NBA Summer League wedges its way into 365-day sports calendar

The NFL has, for decades, been the master of manipulating the sports schedule to stay in the news and in front of viewers.

It's hard to say when exactly this run of dominance started, but it's not hard to trace its origin to the increased visibility of the NFL Draft. Two tipping points: The NFL Network joining ESPN with wall-to-wall draft coverage in 2006, and then the expansion to a three-day draft in 2010.

The Super Bowl leads into hiring season, which leads into free agency, which leads into the scouting combine and draft, which leads into minicamp.

We are in that blissful 10 seconds or so (more like five weeks) where the league sort of quiets down and all that's left of the league is to talk about Aaron Rodgers' latest attention grab (tattoo).

Other leagues have tried to copy the model with varying degrees of success. By far the one that has made up the most ground in recent years is the NBA, which Patrick Reusse and I talked about on Monday's Daily Delivery podcast.

The NBA has done genius work turning every trade deadline, draft and free agency season into months-long speculative fodder.

But nothing quite compares to the task of turning the NBA Summer League — glorified scrimmages featuring draft picks and roster filler — into a buzzworthy Las Vegas showcase during an otherwise fairly dead spot in the live sports calendar.

Rather, think of this as a tip of the cap to the NBA on one hand and a pondering on the other of what a non-stop sports calendar means in the big picture.

I go back and and forth (mostly in my head) between the competing notions of too much sports being unhealthy escapism ... and the idea that people should just do whatever makes them happy and fulfilled because escapism is a construct.