The Dakota Wizards: Gone But Not Forgotten

The Bismarck Events Center, once home to the enchanted Dakota Wizards, sits as a memorial to the past glory days of minor league basketball. Behind a few trophy cases in an empty hallway sits what’s left of a team that survived through three different leagues (IBA, CBA, NBADL) in seventeen years.

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Among the relics are the team’s 2006–07 D-League Championship Trophy, with the net still slunk around it, appearing frozen in time.

In another section is several other pieces of memorabilia including a noisemaker as well as a foam finger. There is also a commemorative Dave Joerger bobblehead, which was given out in 2008 to the first 400 fans in attendance as a special giveaway.

A dynasty of minor league basketball, the Wizards won six championships with their D-League championship coming during the 2006–07 season where Joerger served as head coach.

Joerger split his time with Dakota, beginning from 2001–04 before his second stint when the team made the jump with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Colorado 14ers, and Idaho Stampede to play in the NBADL. In five seasons with the team, Joerger won four championships, and is one of a handful of people to

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own IBA, CBA, and NBDL championship rings.

Another member of the triple-minor-league-ring club is Scott Woodmansee, a man who wore many different hats during his time with the team including Director of Game Operations, Public Address Announcer, and Public Relations. Woodmansee still has his own Joerger bobblehead sitting right next to his Jerry West autographed NBA D-League basketball at home.

Woodmansee credits Joerger, who served as both head coach and general manager at the time, as the reason he joined the Wizards family.

“I got to know Dave and he asked me to do the PA and got me on board and it kind of went from there,” Woodmansee said. I think it’s a great place for people younger people wanting to get into that industry to go start for any minor league team but in particular the development league.”

Though a witness to multiple championships while with the organization, winning the D-League crown is Woodmansee’s favorite memory.

“That D-League championship and being a part of that atmosphere, the first year in the league and Dave being there and just the memories of how electric that building was,” Woodmansee said. “Just the way the game finished. Darius Rice went off and that’s probably the memory that I’ll carry with me.”

Longtime Wizards point guard and fan favorite Mo Baker echoed Woodmansee’s sentiment about his own favorite moment.

“When we won that championship when Dave was there,” Baker said. “We just hugged. We just talked. We whispered in each other’s ear that this was beginning of something special.

“It was just wonderful playing for (Joerger) because he had been there before,” Baker said. “He knew what we had to do to be successful because he always prepared us to get ready for the game.”

It would be the beginning of something special for Joerger. After climbing the D-League mountain, he departed for greener pastures as he was hired by the Memphis Grizzlies to join their coaching staff as an assistant. He spent three seasons as the Grizzlies head coach from 2013-to-2016 before being fired. He is currently the head coach of the Sacramento Kings.

Baker, who is the franchise’s all-time leader in points, assists, rebounds, and steals has fond memories of playing for Dakota. But for someone who’s professional career had sent him around the world to places like Russia, Syria and Mexico, Bismarck didn’t seem like an ideal destination.

“When I first joined I was kind of skeptical, I was like what? Bismarck?” Baker said. “I didn’t really know nothing about the city. But once I started playing I fell in love with all that.”

Baker first joined the Wizards in 2004 while the team was still a member of the CBA. Since

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2006 when the team joined the NBADL, Baker has appeared in 357 D-League contests, a mark good enough for second-best in league history, trailing only fellow Wizards alum, Renaldo Major. He’s also second in league history in minutes, again only trailing Major.

“Mo’s a warrior, that’s all I can say,” Woodmansee said. “Mo was a guy that each and every night brought it and you knew you were going to get 110% out of Mo. I think Mo was a great teammate. If you ask any former Dakota Wizards they’ll tell you that. With his knowledge of the game he was almost a coach on the floor.”

Though Baker brought the intensity on the floor, he also brought it off the court with his teammates and a mutual love for a certain board game.

“We just played basketball and Monopoly,” Baker said. “We’d be up all night playing and have an early morning shootaround.”

Aside from the traditional arguing over which game pieces someone wants to play with and whether the fake money doled out by the banker was counted correctly, these were intense playing sessions. It didn’t matter how many times you passed ‘Go’ and collected $200. Nor did it matter who landed on Boardwalk first. The real prize was a chain with Mr. Moneybags hanging off the end. The real king was the man who wore the piece. A symbol of desired riches for D-League players earning minimal salaries.

