Sports Illustrated writer a Flash in the pan hoops star

I was wondering why a Sports Illustrated writer was listening in on some media day conversations with the Utah Flash a few weeks ago at the Jazz training facility. Now I know why.

Turns out, Chris Mannix was one of the players – perhaps not the most athletic, but he took way better notes than the rest.

Mannix will go down in Utah Flash lore for scoring the first points of the preseason and for getting the D-League franchise into S.I. – both pretty major accomplishments. His first-person account of training for the Flash is entertaining and intriguing.

If you only read one D-League story this year, make this be the one.

Flash coach Brad Jones had a funny quote in the Idaho Statesman newspaper regarding Mannix’s impact on the Jazz’s D-League affiliate, which beat Idaho in the preseason but then lost in the recent regular-season match-up sans the S.I. shooting sensation.

“Part of the reason we’re struggling early in the year is because he left us,” Jones joked with the paper. “Our team fed off him and then he just walks out on us.”

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The compliments keep rolling in for Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. Orlando’s Stan Van Gundy gave him big-time props:
“I don’t think there’s anybody better in this business. When people talk about the best coaches in the this league, you hear Larry Brown, George Karl, Gregg Popovich, Phil Jackson – all great coaches. Taking nothing from them,” Van Gundy told the Orlando Sentinel.
“But considering the longevity and the success he’s had, winning over 60 percent of his games, for some reason – and I don’t understand it – he doesn’t get included in that group often enough. I sort of stand in awe of what he’s done over the years.”
Sloan was also the subject of a recent article, “No need to jazz up his record,” in the Boston Globe. To read it, click here.