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The Idaho Stampede are the NBA Developmental League affiliate for the Utah Jazz. This relationship is way more important than the relationship that used to exist with the Utah Flash. After all, the Stampede front office are hand picked by the Jazz front office, and their head coach was picked by Dennis Lindsey. Heck, even the Jazz brass drive up there for press conferences.
So what I'm saying is "it's for reals."
What else is for reals is training camp. The Utah Jazz had 19 (+1) in for training camp and parsed that down to 13, and then signed two new guys. They have a roster right now that a) is 15 players strong, and b) shows that flexibility isn't important, but development is. The sad c) part of this three part breakdown of the Jazz roster is that there's no space for a call up right now.
The Stamps have started their training camp with 17 players, and need to parse that down to 10 in a little over a week. If you look at the roster as it stands right now, there isn't a whole lot of information. What we do know is that the players who have shown up come from a number of places: NBA-DL draft picks, returning players, try outs / walk ons, and affiliate designations.
Another issue is that so many of them have come from all over, and have various experience levels, it's not an even playing field. There are guys pushing 30 going up against baby faced kids right out of college. What the Stamps will do is figure out who can play. And that's all that matters.
Here's the roster right now -- and their experience levels.
| Player | Pos | Ht | Wt | Age | College | Acquired | NCAA | PRO (NBA) | NBA Summer | NBA Preseason | PRO (INTL) | PRO (NBADL) | Total | ||||
| 1 | Nick Covington | 1 | 6 | 2 | 200 | 29 | Weber St | Draft | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 10 | ||||
| 2 | Jermelle Fraser | 1 | 6 | 1 | 186 | 27 | SUNY Maritime | Tryout | 6 | 6 | |||||||
| 3 | Shane Gibson | 1 | 6 | 2 | 180 | 24 | Sacred Heart | Draft | 5 | 5 | |||||||
| 4 | Tre Bussey | 1 | 6 | 3 | 170 | 22 | Georgia souther | Draft | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 5 | Dominique Kirk | 1 | 6 | 3 | 185 | 28 | Texas A&M | Tryout | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 6 | Dexter Strickland | 2 | 6 | 3 | 181 | 24 | North Carolina | Returning | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 7 | ||||
| 7 | Ryan Sypkens | 2 | 6 | 4 | 195 | 22 | UC Davis | Draft | 5 | 5 | |||||||
| 8 | Aaron Dotson | 2 | 6 | 4 | 202 | 23 | Utah | Tryout | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 9 | Reggie Hearn | 2 | 6 | 4 | 210 | 23 | Northwestern | Returning | 3 | 1 | 4 | ||||||
| 10 | Kevin Murphy | 3 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 185 | 24 | Tennessee Tech | Returning | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 13 | |
| 11 | B.J. Shearry | 3 | 6 | 7 | 220 | 24 | UC Irvine | Tryout | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 12 | Tyrrel Tate | 3 | 6 | 5 | 215 | 22 | Fayetteville St | Draft | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 13 | Joel Wright | 3 | 6 | 7 | 225 | 24 | Texas St | Draft | 4 | 4 | |||||||
| 14 | Jack Cooley | 4 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 244 | 23 | Notre Dame | Affiliate | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 8 | |||
| 15 | Kodi Augustus | 4 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 224 | 27 | Mississippi St | Draft | 4 | 2 | 6 | |||||
| 16 | Quinton Doggett | 4 | 3 | 6 | 8 | 220 | 24 | Southern | Draft | 4 | 4 | ||||||
| 17 | Brian Barkdoll | 5 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 250 | 25 | Northwest Nazarene | Tryout | 4 | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||||
Covington played for the Jazz in Vegas. So I put him as the starter here. Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to figuring out the wings . . . but I have a soft spot for Kevin Murphy. The bigs are a mess . . . but that's the one part of the Jazz roster that is strongest.
Personally, I don't know who out of this crew will make the team. But I am excited to read more about them and how they progress over the next week. Watching the D league is going to be fun again now that we have our own team to root for and hope for.
This is going to be a fun season, with more NBADL coverage than previous years here at the Dunk. And I hope that you will enjoy it!