Search for the Starzz: Utah's squad scattered

The WNBA and Starzz have been gone from Utah summers for two years now.

The San Antonio Silver Stars, the relocated Starzz franchise, are about a week into their third season.

"Actually, I was talking about it with one of my friends," said guard Marie Ferdinand about the Starzz-Stars. Her friend was LaTonya Johnson, also a former member of the Utah team. Johnson was waived in April by the Houston Comets.

"I was telling her I'm the only member from the original Utah Starzz left," Ferdinand said about the San Antonio roster that has almost completely changed since the club left Utah. "That's like so crazy, unbelievable," Ferdinand said.

One constant with the Starzz-Stars franchise is that San Antonio is on its fourth set of coaches since the team left Utah with former Cleveland coach Dan Hughes taking over this season and trading 7-foot-2 Margo Dydek to Connecticut and waiving Andrea Garner and Jessie Hicks, who had both played for Utah.

Hughes also picked up former Utah center Wendy Palmer-Daniel as a free agent in early April and former Utah guard Dalma Ivanyi in late March but put her on the injured list to start the season last week.

Ferdinand probably doesn't realize it, but her new teammate Palmer-Daniel was a member of the first-ever Starzz team in 1997 before it picked up native Salt Laker Natalie Williams and traded Palmer to Detroit.

Palmer-Daniel — married in the last off-season — and forward Elena Baranova of the New York Liberty are the only two original members of the inaugural 1997 Starzz team still playing in the WNBA.

Baranova (New York), Palmer-Daniel (San Antonio), Ferdinand (San Antonio), Ivanyi (San Antonio), Williams (Indiana), Dydek (Connecticut), Adrienne Goodson (Houston), Kristen Rasmussen (Houston) and Olympian Scott-Richardson (Sacramento injured list) are the only former Starzz still in the WNBA.

Baranova, Palmer-Daniel, Ferdinand, Williams, Dydek and Rasmussen are starters for their teams, and Goodson, now 38, is the Comets' sixth player.

"Yeah, I miss Utah," said Ferdinand, who played two seasons in Salt Lake City but uses the Karl Malone reference. "Utah is a pretty cool (state)," she said. "I enjoyed the summertime being there, and also being able to catch some of the Rocky Mountain Revue games. The fans were very supportive and very friendly, and the organization was a classy organization, so of course I miss it there."

Ferdinand says she sees a lot of growth in herself since the franchise moved to San Antonio, transferred by Jazz owner Larry H. Miller, who didn't want to deal with the expense of the WNBA's change from the league owning player contracts to the more conventional situation in which teams own and negotiate player contracts and looming free agency.