Revue is great way to view future stars

TAYLORSVILLE — If you've got a hankering from some offseason hoops, the Rocky Mountain Revue is sure to quench your thirst for summer-league basketball.

The Revue is the Utah Jazz-sponsored summer league, with participating teams compiling rosters replete with rookies, free agents, draft picks and young pros with up to three years NBA tenure.

The 2004 Revue includes the Jazz and 10 other teams — the Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs, Seattle Sonics and the first-year Charlotte Bobcats. That's 11 teams — or more than a third of the NBA.

That's a far cry from how the Jazz first got into the summer-league business.

Looking to drum up summertime interest in 1984, a Jazz team of rookies and free agents faced makeshift squads of local players and pros looking to hook up with an NBA team. That format soon evolved into a pro-am setting, with the Jazz playing teams of local talent representing the state's universities — Utah, BYU, Utah State and Weber State.

That lasted a couple of years before the Jazz eventually took a one-year summer sabbatical, followed by a 1988 trip to a California summer league. Jazz officials figured they could host a league of their own, and the Revue got its official NBA-style start in 1989.

Nowadays, for less than what it costs for a nose-bleed seat watching a regular-season game from the farthest rows of the Delta Center's upper bowl, a basketball fan attending the Revue can watch in up-close style four games featuring a host of the NBA's young up-and-comers and wanna-bes.

Eagle-eyed spectators can also pick out head coaches, general managers and other executives who along with scouts from across the globe are eyeing the talent pool. Those with enough bravado may find themselves conversing with such officials — or end up with a bigger treasure. For example, a teen recently snagged an autograph from Dominique Wilkins — the former Hawks star and now Atlanta's vice president of basketball — on a color glossy photograph featuring the player known as the "Human Highlight Film."

WHAT: Reebok Rocky Mountain Revue — the NBA summer league sponsored by the Utah Jazz.

WEB SITE: www.utahjazz.com — click on the Rocky Mountain Revue icon to go to the Revue index page.

VENUE: Salt Lake Community College's Lifetime Activities Center, 4600 S. Redwood Road, Taylorsville.