UCLA Basketball: Ranking Top 4 Former Bruins That Suited Up In 2023 Summer League

We cannot wait to see them kick off their official seasons!

There really is nothing better than seeing a number of former UCLA Bruins stars competing at an NBA level and thriving while doing so. Even though we miss seeing them rock blue and gold and grow into leaders right before us, their end goal was never to just stop playing basketball at the college level.

Multiple former Westwood stars took the floor at the 2K24 Summer League this year for different teams and shined in their respective roles. Let's take a look at four of the most notable performers this time around!

Johnny Juzang 

The Utah Jazz are in the midst of an interesting rebuild where they traded away their two superstars and landed another one in the making in Lauri Markkanen while also making a move for the high-flying John Collins. Therefore, with both of these guys manning the forward positions, it's clear that Utah will look to fill their guard slots... could this be Johnny Juzang's year?

He suited up in six games for them this summer league and averaged 15 points on an extremely efficient 51 percent from three and 50 percent from the field. Juzang came off the bench early on but that did not faze him as he stuck to a catch-and-shoot and shot creation role and looked very comfortable as he looks to enter his sophomore season with the Jazz.

Peyton Watson

Everybody should be investing as much money as possible into some Peyton Watson stock because even though he only played two games with the Denver Nuggets in this year's summer league, he turned plenty of heads while doing so. Averages of 19 points and five boards showed how comfortable he was out there with the ball in his hands.

Watson was never given a big scoring role during his time with UCLA and he likely won't if he gets more run with the Nuggets' main squad in his second season but he just need to take advantage of any opportunity he gets.

Jaime Jaquez Jr.

Being a first-round pick and one of the more experienced players in his class, Jaime Jaquez was likely going to plug in and thrive no matter where he ended up. The Miami Heat recognized his work ethic and maturity and immediately wanted to bring him in and the results were some great summer league outings to start.

Beyond just his 22-point debut, Jaquez looked extremely comfortable facing the opposing defenses and knew where his teammates were at all times. It's been rumored that as long as he is not involved in a potential Damian Lillard trade, there will be a role for him this year on the main squad.

Amari Bailey

Moses Brown also very well could have been in this spot but he already has a number of summer league appearances and actual NBA seasons under his belt versus Amari Bailey, who made his first summer league debut with the Charlotte Hornets ahead of his rookie season.

Bailey took on a much bigger role after Brandon Miller was ruled out for the last slew of summer league matches. The coaching staff allowed him to play through turnovers and poor shots en route to him averaging about nine points and three boards per game with some jaw-dropping highlights.