Santa Cruz Warriors

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The Santa Cruz Warriors is a professional American basketball team in the NBA G League, based in Santa Cruz, California. The one-to-one NBA affiliate team is the Golden State Warriors, and they play their home game at the Kaiser Permanente Arena. Before moving to Santa Cruz for the 2012-13 season, the team is known as the Dakota Wizards. In 2014-15, the Warriors won their first D-League championship since 2007.

Video Santa Cruz Warriors

Histori

Dakota Wizards

The Warriors started playing in 1995 at the International Basketball Association (IBA), and in 2001, with Dave Joerger at the helm, they won the IBA championship in the final year of the league operation.

After the 2000-01 season, the IBA joined several teams from the Continental Basketball Association (CBA), and in their first year at the new CBA, Joerger and the Wizards won the league title, beating Rockford Lightning. After reaching the semi-finals of the 2002-03 season, the Wizards again won the league title in 2004 over Idaho Stampede, giving Joerger his third title as head coach of the Wizards.

Joerger left the Wizards after the 2003-04 season, and after his departure, the Wizards made it to the semi-finals in 2004-05 and then missed the playoffs the following season.

Before the 2006-07 season, the Wizards joined the NBA Development League, and Joerger returned to Dakota as head coach. He won his fourth title with the Wizards in their first year in the D-League. In the Championship Game, forward Darius Rice came out of the Wizards bench to collect a record night that brought the Wizards to a 129-121 win over the Colorado 14ers. Rice scored 52 points and made 11 three-point shots, including one with 4.5 seconds left in the rules to send the game into a time extension that tied on 109 points. Rice and three points total of goals on the field set a D-League championship game record.

Between 2007-08 and 2009-10, the Wizards make a playoff every season but can not return to the Finals. This was followed by the 2010-11 season which saw the Wizards skip the postseason action for the first time since 2006.

On June 28, 2011, the Golden State Warriors, led by Co-Executive Chairman Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, purchased the Wizards franchise from Bismarck Professional Basketball LLC. The Warriors became the fourth NBA team to own and operate their own NBA D-League affiliates, joining San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Los Angeles Lakers.

The Wizards remain in Bismarck during the 2011-12 season, but the Warriors openly relocate the team to Northern California in 2012. To reflect the new ownership, the Wizards debuted with a new color scheme, blue and gold Warriors, used as an alternative to purple and green, which has been around since their IBA day. Old color schemes are still used with team uniforms, while blue and gold are used with home uniforms and logos. The Wizards were led by Edwin Ubiles in 2011-12, as he helped the team return to the playoffs with a 29-21 record. However, they were unable to move past the first half following a 2-0 defeat at the hands of Bakersfield Jam.

Santa Cruz Warriors

After an intense off-season discussion of a move, on October 10, 2012, the Golden State Warriors announced that the Dakota Wizards will move to Santa Cruz starting from the 2012-13 season. The team was later renamed the Santa Cruz Warriors.

In the 2012 NBA Development League Draft, the Warriors voted Travis Leslie with their first choice (overall 13), as Leslie became a star for the team during the 2012-13 season. On December 23, 2012, the Warriors played their first home game at Kaiser Permanente Arena after starting their campaign with seven straight game matches. With Leslie leading alongside teammate Jeremy Tyler and Maurice Baker, the Warriors made it through to the D-League Final in their first season. However, they were beaten 2-0 by the Rio Grande Valley Vipers in the best-of-three series. Highlights of the team include the assignment of Golden State, Kent Bazemore and Scott Machado, former NBA player Hilton Armstrong, the recipient of Most Improved Player, Cameron Jones, and Stefhon Hannah, who won Defensive Player of the Year for the second year in a row.

Santa Cruz embraced the team during their first season in the city, as the Warriors placed first in the NBA Development League for overall revenue. The team sold tickets worth $ 1.2 million. Average ticket income per game, at $ 52,651, is the highest in the 16-team league. But while the ticket price of the Warriors is the highest in the league - from $ 15 for the bench to $ 140 for the court seat - popularity is also the key to financial success. The team has the highest average number of individual tickets sold per game in 709, about 130 more tickets than its nearest competitor, Maine Red Claws.

In 2013-14, the Warriors return to second place in the Western Conference - behind the Los Angeles D-Fenders - and although it is only the sixth best record in the D-League standings, the Warriors reach the Final again. However, they once again lost in the three finest Finals series, this time losing 2-0 to Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Highlights of the team include the Santa Cruz Warriors' D-League Splash Brothers, with Seth Curry and Mychel Thompson mimicking their siblings playing for Golden State, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

In 2014-15, the Warriors finished with a 35-15 record, good for the best record in the Western Conference. They once again manage to qualify for the Final where they seek revenge against Fort Wayne Mad Ants. In a clinical look of more than two games, the Warriors swept through Mad Ants to claim their first D-League championship since 2007, with MVP Finals Elliot Williams leading the way with 23 points in Game 2.