The dream league

Transcription

The dream league

The dream
league
Total Commitment,
Extreme Experiments,
and Sudden Stardom in the
NBA Development League.
The dream
league
Total Commitment,
Extreme Experiments,
and Sudden Stardom in the
NBA Development League.
2 Introduction
4 Playing for your life
Inside the NBA D-League.
8 The Brooklyn Dodgers of basketball
Your friendly neighborhood pros.
(Insert) Great Moments of the d-league
10 What the future looks like
Experiments with the game.
12 Welcome to extreme basketball
Bombs away in the Rio Grande Valley.
14 Now try this
The D-League gets everything first.
16 A crucible for coaches
How bad do you want this job? Two coaches who did.
20 Everybody on a journey
It’s a long way to the front office.
2
Introduction
If you distilled the game of basketball into
its purest, most intense form, you’d have the
NBA D-League. The reason for the intensity is
simple. Guys here can play at the NBA level,
but there isn’t room for everybody in the NBA.
The result is a Darwinian five-month struggle
for professional survival. Every game matters.
Every minute matters. Every play matters:
The men on the court are fighting for an NBA
roster spot before their one-year contracts run
out in May. So are the coaches who sent in
the play, and the officials who made the call.
The rule that the officials called may be on
trial as well—an NBA experiment. And, like
the rules, the equipment used here is often a
generation ahead: a preview of a future NBA.
Welcome to life on the bubble: 180 pros with
2,400 minutes to show who belongs in the NBA
and who’s left still working toward that dream.
Playing for
your life
Inside the NBA D-League.
D-League players are gladiators. Every game
is an exercise in professional survival, but
all they have is each other. It’s an unselfish,
supportive, almost communal way of life.
Except for 48 minutes on the floor.
Life in the D-League is a unique mix of competition and
camaraderie. Everybody on the floor shares the same
dream, and the knowledge that only a few will attain what
all of them want. Every man plays every minute like it’s his
last chance. No one backs off, ever. The minutes that decide
their fate are the minutes between whistles. The rest of the
time D-League players help each other all they can.
No one
backs
off,
ever.
Apart from their sublime skills, D-League players could be
you and me. Only a few have NBA contracts. Most collect
about the same pay as the average American. They play at
a discount for the love of the game and the chance to make
it big. When the season ends, they stay on the court—in the
NBA Summer League, international play, and development
camps for rising young stars—their future competition.
On the road, everybody flies coach and bunks two to a
room in regular-guy hotels, the kind where the breakfast
buffet makes your per diem go farther. Top players can
make ten times the money overseas. The trade-off is access
to the most scouted basketball league in the world, and
the opportunity to master an NBA system like Phil Jackson’s
Triangle Offense in Westchester.
Playing for your life
5
6
Pros aiming for NBA roster spots play a chess game, calculating the advantages of each move. In the last few years,
more international stars like Thanasis Antetokounmpo (older
brother of rising NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo) have
been coming to the D-League, absorbing the pay cut for
the chance to play in the NBA.
NBA players come to the D-League “on assignment” for
different reasons. Jeremy Lamb spent most of a year in
Tulsa because he wasn’t quite ready for the Oklahoma City
Thunder. He didn’t love it, but he got better.
Being in the D-League is often the difference between
playing and not playing. The Thunder was deep at Lamb’s
position. The San Antonio Spurs’ Cory Joseph asked for
assignment. He wanted more game minutes, and got them
with the Austin Toros, now the Austin Spurs. Back up in San
Antonio he’s playing twice as much as he was before.
When D-League
players match up
against the guy
with the contract,
they bring it.
“D-League therapy” can be humbling for assigned NBA
players. They miss the NBA lifestyle, but it’s the competition
that comes as a shock. You’re playing with guys you’ve never
heard of who could be better than you. Or hungrier. Or both.
When D-League players match up against the guy with the
contract, they bring it.
When you’re called up to the NBA, the best
day of your life is a blur of logistics. The voice
on the phone isn’t Phil Jackson saying how
glad he is to have you. It’s your agent with
a flight number: “Drop everything. You’re
going to New York.”
The next twelve hours are about airports, paperwork, and
a physical exam. For players on the cusp between D-League
and NBA teams, life can get crazy. Troy Daniels scored
28 points for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers one afternoon
and 8 more with the Houston Rockets that night.
7
8
the brooklyn dodgers of basketball
The Brooklyn
Dodgers of
basketball
Your friendly neighborhood pros.
There are no velvet ropes in the
D-League. Fans get to know these
players up close. They’re at the food
store and the gas station, people
you say hello to on the street.