“That’s bragging rights for the day,” Baker said.

While Baker and his crew were playing with Monopoly money, a much larger, significant deal took place across the country as Joe Lacob and Peter Guber purchased the Golden State Warriors from Chris Cohan to the tune of $450 million, the summer of 2010. The deal was a record-breaking sale for the NBA, surpassing the previous high of $401 million paid by Robert Sarver in 2004 to purchase the Phoenix Suns.

In an interview with Tim Kawakami of Bay Area News Group, Lacob described the changes necessary to create a successful franchise:

The culture is another thing that definitely has to change. If you’re going to win, which is our primary goal, we’ve got to have a 24/7 culture of basketball and getting better and working harder.

Ownership appeared aggressive in an effort to change the team’s culture (or lack thereof). Less than eight months after the NBA approved the sale of the Warriors, Golden State purchased another team, the Dakota Wizards.

Warriors Assistant General Manager Kirk Lacob (who was the team’s Director of Basketball Operations at the time of the purchase) spearheaded the process of purchasing a D-League teams and was adamant the franchise should act sooner rather than later.

“I think it was really important to get a team that year because we felt like change was coming pretty quickly with not only the D-League but also our NBA team,” Kirk Lacob tells D-League Digest. “It was something we wanted to get ahead of.”

Was it a challenge to convince ownership to act as swiftly as they did?

“It was certainly a challenge that I had to prove it was valuable,” Kirk Lacob said. “All of them were on board but they weren’t going to jump in without any sort of actual research and evidence that this thing could provide any value so I had to do quite a bit of work to prove some sort of (return of investment). Whether it was actual money or more loosely held value.”

Part of his pitch to ownership involved the ability find talent to cultivate as part of their system and ultimately sign them to the main roster.

“If one guy makes the NBA on a minimum deal, that’s a return of investment,” Kirk Lacob said.

The Warriors have signed multiple players to contracts since bringing the Dakota Wizards to Santa Cruz, including Scott Machado, Hilton Armstrong, and most recently James Michael McAdoo, who became one of the first players, alongside teammate Ognjen Kuzmic, to win D-League and NBA championships in the same season.

“(McAdoo) definitely one of the prime examples of what the D-League can do and provide value,” Kirk Lacob said. “If you get a guy and he wasn’t an NBA player before and he is now then that’s value.”

The purchase of the Wizards was one of a series of moves to help change the face of the franchise internally, righting the ship that only saw the playoffs once during the previous ownership’s tenure.

“I think it’s a great indication of what our culture is,” Kirk Lacob said. “The idea that we can go out and do something different and not be afraid to take chances. If you go back to our summer league team of 2011, very early on we decided very early on that we wanted a culture of winning.

At the time, the Warriors were in negotiations with three separate D-League teams to purchase but ultimately chose Dakota for two reasons.

“One, best price,” Kirk Lacob said. “Two, the people we felt we could work with in that organization.”

Lacob would not disclose the other teams the Warriors were in negotiations with. The sale, however, immediately pointed towards the Wizards likely departure.

“We initially weren’t planning on moving the team,” Kirk Lacob said. “Obviously after a year that had not been the case and it was more about geography than anything else. But the positive was it gave us a whole year to figure that out.”

For Woodmansee, the future of the Wizards viability in Bismarck set in immediately.

“I always knew it was going to happen it was just a matter of when,” Woodmansee said. “When you get to that last game I just think well here’s the wham. It was just tough because it was probably the last time you’re going to sit courtside and be the PA voice of an NBA minor league franchise but it was a tough night.”

Baker wasn’t completely supportive of the move before it took place, given his relationship with the city and fans of the Wizards.

“For me I was kind of nervous,” Baker said. “I didn’t want the team to leave. I was down because those fans deserve a team. I thought this might not be the best move.”

The Warriors brought in their own personnel to assist with basketball operations, including Kirk Lacob who served as the team’s General Manager. The Warriors didn’t overstep their boundaries and were professional throughout the process according to Woodmansee.

“Kirk’s a great guy. I can say nothing but good things about Kirk Lacob,” Woodmansee said.

The first reports of the Wizards possible move to Santa Cruz came on April, 5, 2012. The Wizards would play their last game in Bismarck just ten days later, a 93–91 loss to the visiting Bakersfield Jam eliminating the Wizards from the postseason.

