When NBAcommissioner David Stern envisioned the D-League, he says he thought the surest path to success was having the league own all the teams and concentrate on smaller markets.

Now he says that plan may have been half right.

Watching the success teams like the Dakota Wizards and Sioux Falls Skyforce have had in their first season in the D-League has helped persuade Stern that local ownership in small markets may be the ideal for the NBA's minor league franchises.

"It isn't about (large) market size," Stern said. "It's about how the community feels about you, how the sponsors support you, how the fans come out."

Stern granted the Tribune a phone interview on Wednesday to help promote Sunday's D-League championship game. He said he has "gotten a huge kick" following the Wizards, who will play host to the Colorado 14ers at 6 p.m. at the Bismarck Civic Center.

He noted that his schedule won't allow for him to come to Bismarck for the game, but said he would be watching it on NBA TV.

Bismarck is the D-League's smallest market by far, but Stern said that with the team's track record - including one championship in the IBA plus two more in four years in the CBA - the Wizards are a viable franchise in the long-term.

"By being in the community and of the community, people know you are going to be here, day in, day out,"Stern said. "You build up a certain good will. … People know you're part of greater community, and that helps you in good times and bad."

Stern has led the NBA through an era of explosive growth since being named commissioner in 1984. He took a league that was only a few years removed from having its championship series shown on tape delay and turned it into a global phenomenon.

Stern is hoping to use some of the marketing acumen that helped spur the NBA's transformation to spread the word about the D-League.

"I think the biggest issue we have is that we haven't done as good a job as we're capable of doing of letting people know how high the quality of basketball is," he said.

Stern pointed out that many former D-Leaguers were now in the NBA, singling out Rafer Alston and Chuck Hayes of the Houston Rockets, Smush Parker of the Los Angeles Lakers and Mikki Moore of the New Jersey Nets as success stories.

The D-League is hardly a finished product. The circuit was started in 2001. This was just the second season since formal affiliations were established between its teams and NBA franchises.

Stern said he is pleased with the progress thus far.

"We couldn't be happier," he said. "We believe that the D-League - the D stands for development - is exactly what we needed on so many different fronts: On officials, on basketball, on training, on coaching and on front-office operations."

The league's stated goal is to have 30 teams, one affiliate for each big-league club. Stern said there is no timetable to reach that goal and no point in rushing it.

This season the D-League had 12 teams - not all of which are guaranteed to return - and already have four expansion clubs lined up for the 2007-08 season.

Originally centered in the Southeast, the D-League's franchises now are almost all located west of the Mississippi River. Stern said that the team would love to return to the Southeast and get a foothold on the East Coast, but all in good time.

Although Stern loves the idea of local ownership, he knows that's not the only model that can work or will be tried. He said he foresees more teams following in the footsteps of the Lakers, who own the D-League's Los Angeles D-Fenders.

Owning your own minor-league team offers its own challenges, but gives teams more control and additional marketing opportunities.

"If I were a team, I'd just as soon let someone else run it as long as you were simpatico with the basketball being played," Stern said. "… But the Cavaliers might look at Youngstown, Ohio, or another team might look at the inner city of their very own city."

One thing Stern would like to see is strengthening ties between NBA teams and their affiliates. Ideas he bandied about included having legendary former players make appearances at D-League games or doing contests for tickets to the parent team's contests.

"It's been very smooth, but we could doing a better job enhancing relationships … at no huge cost to (NBA teams),"Stern said.

Stern said he would love to see the NBA use the D-League like baseball and hockey use their minor leagues, sending even top prospects down for seasoning. He added that those decisions are up to the individual clubs, and they will determine how it evolves, but the odds of that only increase the more players the system produces.

Stern also said he could see using the D-League as a testing ground for new concepts.

For instance, the new microfiber ball rejected by the NBA's players was used in the D-League this season. The D-League has a more liberal basket interference rule than the NBA. "Media applications" like new camera angles or high-definition broadcasts - have been tried in the D-League before being introduced to the NBA.

And it's because the D-League can be used to help the game in so many different ways is why Stern considers it such a worthwhile endeavor.

"We have to let the world know how important a part the D-League is in improving the game at the NBA level," Stern said.