The Downbeat - 18 August - The Ukraine Is Weak? Edition

Fesenko's summer has gone from bad to worse.  He declined playing for the Jazz in the summer league so that he could play for the Ukrainian national team.  When he committed to the team though, the Jazz still hadn't picked up his option yet.  While playing in the Euro Championships, his playing time diminished until he was eventually benched.  Then, according to Ross Siler, he left the team.  They then went on to beat Hungary and avoided getting sent down to the B league.

Fess has not had very good summers at all.  Last year was the whole bleached hair debacle.  His first summer was the summer of Millsap and Almond.  He's never really gotten off on the right foot.  This year he looks like he's going to be the 13th man. 

I don't know how this year is going to be any different for the big man.  He's going to be buried on the bench.  Unless he suddenly turns into Shaq during training camp, he's not sniffing any hardwood.

Man, I would love to see this kid blow up this year (and the half court alley-oop wasn't on the NBA's top ten alley-oops of the year).  Kiss Sloan's butt in training camp and practice please.

Given that training camp doesn't start for another month, there's lots of time to speculate what we'll see.  The biggest story, unfortunately, will be Carlos Boozer.  I hope it dies quickly though.  I want to hear about the Ronnie P/Maynor competition, the KOOF's development, and what Deron thinks about VoteDeron.com (not up yet, but it will be by then).

Utah Flash Pres. Joe Brown getting tased...

The good thing about Sloan not knowing about Twitter?  He can't ban it.  Hopefully Fess will get a real account and post from the sidelines during games.  He could tell Sloan he's computerizing some game plans or something and Jerry would get all confused and give him the "Ahh, forget it" way off.