“I knew it was just a matter of time and I respect that,” Woodmansee said. “I understand how they operate a business and how they’re going to do things and I think some people here had a bitter taste in their mouth. It was hard, it was tough but that was reality.”

“Stef Hannah was walking out in front of me. He was walking off and I was like we let these fans down and I couldn’t do nothing about it because the move was coming,” Baker said. “I felt like I let the whole city down because I knew it was the last season we were going to play in Bismarck.”

The inevitability of the situation didn’t change its magnitude, hitting Woodmansee with the reality of the doors shutting on the Dakota Wizards.

“There was probably some tears shed and you know there was that question of what are they going to do and again, I knew it was going to happen,” Woodmansee said. “I knew what they were going to do. I respect Kirk Lacob and Joe Lacob and all those guys, but it was tough, that was a tough one.”

At a regular season-ending banquet shortly before the playoffs began, the team expressed its gratitude towards Baker, who had spent parts of eight seasons with the team, by retiring his №23 jersey. A symbolic gesture, it would be one of the team’s last gatherings with fans before the eventual move.

“That was kind of special. I didn’t know it was going to happen, we have a little team gathering with season ticket holders and that was special for me,” Baker said. The team tried to fly out Baker’s mother to attend the event, but couldn’t make it happen on short notice. “They recognized all the hard work I put in and they did it for me.”

Baker moved with the team to Santa Cruz, and has played for the Warriors since the move to Surf City. Despite the rabid fanbase he comes out to for the Warriors, he still has a place in his heart for his first love.

“I just miss the fans back in Bismarck and how excited they used to be when we get ready for a game,” Baker said, noting the Santa Cruz fans are just as receptive to the team. “Some of the fans I was really attached to so I miss seeing those faces at the game.”

Though the team would move on, its memory would not be forgotten in Bismarck.

“Dakota was there for 17 years and three leagues which was pretty crazy,” Kirk Lacob said. “We definitely did not take that lightly. We were careful of being respectful of the team and its history.”

Left behind were the trophies and championship banners, not a part of the Warriors organization, but owned by the people of Bismarck who paid to see their team they loved for nearly two decades. The trophy remains at the Events Center, while the championship banners are kept in storage, likely to never be seen again.

“We wanted to leave the history and traditions there in case they got a team back,” Kirk Lacob said. “It wasn’t our history and while I wanted to begin a new one in Santa Cruz I also wanted Bismarck to own theirs.”

Woodmansee’s everyday relationships on the job are what he misses the most about the loss of the Wizards.

‘The coaches and the guys on the day to day basis and other guys from other teams coming in,” Woodmansee said. “I got to meet a lot of different people in my time with the organization. From the front office all the way down to players and coaches and you just get to meet some really great people.”

It almost wasn’t the end for Woodmansee, however. He was offered a job with the Warriors in Santa Cruz, but he couldn’t accept the offer.

“It was a situation where I’m married and have a stepson and it wasn’t the convenient thing to do,” Woodmansee said, who has since transitioned to working in the print screen and embroidery business.

The end may be near for Baker and his long-lived playing career.

“I still want to play, but I also know my window is closing,” Baker said. I’m on the verge of coaching but right now I want to play. We’ll see and just go from there.”

And as the lights were shut off in the Bismarck Civic Center one last time, the Dakota Wizards were no more. As the D-League continues to progress and evolve towards a full one-to-one affiliated system, basketball history is slowly altered and it appears likely the last remnants of the CBA will soon face a similar fate.

The Idaho Stampede, another CBA staple, had a nearly identical scenario play out this past year in Boise. The Utah Jazz purchased the team and extended a one-year lease with CenturyLink Arena. Shortly after the season ended, the Utah Jazz announced they would be moving the team to Salt Lake City and renaming them the Stars.

All that remains of the CBA is the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Founded in 1989, the Skyforce are the bookend of CBA legend. While history suggests a similar fate for the Skyforce moving to be closer to their parent club the Miami Heat, there is the dream scenario to be had.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have often been suggested as suitors for the Skyforce if and when the Heat decide to move their own D-League operations closer to home. This fairy tale happy-ending exists so that history does not repeat itself and the blissful marriage begins with the T-Wolves carrying the Skyforce over the threshold and begin their basketball honeymoon.

Gone but not forgotten, the Wizards will remain part of basketball lore as long as their history is preserved.

“We had a hell of a run,” Woodmansee said.