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TAYLORSVILLE — In some ways, it was a good start for the SLC Stars in their new home at the Lifetime Activities Center in Salt Lake City.
In other ways, not so much.
Yeah, the Stars lost once again Friday night to the Northern Arizona Suns by a score of 91-80. That pushes their record to 0-3. With only one healthy point guard on the roster, Marcus Paige, who was clearly fatigued by the end of the game, the Stars lost a first half lead down the stretch thanks to a litany of turnovers leading to easy Suns buckets.
Paige, the 55th pick in the 2016 NBA Draft, had a better performance than he did in his first D-League game, but not by much. Paige scored 18 points at least on 6-14 shooting, but assisted exactly zero times and turned the ball over nine times. An assist to turnover ratio of 0 almost seems kind.
Paige is still recovering from an ankle sprain that cost him his first D-League game, and playing 44 minutes didn't help. Just like the Jazz, the Stars are facing an injury crunch, with only nine healthy players on the roster.
The 26-year old Jermaine Taylor, fresh off of taking a year off of basketball, was the Stars' leading scorer tonight with 20 points, on 9-13 shooting. Former Colorado star Askia Booker led the Suns with 21 points.
And Elijah Millsap, he of 67 games in a Jazz uniform, led both teams in rebounding Friday night with 11. After the game, he told us about what he learned from his NBA experience. Before getting to the NBA, Millsap drove the ball inside frequently, getting fouled often. He wasn't able to do that in the NBA at all, he learned. Instead, in his second stint in the D-League, he wants to show that he's a player that can help a team without scoring, namely, with smart plays, rebounding, and his trademark on-ball defense.
But despite an interesting game, the players on the court weren't the focus. Instead, most of the curiosity around the franchise was on off-court matters in the team's first game in Salt Lake City.
The Jazz drew a modest crowd of only 1,015, not especially close to the Lifetime Activities Center's capacity of about 2800. But the Stars did a ton of things for the fans that were here. During the game, a Kids Zone featured a bounce house, pop-a-shot, face painting, and more family fun. It seemed like the Jazz bear and Jazz dancers threw out enough T-shirts that nearly every fan got one. And after the game, four Stars stars signed autographs for any fan that stuck around after the game.
That Kids Zone is the real trick for the Stars to improve their attendance moving forward, and we'll see if they can succeed at getting Salt Lake County's families to the games. After all, tickets are legitimately cheap.
Longtime broadcaster Steve Brown and former Jazz head coach and GM Frank Layden commentated the game on Facebook Live, where all NBA D-League games are broadcast. Brown will call the games, and the Jazz will rotate through a number of color men with Brown. 1280 AM radio man Tony Parks made the public addresses, and the team installed a fancy video board for timeout Kiss Cams and the like. In the end, most of it all went off without a hitch.
Now, if only the team on the floor could say the same.
