Columnist Dean Juipe: New team doomed to failure

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, July 20, 1999 | 9:46 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Think of it in terms of a classified ad.

For sale: Minor-league basketball team in new cash-strapped league. Team has signing rights to 30 players. No TV contract. Overhead includes expensive lease agreement with arena. Buyer will be perceived as fool or idiot within community and will have difficult time selling product. Send inquiries regarding Las Vegas Silver Bandits to International Basketball League office, Baltimore, Md.

Think there will be any takers?

To date the answer is no, and it may always be no. Despite the best efforts of a man once enthusiastic about the IBL and Las Vegas' position in it, Doug Sanderson wasn't able to locate local ownership for the franchise and has since retreated into a consultant's role.

Predictably, the point man was held scoreless.

Now it's up to the league to finance the Silver Bandits and continue supporting a franchise that no one here wants or has any curiosity toward.

Monday the IBL missed a golden chance to fold the franchise, but, instead, went ahead and included Las Vegas in a stocking draft that concludes today. The eight-team league, which is scheduled to open its initial season in November, is now knee deep in Las Vegas and, eventually, will almost certainly be pulled under.

Few will care then, just as few seem to care now.

The Silver Bandits have an office, a phone, a coach, a few peripheral staff members. On the roster that will be completed today are numerous players you have never heard of, as well as a handful of ex-UNLV guys.

In all probability none of these players will have NBA potential, as anyone close to cracking the big time will be auditioning in the Continental Basketball Association rather than in some new venture that seems to be a prime candidate for an early obituary.

Really now, are you willing to pay to see Moses Scurry play?

Of course not. And while Rancho grad Michael Johnson gives the team additional local flavor and a young player of some ability, is that enough to entice you to the Thomas & Mack Center for a Silver Bandits game or to spring for season tickets?

The IBL in Las Vegas is as close to a hopeless endeavor as can be conceived. It's irrational to believe the team will succeed.

A CBA team here might work. Or maybe even a team in the Women's National Basketball Association would be worth a gamble if your pockets were deep enough.

But the only entity that stands to gain from an IBL franchise in Las Vegas is the T&M, which will demand its money up front and will collect on a season's worth of rent even if the team collapses at the starting gate.

If they were thinking clearly in Baltimore -- and obviously they're not -- they would have pulled the plug on the Las Vegas franchise before including the team in the ridiculous 24-round draft the IBL is using to identify prospective players.

As it is, it could be argued the Las Vegas franchise is even less valuable now than it was a day earlier when it had only six -- instead of 30 -- players on its roster.

This city has a lot of rich people and a lot of sports fans. But it does not have a rich person who wants to own this team and it isn't going to shed many tears when the Silver Bandits meet their inevitable fate.