Sorry I've been gone for awhile.  It's because I've been busy with my real job as Director of Public/Media Relations/Office Manager/et cetera of the Dakota Wizards.

Fortunately, today, I finally came back.... to blogging.

See, one of my duties is to drum up some interest in the Wizards and since Jon L hasn't taken away my writing privileges here yet, I'm going to do my best to do just that by talking a bit about the Wizards upcoming local tryouts to be held in Washington, D.C., on October 10th and 11th.

By now you're probably asking yourself "Why should I care?  All of the teams are having open tryouts.. This isn't a big deal Ridiculous Scott!"

Oh, but it is.  Local tryouts have a long history of being important.  So important, in fact, that the Idaho Stampede's tryouts last season were covered by Hoops Addict and All Balls Don't Bounce.  Hmmm... I wonder if I can get Mike Prada from Bullets Forever or Dan Steinberg from the Washington Post to try out (I'm hoping Mr. Steinberg will be able to help me recruit people after nearly getting me fired from my Summer League gig when he pointed out my National Anthem FAIL.)

As Jon pointed out in a two part series last week (part one here, part two here), local/open tryouts are the best way to get noticed and play in the league that over 20% of the players on NBA rosters have also played in -- provided said player didn't attend an SEC school, because those guys seem to fill the D-League anyway.

In doing my research, last season there were 114 players that earned D-League contracts by way of local tryouts, and, of those, 70 players were in camp with a D-League team.  What's this all mean?  I'll tell you - over 25% of the players that made a D-League roster last season, the top NBA-feeder league, made it by attending an open tryout.

Essentially though, our new coach Rory White explained it best:

"At the Wizards open tryouts, we'll be looking for those talented players who are under the radar, but skilled enough to play at this level, and hopefully, beyond."

If you have any questions, please call me at (701) 258-BALL or e-mail me at SSchroeder@DakotaWizards.com.  If you're looking to tryout, please complete the registration forms here.