D-League provides final dream for NBA hopefuls

OREM – Starting out his pro basketball career as a seldom-used second round draft pick did not put odds in Gabe Pruitt's favor when it came to sticking in the NBA.

Pruitt put up decent numbers while spending three years at USC. But when the Boston Celtics selected him with the 31st overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, the rookie point guard joined a team that already had a logjam of players – led by future all-star Rajon Rondo – at that position.

After playing in just 62 games over two seasons – and averaging 7.4 minutes and 2.0 points in those contests – the Celtics waived Pruitt before this season.

He received an invitation from the New York Knicks to join their training camp in the fall, but Pruitt was cut a month before the regular season started.

These days, Pruitt is honing his game in NBA Development League as a backup point guard for the Utah Flash. It isn't how he envisioned things unfolding when he left the Trojans. But Pruitt feels like this is the best road to take for him to return to a bigger basketball stage.

"Down here in the D-League, it's real competitive," Pruitt said. "There's a lot of guys that are trying to get back up to the NBA. There's a lot of eyes watching you. You have to do what you can do to get back up."

Much like Pruitt, a multitude of basketball players see the D-League as a logical springboard to fulfilling their dreams of making it in the NBA.

On the Flash roster alone, you have ex-NBA players such as Pruitt and Orien Greene. There are also one-time Rocky Mountain Revue participants like Andre Ingram. Luke Nevill, a former University of Utah standout, is currently the only Flash player with local collegiate ties.

A quick glance at the typical NBA roster during the 2009-10 season shows high hopes of players in the D-League have of moving up to the next level are not misplaced. Dozens of players who spent time in that league are playing in the NBA now.

One reason so many NBADL alumni are moving on up is the high visibility playing in the league offers. Flash coach Brad Jones said that there are typically two or three – and, at times, as many as five or six – NBA scouts who attend each of his team's home games in Orem.

"In my opinion, it's the most scouted – other than, obviously, college – league in the world to try and find NBA players," Jones said.