NBA Summer Vacation Watch: Wedding Balls and Walking the Dog Days of Summer

We always knew when we set out together this summer that this thing was only going to exist as long as the season that carried it. It's hard not to dwell on all the players we didn't get to see go swimming—or drink by themselves at a beach bar in Mexico and sing to the locals—now that training camp draws near and board or jean short-shorts are traded in for league issued length apparel. But here's the thing—they're still shorts! And if you keep that in mind maybe summer won't seem so fleeting, so brief. The ethos of SVW has always been to revel in the sun drenched moment, even if that moment involves a Plumlee in the periphery.

Time is short and summer is shorter and the shorts, ideally, are shorter than that. So don't feel blue, keep the memory of all these vacations we've shared in your mind's eye to get you through the slog of this impending regular season, treat them like a friendship bracelet and wear them until they naturally fall off, replaced by all the vacations to come. Thanks for everything and hang loose.

Now, let's get on with the show.

Congratulations, Harrison! And Kent! We already covered the better of the league's Barnes's blue lagoon honeymoon but let us backtrack a bit because to get to that point he needed the nuptials. Lucky for him, he had some prep at Kent Bazemore's wedding and everyone looked beautiful.

Rating: Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today, to get through this thing called the final installment of NBA: Sumer Vacation Watch

Congratulations, Quincy! Acy was honeymoonin' in Thailand, meeting tigers, riding elephants, and ignoring for as long as possible that he's poised to return to the Brooklyn Nets.

Rating: Bittersweet—like a wonderful day in the sun followed by immediate heat exhaustion.

Congratulations, Josh! I respect Josh's dedication to vacations by finding what I assume is the largest and only infinity pool in Idaho and getting married beside it. The second picture not only encapsulates what it's like to end a honeymoon but also what it's like to end…the summer.

Rating: SUMMER ∞

Congratulations, Trevor! I am going to say Travis Scott was invited and then decided to hop up on stage and perform, because he brought a date, Kylie Jenner. The closest the rest of us will likely get to this level of star-studded reception spontaneity is maybe a drunk uncle, falling onto the microphone.

Rating: The Kardashian at your wedding is a wildcard and this is a reader rating to decide, depending on their own closely held beliefs.

Congratulations, Julius! The flower budget of this wedding was likely on par with the entire cost—including buying a new bathing suit 'cause you forgot to bring one—of the last summer vacation you or I took (unless this is Jordan Clarkson reading, in which case I want to say if it doesn't work out with the Lakers please look into wedding photography).

Rating: The complete and total extinction of the white rose varietal.

Seguing us into wedding guests is Metta World Peace, who potentially pulled the biggest twist of SVW by vacationing in… Canada. Personally I'm thrilled, and World Peace frog-jumping into a fresh and crystalline clear pool on Vancouver Island should be our (my) country's new and only tourism campaign, it also might just turn the entire province of British Columbia around.

Rating: Dinged a few points for being so Vancouver adjacent, but granted a bonus for bolstering the Canadian economy, factor in the exchange rate and we have a pretty solid handful of twoonies (an 8).

Another of this summer's big wedding blitz attendees was the Rocket's Bobby Brown, who just might have thrown the whole vacation 'gram game out the window by reliably and calmly adapting his photos to his captions, instead of the other way around. Seen through his eyes, barely visible under a big and snug bucket hat, Lake Como does just seem, reliably, dope. Same goes for every other sensory experience in Italy. It's a "What—Me Worry?" for a new generation.

Rating: This vacation was dope!

Miles headed to Hawaii for his wedding anniversary and guess who climbed a mountain! Honestly If I were someone prone to wild speculation I might think Big Mountain had a hand in influencing the summer vacation activities of NBA players this summer. C.J. did a lot of solo activities on this trip either because Lauren Miles is pregnant or she simply loves to chill, or both.

Rating: I literally just remembered that Miles is a Raptor and I hope someone has given him his government subsidized September 1st Labour Day long weekend Canada Goose parka!!

I'm very uncomfortable with this because it appears Marcin Gortat has gotten into my dreams but replaced a young Vince Vaughn or current day Amir Johnson with himself, a sort of knock-off Abraham Lincoln.

Rating: Greatly unsettled with how much I am here for it!

OPJ has a great and expressive face and here it is, served in tie-dye swim trunks with a side of cerulean, caught in a series of grimaces called "The Truth Of What It Feels Like To Leave The Sea." Curious as to who Porter's It Follows is, though? That guy in a white tank standing in the ocean, everyone else sees him too right?

Rating: Joy and concern, a chill terror, a tie-dye of emotions all elastic banded together—a poem.

Do I miss 2Pats already? Yes. Am I upset that coinciding with the end of summer is the start of the Toronto International Film Festival, of which Patterson was an enthusiastic regular? It's like insult to jet ski-related injury. But am I happy Patrick finally took a vacation? How dare you even ask me that.

Rating: Patrick Patterson has seen Nocturnal Animals nine times.

The Bosnian Beast is in Croatia, pointing with some urgency in the direction he needs to blaze his own Oregon Trail. Rip City waits for no man, but it might make an exception for one whose swim trunks match the Adriatic Sea!

Rating: Jusuf got dysentery but recovered beautifully with a base tan to boot!

Look, I've been scheming and dreaming of a way to get Davis in here since the summer started but he's an enigmatic creature who turns even moreso when the UV climbs. Thrilled that this photo has dropped to coincide with this, the last installment of SVW and the double entendre of a title of this installment. Davis has a baby Rottweiler and looks relaxed, is there anything else you could really ask for as summer comes to a close?

Rating: I'll give myself a deduction for working this hard on a joke, but I'll never give up, not on Anthony and not on you and not on summer.

You had to know this was going to end with Patty. You did, didn't you? You did! Patty Mills, I am proud to award you the MVP of SVW, it's been a thrill lurking your June-August activity and can I just say, the minute they deport Dellavedova, I'm coming to Australia. You are a pillar of summer and vacation and summer vacations and live your life one beach at a time, even though it all seems to be the same beach. May the summer gods of cut offs, heat rash, and finding sand for days in and around your body bless and keep you. When there was only one set of footprints, it was then that you carried us.

Rating: So good we here at SVW are adopting Patty's cap-off caption as our new slogan—"This summer has been one to remember and it's because of the all the new friends we have made and reunited with to create some pretty epic memories!!!"

Follow Katie Heindl on Twitter @wtevs