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SALT LAKE CITY — After being purchased by the Utah Jazz in 2015, the Idaho Stampede NBA Developmental League franchise will be moving to Salt Lake City in time for the 2016-17 season, a source confirmed to KSL.com. D-League Digest and the Deseret News reported the move first.
The team will be named the "Salt Lake City Stars" and will play at Salt Lake Community College.
This isn't a surprise. Rumors of the team moving closer to the team's base in Salt Lake City have been swirling ever since the Jazz purchased the D-League franchise in March 2015 for close to $4.2 million. It was essentially a matter of deciding on the ideal landing spot for the team and choosing when to make the move.
It seems that's been decided. While moving the team to Ogden, Orem, Provo, or St. George were all considered, it sounds like the team will find a home in Salt Lake City.
The move closer to home is desirable for the Jazz for a number of reasons. The biggest is probably creating continuity of culture between the NBA team and the D-League team: having the Stampede and Jazz coaches in the same rooms more frequently will help standards remain consistent across the two teams. For players recovering from injury, a short rehab appearance for the local D-League team may make sense in some circumstances.
For young developing NBA-quality players, having the NBA and D-League franchise in the same city also means not having to choose between more playing time in professional games and practice time with the NBA team. For example, Josh Huestis, a late first-round pick with the Oklahoma City Thunder, was shuttled up and down from the Thunder to the Oklahoma City Blue, their D-League franchise, 30 times this season. That allowed Huestis to practice with the Thunder and be available for Thunder games if needed on short notice, while still getting him maximum playing time with the Blue. In other words, Huestis had the best of both worlds.
Tibor Pleiss, on the other hand, was only recalled and assigned 10 times. While that's still pretty frequent, that difference reflects the disadvantage of not having the NBA D-League franchise in the same town.
Another factor playing into this move: there's a growing swell of support from teams around the league about the concept of adding a few "two-way" roster spots to the NBA's 15-man roster limit. These roster spots would allow a franchise to give developmental resources to fringe NBA players without forfeiting a roster spot to a more deserving NBA player.
Obviously, this would have to be collectively bargained with the NBA's players' association, but such a proposal would probably benefit the players too. D-League salaries currently top out at $25,000 per season, and there's a large group of players who deserve to make more but aren't currently good enough to receive a full NBA contract. Those players typically go to Europe now, but NBA teams would generally prefer to keep them stateside.
There are more details to be decided about the concept (a third round of the draft may be possible), but as the NBA and D-League move closer to a MLB-style major-league/minor-league relationship, these sorts of initiatives will keep moving forward. Moving the Stampede to Salt Lake could help the Jazz stay on the cutting edge of these developments.
The Jazz and Stars are holding a press conference today at 2 p.m. to unveil the move. We'll be sure to update you with more information as it becomes available.
