The Rookie

This marks our third time watching NBA Summer League games in Vegas. Our inaugural visit was in 2016 when we came with our good friends and fellow basketball junkies. It's pretty funny to look back on our first impressions of the rookies from that year! In 2018, we were in town for a family reunion (but without M who was on tour with his drum corps) and took the opportunity to catch a few games one day. And this year, we primarily came to watch our fellow Illini and Chicago Bulls rookie Ayo Dosunmu, but this time J is missing out.

Armed with the knowledge from our previous experiences, we arrived before the tip-off of the first game. But instead of watching the Knicks-Pacers game in the Thomas & Mack Center, we headed straight for Cox Pavilion to get good seats for the Bulls-Pelicans game, which started an hour later. G and his girls joined us shortly after.

Since the teams are made up of newly drafted rookies, second year guys, and others trying to earn a roster spot, the basketball being played isn't necessarily the best, which is why I enjoy watching the crowd almost more than the games. However, wearing masks due to COVID precautions greatly hampers my already limited ability to recognize anyone I know, let alone current/former players and coaches.

So, when a group of guys came in and took the VIP seats in front of us, we were trying to figure out who they were since a couple of them seemed familiar. It finally dawned on us that it was Brad Underwood, head coach of the Illinois men's basketball team and his son Tyler, also here to cheer on their former player and teammate, Ayo.

We greeted the coach, congratulated him on the team's previous season, and wished him well on the upcoming one. Lacking any Bulls gear in my closet, I was wearing the next best thing - an Illinois Big Ten Champions t-shirt. When Coach Underwood noticed it, he came over to give me a hug and kindly took a picture with us!

I-L-L! I-N-I!

The game itself was just meh. I spent some of the time texting pics to J, asking him to identify who this or that person might be. We were happy to be able to watch Ayo play up close, but the Bulls lost 94-77.

Afterwards, we grabbed some stadium food and made our way over to the other court, where we caught the tail end of the Mavericks-Sixers game and stayed put for the Hornets-Kings game which followed. Even though we had been here twice before, we clearly did not remember that the AC was set at sub-zero temps inside. Finding myself going into hibernation mode, I went out to the concourse to find someplace to sit and doze off because I really didn't want to get caught sleeping on the Jumbotron. M came with me.

When we came back inside, we found that R had started chatting it up with the two guys sitting in front of him. Turns out that they come every year, and their thing is to quite loudly heckle and/or cheer for random players at each game. For the Magic-Warriors game, the focus of their attention was Janis Timma. M had a personal vendetta against Jalen Suggs, the former Gonzaga player who earned his ire by sinking the half-court buzzer beater to beat UCLA in OT of their Final Four game earlier this year. Let's just say that a nearby "Karen and sons" weren't too happy about the extracurriculars - why they chose to keep sitting there all upset instead of moving to other open seats elsewhere was beyond me. *shrug*

Having had our fill of basketball, we made arrangements to meet up with one of M's college friends for dinner at Tacos El Gordo on Charleston Blvd. It's a counter-serve place where you line up to order at the station that is serving the meat you want on your taco. I have no pics of what we ate, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was super yummy. Since it's not too far from downtown, I imagine that we'll be back next time we're here in Vegas.