A warning to you Pistons fans who are already jonesing for a little Bad Boys skinny from the Vegas Summer League: plopping down a tenspot for the league’s Courtside LIVE downloads won’t scratch your itch. No indeed.

This dross, to be frank, makes the surveillance video above your favorite liquor store counter look like “Citizen Kane.”

Footage jerks, starts, blurs, buffers, hiccups and mostly shows crowd shots or guys standing during shootaround. Game footage is obscured by a foreground watermark, and sometimes the shooter scores from outside the frame. Good luck trying to figure out who did what, especially without useful screen titles or narration.

In other words, it’s like “Blair Witch Project” if the witch was holding the camera. On the positive side, most of it is in blissful silence, except for the occasional gurgle of crowd noise or a bouncing ball. But — and this is a JLo-sized one — on some clips there is an awful honking, whining background audio track that sounds like the Georgia Satellites channeling a bandsaw. So we’re not talking prime multimedia here, which is odd given that the Vegas Summer League is sponsored by Toshiba.

But I digress. Don’t waste your dough, is what I’m saying.

This is just proof, once again, of something we used to say at Langley before I was pensioned off with my 30 and a golden colostomy bag: there’s no substitute for HUMINT (human intel) in the field. Fortunately, we’ve got assets on the ground in Vegas.

Starting with the Pistons’ first game against Washington on Saturday, we will be giving you the straight dope while answering all vital questions (How did Amir look? Who’s better, Acker or Blalock? Did Cheick Samb really give an opposing center a paper cut?)

In the meantime, keep checking in. We’ll file additional game results at the VSL as they happen.

NBATV will be airing four of the Pistons’ five 2006 Toshiba Vegas Summer League games, by delay.

From the NBA Summer Leagues 2006 site;

July 14th ~ Detroit Pistons vs. Phoenix Suns (game played July 10th)
July 17th ~ New York Knicks vs. Detroit Pistons (game played July 11th)
July 20th ~ Detroit Pistons vs. Los Angeles Clippers (game played July 13th)
July 21st ~ Detroit Pistons vs. Boston Celtics (game played July 14th)

The Knicks game can also be watched on the MSG Network.

In an update, the Courtside Live package from the 2006 Toshiba Vegas Summer League is currently $9.95 USD. Unfortunately at this time, the registration and payment page is not able to handle credit cards from outside the United States. This will be disappointing for many international fans, agents and scouts. I have emailed the TVSL requesting that support for other countries be added. If there is any news on this front, we’ll be sure to mention it.

A couple of NBA All-Stars will be participating in the 2006 Toshiba Vegas Summer League. Ron Artest of the Sacramento Kings and Amare Stoudemire of the Phoenix Suns.

Amare is looking to continue rehab by playing with the summer league Suns. Last season, Stoudemire had microfracture surgery on his left knee, and arthroscopic surgery on his right knee. The All-Star Power Forward looks for a healthy return to the Phoenix Suns lineup in November, and potentially a title run with the offensive powerhouse commanded by two-time league MVP, Steve Nash. Continue Reading »