www.boston.com/sports/basketball/articles/2009/01/11/developing_nicely?mode=PFDeveloping nicely
NBA's 'minor league' has made major strides
By Julian Benbow, Globe Staff | January 11, 2009
From his office in Utah, Brad Jones was too far away to hear the stories that Doc Rivers casually spins to reporters after practice about Danny Ainge.
The Celtics coach talked about how he'd walk by Ainge's office and see him watching video of basketball games with the sound off. Usually, they were college games.
"Do you know how hard it is to watch a college game with the sound off?" Rivers would joke with the reporters.
But there was always a game on.
Jones would witness Ainge's viewing habits firsthand after he was assigned the responsibility of developing one of the team's draft picks in his role as coach of the Utah Flash in the NBA Development League.
In the preseason, Jones would travel to Boston with the rest of his coaching staff to meet with Ainge, and the Celtics' president of basketball operations was nothing if not direct.
"He's very open with what he wants," Jones said. "It's not like, 'Maybe this, maybe that.' He comes out and says exactly what he wants."
They stayed in constant contact, emailing with Ainge's assistant Frank Burke and sending footage of each game to Ainge by FedEx the next morning.
"I didn't realize how much they were watching," Jones said. "But I guess Danny sits there and watches almost every game."
For a number of teams, the Celtics especially, the D-League is becoming a preferred tool in the development process.
"The draft has just gotten younger," said Ainge. "You're not just drafting players to help you win games right now. Even though we all would like it if everyone played four years of college basketball, it's not like that anymore. But that doesn't mean you pass on some very talented kids."
Two draft picks - J.R. Giddens (taken by the Celtics in the first round in 2008) and Bill Walker (taken by Washington in the second round in '08 and dealt to Boston) - never would have been able to crack the Celtics rotation. It was hard enough getting practice time. In the last few days of training camp, the frustration on Giddens's face was evident.
"The excitement of being drafted and the excitement of the NBA is terrific," Jones said. "But when you get to where you have to sit in street clothes behind the bench and all you get to do is shoot with an assistant coach and there's not much practice time . . .
"Both these guys are really, really excited to be here, just because they get to play. That's the most they've played in two months."
And their hard work in Utah has paid off, as both players were recalled by the Celtics Thursday. Giddens was averaging 17.3 points and a team-high 37.6 minutes a game with the Flash. Walker was averaging 18.7 points in 30.3 minutes.
Colorado 14ers coach Bob MacKinnon was impressed with both Celtics players.
"They're both very talented," he said. "I was a coach at Marshall when Bill was a kid in West Virginia. I've seen him play since he was a little kid. They have great upside. The D-League helped them improve a lot. But guys have a future as contributors in this league. Bill Walker has improved, but he needs to shoot better and put the ball on the floor better. Giddens still needs to improve on the defensive end. But they both have a legitimate shot to be regular contributors on a good NBA team."
Unique system in place
In the eight years since it was created, the Development League has made itself the NBA's top minor league, forcing all others into insignificance by essentially becoming the only funnel for players to be called up to the NBA. It took its biggest steps the past four years, expanding from eight to 16 teams, developing an assignment system, and most recently creating an assistant coach development program that allows teams to send coaches down with players.
It's not at all like the minor league systems in baseball or hockey, but "ultimately, we want to be the perfect minor league for the game of basketball," said D-League president Dan Reed.
In the D-League's debut season in 2001, Dell Demps coached the Mobile Revelers. Now he's the director of pro player personnel for the San Antonio Spurs and general manager of their minor league team, the Austin Toros.
When the Spurs spent the reported $1 million to purchase their D-League team (San Antonio, the Lakers, and Oklahoma City are the three NBA teams that own their D-League franchises), there was a strategy involved. Since they took Tim Duncan with the first pick in 1997, the Spurs have drafted no higher than 24th each season. They often picked foreign players that weren't going to contribute immediately, and they viewed the D-League as a way to keep tabs on their draftees rather than letting them sit idle on the bench or be misused overseas.
"We wanted to find a way we could develop our talent," Demps said. "Where we can find an alternative method to developing players.
Demps said teams are up front with players throughout the draft process, informing them that the D-League is an option.
"I think when guys are getting drafted now, teams are telling their agents if he comes here that there's a chance we might send him to the D-League," said Demps.
The perfect basketball scenario, Ainge said, might be to have all 30 NBA teams own their D-League teams, but it wouldn't be good business.
"I'm not sure if that's what I'd want if I were an owner of a team," Ainge said. "It's got to be a profitable business. You've got to be able to make it work."
Good feed leads to score
In 2007, Ramon Sessions chose to skip his senior season at Nevada to enter the NBA Draft. The early word was that he had the court vision to create plays but didn't have much scoring ability. His defensive fundamentals made up for his lack of quickness. He was talented, experts conceded, but they said he should return for a senior season.
He stayed in the draft and Milwaukee selected him in the second round (56th pick).
"The challenge was to try and find someone and find a niche that he can make it," said general manager Larry Harris.
Just two weeks into the season, the Bucks sent Sessions to the D-League.
"It was right before practice one day," Sessions said. "I kind of had a feeling I would go down sooner or later because I wasn't really playing. We were loaded with point guards."
In the short time he did spend on those NBA benches, the differences between the leagues were obvious to him.
"Going down there after being in the NBA, it's a big difference," he said. "You don't have the charter flights and the five-star hotels. It made me grow as a basketball player and as a person just going down there and working hard and trying to get back to the NBA level."
He was on the Bucks' books for $427,163, but he was playing with guys who weren't making a tenth of that.
Players signed to the D-League are paid at three steps: $12,000, $19,000, and $25,000. "And that's before taxes," Sessions said.
The per diem is $20. They have roommates on the road. Brutal road trips have them playing back-to-back nights, taking flights with three connections to get to the next site in time.
"I respect the guys in the D-League," said Sessions. "You're not making much at all. A lot of guys can [make more] overseas, but everybody's chasing their dreams, so my hat's off to those guys."
Sessions collected awards in Tulsa, winning Player of the Week honors twice, and making it hard for the Bucks not to call him back up. He returned to the NBA that March, and a month later he set a franchise record with 24 assists against the Bulls. He's averaging 11.0 points and 4.7 assists this season, but his NBA confirmation came over the summer.
The D-League would sell its success stories, and word got to Sessions that his face was on the Power Point presentations.
"They were showing it whenever they were having the D-League meetings," he said.
Interesting options
In his second season as league president, Reed is always ready to make a case.
The numbers sort of tumble out.
Eight NBA teams have former D-League coaches on their bench. Sixty percent of the players in the D-League were all-conference or better in college. Fifteen percent of the players in the NBA have D-League experience.
When players and owners meet again to discuss a new CBA, Jones said, the league will have even more credibility.
"The NBA has a comfort level, and more importantly the Players Association has a comfort level so that when we have this collective bargaining agreement come up, it can bolster the D-League and put it in a bigger role," he said.
One possibility would be rehab assignments for veterans, something that isn't possible now because the CBA only allows first- and second-year players in the D-League. But imagine Deron Williams working his way back from his preseason ankle injury by playing a week with the Flash.
"You talk about the revenue-producing things, then the merchandising, and then, if nothing else, just the ability for those young players to be around that guy for a day," Jones said.
The downside, from the union side, would be the possibility of players being demoted. For instance, if the Knicks wanted to make Stephon Marbury's life miserable, they could send him to the Reno Bighorns.
It's one of a number of possibilities.
"The league really could be something special in the years to come," Jones said.