One D-League exec compares these players to the
old Brooklyn Dodgers: regular Joes who lived in the
neighborhood, walked to the ball park and made
the same money as everyone else.
FANS GET TO
KNOW THESE
PLAYERS
UP CLOSE.
Along with NBA-caliber play, fans get a lot of drama
for their ticket money. So much talent cycles through
a D-League team in a season that predictions are
worthless. A talent-rich squad can struggle in the
stretch as NBA coaches cherry-pick the best players.
hey ! We’ve
got Shabazz
muhammad
tonight !
Rosters change often, sometimes up to an hour
before game time, and fans get used to surprises.
Hey, we’ve got Shabazz Muhammad tonight!
NBA regulars like CJ McCollum (Idaho, 2013-14)
or Austin Daye (Austin, 2014) come to the D-League
to work on something, in the same way that golf
and tennis pros go to an undisclosed location to
work on their swing. NBA and D-League teams
often overlap: The 13, 14, and 15 man on an
NBA team are essentially the 1, 2, and 3 guys on
a D-League team.
Every call-up,
every second,
third, or fourth
chance, every
career rehabilitated,
resuscitated,
or rejuvinated
is another in
a long list of
D-League
Great Moments.
Here are six:
history of the nba development league
great moments of the d-league
february 4 2012
1999: The NBA Board of Governors votes
to approve formation of the NBA
Development League.
May 25, 2007: Sam Vincent is named head
coach of the Charlotte Bobcats, becoming
the first D-League coach “call-up” hired as
an NBA head coach.
November 16, 2001: The first
season of the NBA Development
League tips off as the North Charleston
Lowgators face the Greenville Groove.
January 8, 2008: When the Clippers
and Warriors signed Guillermo Diaz and
C.J. Watson, respectively, history was
made with the 99th and 100th GATORADE
Call-Ups in D-League history.
November 21, 2001: Chris Andersen,
first player taken in first D-League draft,
becomes the first player to be called
up to the NBA when he signs with
the Denver Nuggets. He is now a
12-year NBA veteran and 2013 NBA
Champion with his current team,
the Miami Heat.
January 9-10, 2005: The first
ever D-League Showcase event is
played in Columbus, Georgia. The
Showcase is a four-day event in which each team plays two
games apiece. Since 2005 there have been 15 players
called-up or recalled during or immediately
following the Showcase.
May 2, 2005: Bobby Simmons becomes
the first D-League alum to earn an NBA
individual post-season honor when he
wins the NBA’s Most Improved Player
award for the 2005-06 season.
September 19, 2005: Current era of D-League begins:
Under new affiliation/assignment system, players with
two or fewer seasons of NBA experience can be assigned
to a D-League team up to three times, while each NBA
franchise will be affiliated with a D-League team. Also
the league changes its shorthand name from NBDL to
the NBA D-League to further emphasize the “D” which
stands for “Development.”
April 21, 2006: NBA Board of Governors votes
to approve the Los Angeles Lakers as the owners
of a new NBA Development League team, later
to be known as the Los Angeles D-Fenders. The
Lakers become the first NBA team to own and
operate their own D-League team.
February 17, 2007: The inaugural
D-League All-Star Game tips off on
Center Court at the NBA All-Star Jam
Session at the Mandalay Bay Resort
and Casino in Las Vegas. The East won
114 to 100, with Pops Mensah-Bonsu
named the game’s MVP.
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
just his fifth NBA game,
hits a 3-pointer at the
buzzer to give the Jazz
a dramatic 97-96 win
over the Cleveland
Cavaliers. It is the
first 3-pointer of his
NBA career.
linsanity
November 14, 2012: The D-League announces its
first ever television agreement with CBS Sports Network,
including a slate of ten regular season games, two games
from the D-League Showcase,
as well as playoff games and
exclusive coverage of the
D-League Finals.
November 20, 2012: The
NBA and YouTube announced
a new deal that will provide
fans with more than 350
D-League games streamed
live during the 2012-13 regular
season on the D-League
YouTube channel.
October 20, 2014: Pierre Jackson
erupts for a D-League single-game
record 58 points—including 27
in the fourth quarter—as the
Idaho Stampede beat the
Texas Legends 136-122.
The 58 points breaks the
previous record which was held
by Morris Almond who scored 53
points in 2008 and Will Conroy
who scored 53 points in 2009.
November 8, 2014: The 14th season
of the D-League tips off in Austin and in
Oklahoma City.
february 4 2012
december 26 2012
an NBA head coach.
