End of D-League team Dakota Wizards

The Dakota Wizards, officially are no more. After months of delay, the D-League finally announced that after a 17-year run in Bismarck, the Wizards are relocating to Santa Cruz, Calif. The team will be renamed the Santa Cruz Warriors.

The Dakota Wizards were a successful team in the D-League and started off with a championship in their first year.
The Golden State Warriors, who bought the Wizards in the summer of 2011, announced their intention to move the team in April, just before the end of the regular season. The deal between the Wizards and the city of Santa Cruz required several votes before it was given the green light in early September. Construction on the teams new arena began in the middle of last month.

The Wizards began operations in 1995 as members of the now-defunct International Basketball Association. After winning the IBA title in 2001, the Wizards jumped ship to the Continental Basketball Association, historically the primary minor league for the NBA. The Wizards continued their success in the CBA, winning championships in 2002 and 2004. With the NBA using its resources to back the D-League, the Wizards again shifted leagues, leaving the CBA for the 2006-07 season. The Wizards won their fourth championship that year and had been members of the D-League ever since.
The Warriors have sparked interest in Santa Cruz. The team has already sold nearly 700 season tickets for the 2012-13 campaign, even though they weren’t officially located in California until Wednesday.
The Wizards relocation is part of a trend in the D-League toward one-to-one relationships between an NBA team and a nearby minor-league affiliate.