that it was entering a new age of success.  Boasting a field of walk-up amateur squads—<\/font>with absolutely no business being on the court—<\/font>and a handful of struggling national teams, no one was buying it.  Attendance suffered.<\/p>\n

Long Beach was left with nothing, and despite the promise of a new day, the Long Beach SPL did not return in 2008.  Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady and Amare Stoudemire made their pro debuts here.  I watched Andrew Bynum’s and Jordan Farmar’s.  This summer, the Clippers selected Indiana combo guard Eric Gordon, who should be playing his first professional games in the Pyramid.  But he’s in Vegas with the rest of the NBA.  Gordon was showing the goods before tweaking a knee.  Jerryd Bayless looks like the most NBA-ready rookie and Donte Green has come out of nowhere to impress everyone.<\/p>\n

What’s frustrating is that that I should be the one writing those stories.  What’s worse is that you should be the ones seeing them live.  Here’s saying goodbye to the Summer Pro League, one of many special, cheap, quality sporting events in Long Beach. <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}