But I do think that some of these teams should be in the cities like the Sioux Falls’s of the world, which are basically completely cut out of the pro sports world without a D League team. We also could put a team in other North American markets that to date haven’t been seriously considered like San Juan, Montreal, Calgary, and Tijuana. I won’t put in Juarez due to security concerns.

Hershey Trust (yes, part of the chocolate man) owns the Bears, not Ted’s partners.

But Dakota was in the East, so…sort of. There were several more teams on the east coast and in the south when the league first started, but most of them either folded or moved. I’m sure the league would like to put more teams on the east coast, and there certainly seems to be growing interest among Eastern Conference NBA teams.

As for which NBA teams might be interested in a one-to-one affiliation in the future, Scott Schroeder is the man to ask. Boston is really close with its affiliate in Maine, as the Red Claws prez/GM is a former Celtics executive and their most recent head coach is Danny Ainge’s kid who just got promoted to Celtics assistant coach. It’s easy to see them perhaps buying Maine outright, although given the current situation they’re getting most or all of the benefit without any of the cost. Another potential team (this is my opinion, not based on anything that I’ve heard because I haven’t heard anything) might be the Bulls; they’ve signed a few D-League type players the past few years (Chris Richard, John Lucas III, Derrick Byars, etc.) and are reasonably close with their affiliate in Iowa.