Ron Boone, Dennis Lindsey, Malcolm Turner talk about the Salt Lake City Stars

SALT LAKE CITY — Today's press conference announcing the relocation of Boise's Idaho Stampede D-League franchise to Salt Lake City featured some big names. The team will play its 24 games at Salt Lake Community College.

Here's Ron Boone, Dennis Lindsey, and Malcolm Turner giving their insight on the move:

ABA legend and current Utah Jazz commentator Ron Boone, on what he hopes this announcement does for the legacy of the Utah Stars:

"The ABA Stars have been maybe overlooked for quite some time now. You hate to see it. I love the name. And it's synonymous with basketball but also but with what we did here in this organization. That's the reason I was so excited with this. There may be more conversations on what the ABA Stars were."

Jazz general manager Dennis Lindsey, on how the move may help player development:

"There are many things that go into that: the lease, the facility, the logistics, I think Tibor Pleiss was assigned and recalled 10 times this year. Strategically, we had to keep him there in Boise for longer stretches. Now, Tibor gets to work with Mark McKown and Isaiah Wright and can conceivable play a game with the Stars on Thursday night and play Friday and Saturday with the Jazz. It's a huge advantage."

Lindsey on how being in Salt Lake City helps the business side of the Stars:

"Mr. Miller was great in his businesses at what we call 'vertical integration,' stacking things on top of each other that make sense so one builds on the other. We have 5 corporate sponsors that we wouldn't have otherwise that are going to support the Stars. You have the Fanzz store you have catering, you have security, you have PR. Also we'll allow our basketball operations staff to develop. To be around Quin is a great thing, so Dean and his coaches will develop and understand what Jazz basketball is about.

Lindsey on the move changing the player psychology of being assigned to the D-League:

"Being player first means a lot. Just think about the psychology of a player that gets assigned. Rudy's talked: he wasn't pleased. There's a bunch of different reasons: you've got to go catch a couple of flights. You're in a franchise or city you're not familiar with. This year, for example, we had Tibor come in, and his dad came and visited from Germany. It was inside of a window that was a very good assignment window. So his dad actually traveled with Tibor. Now, all of that is inside of Salt Lake. Guys get to sleep in the same beds. The girlfriends get to see them, or wives get to see them play."

Lindsey on how the SLC Stars may help the Jazz with injury recovery:

"Today, we had Alec Burks taking contact in a 3-on-3 setting. We had to use two coaches and two guys at the end of the bench, two guys that played last night. In San Antonio, we brought the whole Austin team down for Gary Neal. Going forward, I can see us bringing the whole team to our practice facility and mocking up 5-on-5 and playing games that we can't do otherwise. I don't think the average fan knows how little contact you have during the course of the year — from an energy standpoint, from just having appropriate numbers to play 5-on-5, from an injury standpoint. So I think it will be huge for rehab assignments. I think it will be huge for young player development. And I think it will be huge to be even more data for some of the ideas that Quin wants to do relative to basketball itself."

Lindsey on syncing the schedules for the Jazz and Stars:

"I'm hopeful, I'm not 100 percent confident yet, but I'm hopeful that we'll be able to marry schedules between the NBA and the D-League so it makes sense from a logistical standpoint. If we have Trey Lyles early in the season, when Rudy and Derrick are healthy and he's just outside the rotation, he can play in a game or two and then be reassigned to the Jazz. We have multiple picks in the future years and this gives us the best possible platform to develop those picks."

Lindsey, on if moving the franchise was the plan after the Jazz bought the Stampede last March:

"No. Boise is a great sports market, Boise State, the Stampede has a great history there with a championship background. It's a great city and we have significant interests there. We looked at multiple cities and venues. ... The lease itself makes us economically more viable. We want to run a healthy franchise from a profit/loss standpoint. So there's a lot of things. Once we took a deep look and talked to some of the community leaders and told our story about our vision, people quickly saw it. I think we had a conference call with 12 of our champion partners, and five of them joined immediately. We're really excited for that."

Lindsey on the economic goals of the Stars:

"There's always a goal when you're running a business to make it make sense economically, and I would say this: make it make sense economically so we can have best development possible. Whether it's extra coaches, or a better strength and conditioning area, the best logistics. We want to tell our story for opposing coaches, players, and scouts that come in, so they have the best possible experience, so when they came to Salt Lake they say 'Hey, that was first class.' So more so than making a couple hundred thousand (dollars), I would say the top priority is to create a premium experience for our players and coaches and opposing coaches, players, and scouts.

NBA D-League President Malcolm Turner on NBA teams buying and running D-League teams:

"In terms of one-to-one affiliation and NBA teams owning the D-League teams, it's a fairly recent phenomenon. Five, six, seven years ago, you would see a very different model in play. But NBA owners are recognizing the NBA development league is an effective, efficient way to develop talent, and so they're buying in. And they're buying in by striking single-affiliation agreements with our D-League teams, and by buying those teams outright. This is yet another proof point, if you will. Now relocating the team here to make good on some of the connectivity Dennis Lindsey talked about. This is a natural progression that we're experiencing as a league. It's another proof point of the value that we're providing to NBA owners."

Turner, on if D-League franchise values have risen recently:

"They have. And I think that's a function that we're creating within the NBA family. We view the NBADL as an asset that's creating value throughout the NBA system where there's player development, first and foremost, but also coaches, front office personnel, business staff, etc. As the league grows in profile and as the talent level continues to increase at a record setting pace, the values of the underlying asset and the business are increasing accordingly."

Turner, on how the D-League helps the NBA with on-court rule changes:

"In terms of the rules of the game itself, that's one of the things we stand for. We're an R-and-D lab, a test bed for the NBA. So we have opportunities, as a controlled environment, that if there are initiatives that we'd like to test and learn from potentially for application at the NBA level, we have that option. So you've seen the notion of a coach's challenge in other sports. We're testing one within the D-League level, and we just completed our regular season and we're about to start our playoffs. But this summer we'll convene with the NBA competition committee and take a look at the data for how the coach's challenge worked this season, and so we'll see what the feedback is from the competition committee in terms of are there tweaks or learnings that they would like to know in terms of potentially advancing that further or going for additional study, etc. From a basketball rules standpoint, we're in an environment where we can test and learn and try to make a great game better."

Turner, on the potential addition of "two-way" roster spots for players to jump between the NBA and the D-League:

"We believe we will evolve. The question with the growing number of single affiliations and growing number of D-League teams owned by NBA parent clubs, we're looking at all kinds of opportunities that can not only facilitate but accelerate the value that we're creating for our NBA team partners. And so whether it's a two-way system, or other opportunities, all of that is on the table, all of that is being actively discussed back at headquarters. So it remains to be seen. But you're absolutely right, from a structure standpoint, we're absolutely taking a look at opportunities in terms of how we can grow as a property and ultimately to create the most value for our NBA teams owners, coaches, GMs from a player development standpoint."

Turner, on if the move from Boise to Salt Lake helps the business outlook for the Stars/Stampede:

"Absolutely, no question. That was part of the vision when we first started to explore this. Certainly Miller Sports and Entertainment is one of our finest owners and operators, and the connectivity that this team can now have with the parent club, we're very bullish on. I know it was a story that they certainly framed and articulate it for us in terms of how the two can work together, and we're excited about that. We have numerous examples from across the league on how that can help both on the business and basketball side and we expect nothing less here."

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