There are no club blazers or secret handshakes that unite them, but nonetheless a fraternity still exists among those men who toiled in the Continental Basketball Association during the 1980s, each awaiting his chance to make it big.
Future NBA coaches George Karl, Flip Saunders, Terry Stotts, Bill and Eric Musselman all were there then at one time or another. So, too, was a fellow named Phil Jackson, winner now of a record 11 NBA championships.
Stotts brought his Portland Trail Blazers to Target Center a week ago. Karl brings his Sacramento team to town Friday.
Each man will never forget frigid nights spent in drafty arenas from Montana to upstate New York, in a league where players and sometimes franchises came and went like the Dakota prairie winds.
"That was a special time because everybody wanted to get to the NBA, whether it was George or Flip or me or Eric or anybody during that time," Stotts said. "Those times are always more enjoyable in retrospect than when you're in Great Falls, Montana and the wind is blowing and it's 20 below zero."
They bused across the plains, wore a variety of hats from coach to general manager to traveling secretary and probably washed more than their share of players' uniforms, all in an attempt to keep the minor league show on the road.
They signed and cut players constantly and sent many — John Starks, Anthony Mason, Sidney Lowe, Sam Mitchell, just to name a few — to the NBA, some on fleeting 10-day contracts and some headed toward long careers.
"I tell you what, the CBA was a different world," Stotts said. "Being a GM in the CBA was as important as being a coach because players were coming and going all the time. The best time to make a trade was when the other guy had lost. You'd call him at midnight and he was ready to get rid of half his team."
