Yes, it's amazing but true: The home of the newest professional sports team in Nevada is Reno, not its slightly larger and better known sister city, what's-its-name, to the south.
The Reno Bighorns’ inaugural season was launched on November 29 at the Reno Events Center downtown, in front of a nearly sellout crowd of 4,300. The Bighorns are the latest expansion team in the seven-year-old NBA-affiliated Developmental League, also known as the D-League.
The D-League dates back to 2001, when the NBA established it to replace the old Continental Basketball Association, the long-time unofficial basketball minor league, which folded. Since the NBA owns and finances the D-League, it now serves as the official minor league.
The D-League started with eight teams. In 2005, the NBA announced plans to expand it to 15 teams. By the 2007-08 season, the league had 14 teams; the 2008-09 season has 16 teams, including the Bighorns and the Erie, Penn., Bayhawks.
Each D-League team is affiliated with up to several NBA teams; the Bighorns' NBA affiliates are the Sacramento Kings and the New York Knicks.
To qualify for the D League, players must be at least 20 years old; they earn a flat $35,000 for the 56-game season. Professional basketball players can make more money playing in Europe, but many prefer the D-League, because of its direct connection to the NBA.
Players can rotate between the major and minor leagues, but only two NBA players can be assigned to a D League team at a time, and they can only switch back and forth three times in a season. Fifty-three NBA players have been assigned to D League teams since this system began in 2005.
At the Reno Bighorns’ inaugural game, they played the Bakersfield Jam, which had two NBA players on the team: DeMarcus Nelson and Richard Hendrix, both from the Golden State Warriors.
The Reno Bighorns, so far, don’t have any NBA players. Antonio Meeking, a six-seven forward from Louisiana Tech, is the ostensible star, along with Damone Brown (six-nine, Syracuse), Jesse Smith (six-eleven, center, Idaho State), and Sung-Yoon Bang (a six-five three-point specialist from Korea). Crowd favorites include the two players from University of Nevada-Reno: Garry Hill-Thomas, a six-four guard, and Kyle Shiloh, a six-three guard (who played for two years for the Finland team).
Former Phoenix Suns assistant coach Jay Humphries is the first head coach.
The Bighorns lost a squeaker to the Jam, 98-93, in a game that changed leads more than 20 times. Since then the Bighorns lost to the Utah Flash 101-81, lost a heartbreaker to the Anaheim Arsenal 116-113, beat the L.A. D-Fenders, 103-96, and lost again to the Anaheim Arsenal 114-106, for a 1-4 record
As for why the Bighorns chose Reno over Las Vegas, you might as well ask why Reno over any other city in the country. Bighorns Owner David Kahn likes Reno, calling it "one of the truly remarkable economic success stories in America the last several years." He cited the increase in population, the diversification of the economy, and an enthusiastic market for professional-level teams, apparently referring to the Reno Aces, the Biggest Little City's first-ever Triple-A baseball team (affiliated with the Arizona Diamondbacks), whose inaugural season launches in April 2009 in a $40 million 10,000-seat brand-spanking-new outdoor stadium in downtown Reno.
