SlamBall returns in Las Vegas with high-scoring, sellout opening night

The comeback began with a sold-out Cox Pavilion crowd watching Kaylon Tippins-Hill score the first points of the season, but Darius Clark quickly turned opening night into his own launchpad. Clark answered with a thunderous dunk and finished the Mob’s 71-36 win over the Rumble with 27 points, all on dunks, including a pair of Face Offs, a line that summed up SlamBall’s selling point in one burst of rim-rattling chaos.

That was the first answer the relaunch gave about its identity. SlamBall returned after more than 20 years away with eight teams, seven-man rosters and four players on the court at a time, a stripped-down format built for pace, contact and constant momentum shifts. ESPN carried the season and playoffs exclusively under a two-year broadcast partnership, giving the league a national platform just as the product itself was leaning hardest into speed and spectacle.

The best example of that volatility came in the second game, where the Slashers slipped past the Lava 67-63 after leading 32-30 at halftime and entering the final quarter tied at 52. Alonzo Scott Jr. finished with 17 points and Tony Crosby II added 14, but Bryce Moragne still made his presence felt with 23 points for Lava. Moragne, the first overall pick in the 2023 SlamBall Draft, was one of the league’s most watchable new names, part of a player pool drawn from 23 states and filled with former basketball, football and track athletes.

Mob’s second game made the night’s hierarchy unmistakable. Clark scored 21 more points in a 62-23 rout of the Slashers, giving him 48 points on the night on 16 dunks. Gage Smith added 12 points and 10 stops as the Mob overwhelmed the lane, controlled the glass and turned every transition into a threat above the rim. The team’s first two games produced a 133-59 scoring margin, the kind of early dominance that made the comeback feel less like a novelty and more like a statement.

The final game brought a tighter finish, with the Wrath edging the Gryphons 42-37 after pulling away late in the fourth quarter. But the lasting image from opening night belonged to Clark and the Mob, and to a league that introduced itself through scoring swings, aerial finishes and rapid-fire runs that made a traditional basketball script look slow by comparison. That kind of volatility is the point of SlamBall, and opening night made the league’s case in one sold-out, high-flying rush.