The Orlando Magic will no longer host their annual summer league, and they instead will participate in the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas.
The Magic had held the Orlando Pro Summer League since 2002, with eight teams participating in this summer's edition. The Las Vegas league had 24 teams play this past time, held across two arenas on the campus of UNLV.
"The pendulum is swinging toward teams playing in Vegas," Magic president of basketball operations Jeff Weltman told the Orlando Sentinel.
In contrast to the closed-door atmosphere in Orlando, the games in Las Vegas attracted large crowds.
"It's a level of competition and a level of exposure when more or less every team in the league is there and you're playing in front of 20,000 people as opposed to playing in a gym with a few hundred people," Weltman said. "So it better prepares you for what NBA life is really about with the crowds, the pressure, the travel -- a lot of what you're going to have to confront. Obviously, it's not a true test of an NBA season, but it's a little taste."
