Vipers expect Rockets affiliation
By Todd Mavreles
May 25, 2007 - 12:23AM
McALLEN — From the moment they were awarded a franchise earlier this year, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League were hoping to have an affiliation with the San Antonio Spurs for their inaugural 2007-08 season.
Unfortunately for them, the Spurs are reportedly opting to retain their D-League affiliation with the Austin Toros for next season. Yet while the Spurs appear out for 07-08, the Vipers are expected to have an affiliation agreement with the Houston Rockets, New Orleans Hornets and Cleveland Cavaliers. An official announcement from the NBA is expected in the coming weeks.
While the Vipers will be happy to work with the Rockets, Hornets and Cavaliers, they had their hopes set on the Spurs.
“Knowing that we’re just coming in as a new franchise, San Antonio already has its affiliates in place,” Vipers Head of Basketball Operations George Gervin said. “A lot of that is the NBA’s decision. Especially since we don’t have 30 NBDL teams right now.”
The NBA’s eventual goal is to have one D-League franchise for each team in the Association. Only the Los Angeles Lakers have their own D-League affiliate, while the other 29 NBA teams work with 15 D-League squads to send players for development.
For the Rockets, it’s just a one-hour flight to send players to and from the Valley. They also have some D-League history, as two starters for Houston, point guard Rafer Alston and power forward Chuck Hayes, previously honed their skills in the D-League.
The affiliation agreement with New Orleans is a bit of a surprise when considering the Hornets were affiliated with the Tulsa 66ers after playing 76 of their 82 home games over the last two seasons in Oklahoma City as a result of Hurricane Katrina. But with the Hornets expected to play all of their home games in New Orleans next season, they’ll instead be affiliated with the Vipers.
As far as the affiliation with Cleveland, the Vipers were to get one Eastern Conference team with which to work as there is just one D-League team located east of the Mississippi River. The Cavaliers were affiliated with the Albuquerque Thunderbirds this season.
“For us to be affiliated with three teams is wonderful for us,” said Vipers Co-owner/President Ryan Murphy, who stressed the affiliation agreement is still unofficial.
Although the Vipers are expected to have a working relationship with the Rockets, Hornets and Cavaliers for the upcoming season, Gervin, an NBA Hall of Famer who is a Spurs legend, hopes the team he made his name with can work out an agreement with the team he is now working for in the near future.
“That’s what we want as an organization is to be affiliates with San Antonio,” Gervin said. “We’re a new franchise. Let us go on and win a championship and be a winning organization and we’ll just see what happens.”
The D-League, which currently has 16 teams in place for the 2007-08 season, began play in 2001-02 and is the official feeder league of the NBA. Sixteen players were called up from the D-League to the NBA during the 2006-07 season.
IN THE BONUS: Murphy said the team is still fine-tuning its logo. The main color scheme of the Vipers uniforms, which will be made by adidas, is grey, white and black, with the possibility of a splash of red. In other words, the Vipers will look similar to the Spurs in their on-court attire. They’ll wear white at home, black on the road.
It would be interesting to find out exactly who was given the call on this one. The Spurs certainly used the Toros more last season, so maybe that was a factor. Logistically, Houston/McAllen was always a better pairing than San Antonio/McAllen. I wonder if we are keeping the Boston affiliation as well.
Good news.
It's kinda sad for them that they don't get Spurs while they have hired Gervin and have decided to have jerseys with Spurs' colors.
That is kind of funny, but the valley has always seemed to vacillate between the Rockets and Spurs - whoever is winning, I guess. I suppose they might have been hoping for the Spurs because Mexico seems to treat the Spurs as their NBA team (along with wherever Najera happens to be).
I was wondering if the Spurs might have wanted to use a little influence with the team like they seem to have done with Pau. That's why I thought Gervin's position was significant. Thankfully, it looks like I was wrong.
From what I've seen, the only franchise in trouble is the one from Arkansas. Their arena deal was way too pricey in Little Rock and a preliminary agreement with Lacrosse, Wisconsin, fell through over facility fees. It would be a shame if they had to suspend operations for a season.
Well, I can see why they'd go after the Spurs. The San Antonio DMA basically surrounds the DMA McAllen is in on all sides except the Mexico one, and many advertisers look at the McAllen DMA as a feeder into the SA DMA and the Austin DMA as a completely separate en y.
Logically speaking though, Austin is a good match for the Spurs considering the proximity and interconnectivity of the two cities.
This is good news for SpursTalk since ChumpDumper can make more games. Congrats
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