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The Utah Jazz announced today that they have assigned Tibor Pleiss to their "exclusively owned and operated NBA D-League team," the Idaho Stampede. It's a good thing at this point in the season for both franchises. The Utah Jazz do not immediately have playing time for him, and he has spent a month with the team learning how the Jazz do things. What he really needs is playing time. The 26 year old NBA rookie has plenty of FIBA experience, but only about 4,000 minutes in EuroLeague play (245 games, 4230.6 minutes, 17.27 mpg on average). At the NBA level he played in six preseason games and 4 regular season games.
Tibor Pleiss has been assigned to the @IdahoStampede: https://t.co/VF3AuW9CS4 pic.twitter.com/BuiJMvGWfA
— Utah Jazz (@utahjazz) November 30, 2015
.@utahjazz have assigned C Tibor Pleiss to the @IdahoStampede. He's expected to be in uniform for Idaho's game tomorrow at @okcblue.
— Utah Jazz PR (@UtahJazzPR) November 30, 2015
For Idaho they need talent at all spots right now. Though, because there seems to have been no oversight on this exclusively owned and operated NBA D-League team, all of the talent seems to be inside -- which is where the Jazz are currently bursting with rotation players. Pleiss will join Jack Cooley, and #1 NBA D-League Draft pick Jeff Ayres (formerly Jeff Pendergraph) inside. They still have J.J. O'Brien, Traveon Graham, and E.J. Singler as well. Hopefully Tibor will get to play, and help steer their ship away from the #1 draft pick NEXT season as well. The Stamps are 1-7 right now. Last season they won only 9 games. They are actually doing WORSE than last season's 18.0 winning percentage. That's gotta suck for coach Dean Cooper. Then again, maybe it's the Jazz' plans to just "whatever" Idaho and actually start building something when they eventually move the team to Utah.
I'm going to miss Tibor and his 7'3 frame. We all know that being sent down doesn't mean you actually spend a lot of time there, though. He could be there for two weeks and then called up again. He just needs to be down there long enough to prove that he's above it -- like what Kosta Koufos, Jeremy Evans, and Rudy Gobert all proved in recent seasons.