Las Vegas targeted for new pro hoops league

Tuesday, Aug. 11, 1998 | 12:03 p.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

A new minor league basketball league has identified Las Vegas as a potential host city.

The Baltimore-based International Basketball League plans to tip off its first season in the the fall of 1999. Las Vegas, according to a league spokesman, will be one of eight cities that will host franchises, joining Baltimore, Cincinnati, San Diego, Albuquerque, N.M., Richmond, Va., and Jacksonville and Tampa, Fla.

The spokesman said the new league would compete with the long-standing Continental Basketball Association for players. The CBA is considered the chief development league for the NBA.

League officials called a news conference at the Thomas & Mack center today to disclose details for the new league, which sources said would play a 65-game schedule.

Ironically, Las Vegas once had a team in the CBA -- and it failed miserably. The Las Vegas Silvers lasted less than one season back in the early 1980s before moving to Albuquerque.

The Silvers failed there, too, despite boasting fan favorites such as head coach Norm Ellenberger, the former University of New Mexico coach, and ex-Western Athletic Conference standouts such as Charles "Tub" Bradley, who went on to play for the Boston Celtics.

More recently, Las Vegas fielded a team in the defunct World Basketball League for players 6-5 and under. The team failed to draw despite enlisting the services of former UNLV stars such as Freddie Banks. The WBL folded in 1990.