When Jeremy Shu-How Lin came out of nowhere
to become the first NBA player ever to average 20+ points
and 7 assists in his first five starts, “nowhere” wasn’t Harvard.
Linsanity was an international fan phenomenon, but the
basketball story is about the Erie BayHawks, and the Reno
Bighorns before that. Waived by the Golden State Warriors
and waived by the Houston Rockets, Lin used his time in the
D-League to build up his body and his game.
Before the slumping Knicks started him against Brooklyn Nets
All-Star Deron Williams, Lin had only played 55 minutes in his
Knicks uniform. But he was ready. Lin poured in 25 points,
grabbed 5 rebounds, and issued 7 assists in a Knicks win.
Overnight, the NBA had a billion new fans and, out of
nowhere, Lin’s #17 was the world’s best-selling jersey.
squeaking
in
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
december 26 2012
april 25 2014
an NBA head coach.
When Carldell “Squeaky” Johnson prayed to
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
the basketball gods he didn’t ask for much. All he wanted
was one game in the NBA.
Just one game to tell his grandchildren about and a line in
the NBA Almanac that he could point to. He’d had a hard
road. His dad passed when he was seventeen. The year he
turned pro his home was erased by Hurricane Katrina. He
played for three teams in Mexico and two in Belgium; but
it was the three stints in the D-League that got him the shot.
He got a look from the Spurs and finally the call from the
New Orleans Hornets (now the Pelicans). Johnson got “his”
game the day after Christmas. Two minutes, no points—
and a dream come true.
Two nights later he played for his home town team in New
Orleans, with fifty friends and family there to see him get his
first NBA basket. Squeaky Johnson stayed with the Hornets for
two months, collecting more stories for his grandchildren.
one shot
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
april 25 2014
april 26 2014
an NBA head coach.
Reaching the NBA isn’t the end of the journey. The
hard part is getting off the bench. Sometimes, one shot
changes everything.
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
Troy Daniels spent most of his first year as a pro in Hidalgo,
Texas, with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, turning in enough
20-point games to make himself an All-Star. His NBA debut
with the Houston Rockets was over in 92 seconds and he was
up and down three times during the season. Mostly down,
which turned out to be a very good thing for Troy Daniels.
The Vipers’ offense is built on 3-point shooting. Daniels had
spent most of the year making 3’s automatic and the Rockets
had him on the bench during Game 3 against the Portland
Trail Blazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. When his
moment came, Daniels grabbed a pass from Jeremy Lin
and did what he’d been doing all year. His 3 put the Rockets
up with less than 12 seconds left in overtime. Few in Houston
knew who this guy was, but Daniels’ shot ignited a solar flare
on Twitter. The entire D-League was watching one of their
own nail the win and—three months later—an NBA contract.
Their messages all said the same thing: That’s us up there.
Troy Daniels is all of us.
committed
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
april 26 2014
june 15 2014
an NBA head coach.
When Ron “Mr. Mad Ant” Howard became
the D-League’s all-time leading scorer in March, 2014, he
was in his seventh season with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, the
longest single-city run in the league’s history.
Howard was one of the original Mad Ants. Chances with the
Bucks, Pacers, and Knicks hadn’t worked out. An aggressive
ball handler, resolute defender, deadly from mid-range, he
was often better than some of the roster guards but it’s hard
to displace a guy with a three-year contract.
Like it or not, Howard is built for long relationships. He and
Reesha have been together since high school. They have
two girls and run a sports camp in Fort Wayne. The city has
given the Howards its heart and a home, and on April 26,
2014, Ron Howard gave Fort Wayne its first championship.
After 7,500 game minutes he held up the trophy—co-MVP
for the Finals and the season. And, maybe best of all, they
won at home.
role
Rehearsal
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
june 15 2014
june 26 2014
an NBA head coach.
Danny Green left the University of North Carolina in
2009 as an NCAA Champion and the Cleveland Cavaliers
drafted him in the second round. He played in only 20
games in his rookie season before being waived early in his
sophomore campaign. Later that season, the Spurs waived
him after only two games.
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
Green was a winner, but not quite ready. Yet.
The Reno Bighorns believed in him. They traded their star,
Patrick Ewing, Jr., to get him and give him what he needed
to become a pro. This boiled down to minutes and instruction. Minutes were no problem. Green scored 22 point in
his first game with Reno and kept it up. Meanwhile, three
develop-ment coaches worked with him before and after
every practice. Green asked for more: feedback, film work,
stat breakdowns.
