Flash's beginning and fist two games

The Flash get started in Utah.

To give a little background here, I’m a huge basketball fan. I’ve grown up a huge Phoenix Suns fan and have watched and played basketball since as long as I can remember. While in college I wrote for four years covering the Suns/Jazz/Rookies/Free Agents/Rocky Mountain Revue for Hoopsworld.com. I also wrote the cover article on Deron Williams for the magazine SWISH #3. The last bit of sports writing I did was for the Utah Jazz’s website about two years ago.
Basketball is just something I enjoy. Not many people can name you the roster for the 2000 Bucks and Clippers, but I can, go Keith Closs.

When I found out that we were getting an NBDL team in Utah County I was stoked. I bought my season tickets soon as they went on sale. I watched as info came in on the team. I bought tickets behind the visitors bench soon as tickets went on sale. I watched the draft with joy as Kevin Kruger fell into the Flash’s hands with the 10th pick and was thrilled that Boston had joined with the Jazz to be the Pro teams connected with the Flash.

That gives a total of 9 players that could join the Flash over the course of the season from the NBA. Of course the chance of all 9 being assigned to the Flash isn’t very good.

The Jazz have Morris Almond (R), Ronnie Brewer, Kyrylo Fesenko (R) and Paul Millsap as potential D-Leaguers. Brewer and Millsap are both intricate pieces of the Jazz’s current lineup so there is almost no chance they will join the team this season. Second Round pick Fesenko (Fez) is most likely to be on the team for the whole season. He’s a big 7’1 kid that is really raw but has tons of potential. He’s agile, big and quick with a feel for offense. This gives the Flash an inside presence. Morris Almond could join the team and probably should sometime in the year if he isn’t getting any time with the Jazz. With 3 players in front of him on the depth chart, he might as well get assigned to the Flash so he can get some game time.

Boston has Glen Davis (R), Leon Powe, Gabe Pruitt (R), Rajon Rondo and Brandon Wallace (R) all elligble to be assigned to the Flash. Rondo and Davis are both seeing lots of time with the Celtics. Pruitt was assigned to the Flash for the first two games, had such good games that Boston called him back. Powe is seeing playing time in the NBA but could see some time in the D-League and Wallace was a training camp invitee that made the Celtics roster and then assigned to the Flash. There’s a good chance he will be on the team all year with Pruitt and Powe seeing time back and forth.

Now if you see anything missing from the D-League team is that lack of a PG. You have a Center in Fez, SG in Almond if he ever is assigned and same with Puitt and a SF in Wallace. So a PG is a top need and luckily the Flash filled that spot in the NBDL draft.

Kevin Kruger was taken with the 10th pick. He’s a rookie PG just out of UNLV. With him the Flash will have a good chance of winning just about all their games, without him, the team is in trouble as the players behind him are not on his level. He is probably the first player from the Flash that could be picked up by a NBA team.

Now that the history of the Flash is done, on to the games.



Tuesday Nov 27th – This is the home opener for the Flash. I can’t tell you how excited I was for the game. Basketball is a big thing in my life and I enjoy every aspect of it. I sit right behind the Visitors bench with a great view of everything going on at the games and what is happening on opponents bench. This is basically why I wanted these tickets. I like to see the interaction of the players and the coach. Watching players sitting on the bench is a great time, see what they are joking about, what dancer they are staring at or what songs get them dancing.

Opening night I got my wife to go with me, she later told me that she was up for one game a week and not the two that happen most weeks. So I’m going to have to go with a friend to half the games, which could be a lot of fun to hang out with guys I normally don’t get to see while enjoying some good basketball. I bought these tickets before we found out she was pregnant with out second kid, so after she found out exactly how much the tickets were, she wasn’t as happy about it as she was when I had the green light and we didn’t think any baby was on the way. Our son is 15 months and full of energy, he doesn’t sit. I don’t know if he can sit, he runs and walks all day, never sitting, just walking, he’s always got something to do or to get into, so trying to sit with a kid at one of these games would be a nightmare, luckily my Mom lives about 5 minutes from UVU so we dropped him off at her place.
It was important to me to get to the game ahead of tip-off because I wanted to see the crowd, feel the energy and see the players up close. See how they reacted to opening night and just get the feel.

The place was about 1/3 to 2/4 full. Not sold out by any means but what can you expect for a Tuesday night. Tons of families and kids, which is cool cause Conner (my son) will love it once he’s a little older. Lots of things to do for kids like the air jump areas and little basketball stands and such.

The Flash had already started their season going 1-1 before the home opener. Unfortunately, Boston has already pulled one of the two players that they have assigned to the Flash back to Boston. Gabe Pruitt was playing at a high level the first two games, Boston must have seen enough and pulled him up, since then, he’s only played sparingly on a team that is stacked in the NBA

Tonight is Dakota, which should be a good win for the Flash. The team doesn’t appear to have anyone that really stands out but the Flash start off really slow. At one point being down 22-11, which at that point I started to lose faith in the team, mostly because I thought the team might be outmatched for the rest of the season and we would continue to get blown out. Luckily the Flash went on a run and caught up and basically kept it close till the end.

Dakota was able to pull it out in the last few seconds while the crowd got into it. The sad part is that the home opener was spoiled but the Flash gave the crowd what they wanted. It was a lot of fun and I was really looking forward to the next game.


Thursday Nov 29 – Bakersfield is in town tonight. My wife was a no-go so I was trying to get my friend Scott to go, he finally got the okay from his wife later in the day and we were good to go. The bad thing is that Scott wouldn’t get off work till about half time, so I’d have to hang for the first half by myself.
This game started off a lot better, the game was close just about the whole time. Kruger didn’t play as much it seamed this game. Fez didn’t play as well this game as he did in the first home game. This might have been because Jerry Sloan and many other Jazz players were in the audience this night.

Bajio’s is one of the sponsors of the team, which means that they do a half time eating contest, where they provide a burrito and an energy drink and have two guys see who can finish both the quickest and then hit a lay-up. This fell flat on it’s face when the kids that came out to eat this were two skinny teens that both were wearing girl jeans. Neither guy looks like he can put down a burger, so they get started and by the time the half time 20 minutes was over, they still hadn’t finished the burrito. The announcer had already started talking about other things going on because of how boring these two kids were. The MC finally told them to put it in their jeans and first one to hit the shot won, so that’s what happened, so these kids had 20 minutes to finish off one of these burritos and still couldn’t do it. To capture how long it takes for someone like myself to finish, I usually can finish one of these in about 5 minutes while enjoying each bite.

Scott gets there and we get back to my seats and he’s blown away by how good they are. So we talk to the guy in front of us and he’s part of the company that owns the team. He’s a cool guy who’s there with his family, so it was cool talking to him about the team.

Scott played high school ball and understands the game well. He kept saying he wanted to get out on the court with some of the guys, saying he could take them. But then he kept saying that some of the players were so close to getting to the NBA, so it was funny, cause every guy feels that they could hang with a ‘pro’ player, but I somehow doubt it. I watched Casey Jacobsen for about two years in the Rocky Mountain Revue and I felt I could take him the whole time, I doubt I could now, but I thought I could at the time. Haha, the guys 6’6 and a whole lot bigger than me, but I can take him.

The game was once again close down to the end. The Flash were down and had a few seconds left to get a score, the ball went into the corner to Michael Cuffee and he hit a game winning three and got fouled in the process, giving the Flash a three point lead after the maid free throw. The crowd was going nuts.

Next home game is Friday the 7th and I’ll update the blog shortly after the game.