Report: Raptors Want Rochester RazorSharks As D-League Affiliate

According to Time Warner Cable News Rochester, the Rochester RazorSharks of the Premier Basketball League are in talks with the Toronto Raptors to become the team’s NBA D-League affiliate.

The RazorSharks were champions of the PBL last season, a 10-team professional league. They’ve made the PBL finals in all seven years of the league’s existence, winning the title four times.

Toronto is one of 13 NBA teams without an exclusive D-League affiliate. All 18 D-League franchises have one parent NBA club save for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, an encouraging development for the D-League’s viability as legitimate proving ground for prospective NBA players.

It would certainly behoove the Raptors to stake a claim in the RazorSharks and add them the to the D-League as soon as possible. Players like first-round pick Bruno Caboclo, for instance, would grossly benefit from the playing time they’d receive for a Toronto-helmed D-League squad, and the RazorSharks’ close proximity – not to mention PBL dominance – makes them an ideal partner for the Raptors.

[Ed. Note: Dime’s Managing Editor grew up in Rochester and hates the idea of a Toronto-based team using Rochester as a proving ground for young talent when there’s so much friction over the impending sale of the Buffalo Bills to an ownership group who might move them to Toronto.]

(H/T Raptors Republic)

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