The Bighorns were winning* and overseas teams started
calling about Danny Green, offering big money. Green kept
his focus tight, studying film in Reno. Good choice. When
the Spurs offered him a role, he knew how to play it and
logged 66 games, most of them starts. In the 2013 NBA
Finals, he airmailed a record 81 points from beyond the arc
in a “We’ll be back” loss to the Heat. A year later, the Spurs
swept Miami in four games, with five D-League alumni on
the roster: Patty Mills, Cory Joseph, Aron Baynes, Jeff Ayres.
And Danny Green, consummate pro.
* Small world: Jeremy Lin was a Reno teammate with Green for five games. But that’s
another story.
retribution
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
june 26 2014
NBA prospect blogs had been buzzing about
the D-League
At a glance
2014-15 Teams:
D-League Team
Affiliation(s)
Bakersfield Jam
Phoenix
Out of the 446 players on 2014 NBA opening day rosters,
an all-time high have D-League experience, representing
more than a quarter of the league’s talent pool. To put
that in perspective, opening rosters 10 years ago featured
just 15 players with D-League experience.
Canton Charge
Cleveland
Delaware 87ers
Philadelphia
P.J. Hairston since he came out of high school. Then it all
blew up. The D-League was his road back.
Erie BayHawks
Orlando
Hairston arrived at the University of North Carolina as a
native son and maybe the future. Half-way through, NCAA
infractions cost him his eligibility. The university didn’t want
him. He could go pro or go home.
Grand Rapids Drive
Detroit
Idaho Stampede
Utah
Iowa Energy
Memphis
For the first time ever, every team in the NBA features
at least one player with D-League experience. The
2013-14 NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs had six
D-League players on their opening day roster.
29 NBA Champions have D-League experience.
Los Angeles Defenders
LA Lakers
Maine Red Claws
Boston
Oklahoma City Blue
Oklahoma City
Call-ups have increased steadily
since the inception of the D-League.
The 2011-2012 season saw a record
60 call-ups among 43 players.
Reno Bighorns
Sacramento
Rio Grande Valley Vipers
Houston
'13-'14 49 call-ups37 players
'10-'11 27 call-ups 20 players
Santa Cruz Warriors
Golden State
On the night of June 26, 2014, P.J. Hairston was the 26th pick
of the NBA Draft, becoming the first D-League player to be
drafted in the first round. Hairston was going back to North
Carolina, this time to play for the Charlotte Hornets.
Fort Wayne Mad Ants
Atlanta, Brooklyn,
Charlotte, Chicago,
Denver, Indiana,
LA Clippers, Milwaukee,
Minnesota, New Orleans,
Portland, Toronto,
Washington
The Texas Legends saw a guy with NBA size, an NBA stroke,
and the ability to shake free of defenders to use it. The land
of second chances welcomed Hairston with open arms
and he didn’t disappoint. In his first three games as a pro
he showed steady improvement: 22 points, 40 points, then
45 points. Hairston worked hard to show he belonged in a
league sharing the court with NBA talent, and that he
wanted it more than anybody.
Austin Spurs
San Antonio
Sioux Falls Sky Force
Miami
Teas Legends
Dallas
Westchester Knicks
New York
an NBA head coach.
January 14 2010:
Sundiata Gaines, in
over the Cleveland
NBA career.
D-League Finals.
YouTube channel.
Oklahoma City.
10
what the future looks like
What the future
looks like
Innovations in the game.
Watch what happens around the rim in a
D-League game. They’re testing a new rule
for possible use in the NBA. The ‘cylinder’
is no longer sacred.
Since 2002,
every NBA
referee has
come from
the D-League.
Similar to the rules in international basketball, once the ball
hits the rim it’s live, available for big men to jam through or
swat away. The league is gathering data on how often this
happens, how it influences outcomes, and what fans think.
Judging from the decibel level, fans like it a lot.
Overtime periods here are three minutes instead of five like in
the NBA, an innovation aimed at bringing some pace back
to the end of close games. Last season D-League officials
tried out calling players for flopping—which the NBA chastely
calls “embellishment”—issuing on-the-spot technicals rather
than assessing fines days later. The jury is still out on this one.
When a new rule comes down, D-League
officials figure out how to administer it in real
time. They look at a lot of film of close calls
and then try to make them on the floor.
Sometimes a rule is too difficult for human beings to call on
the fly, so the rule has to be re-tooled. The D-League officials
use the season to fine-tune techniques for getting it right.
These go into the training package for the NBA refs. Often
D-League refs bring the new rule with them to the NBA. Since
2002, every NBA referee has come from the D-League.
Welcome to extreme basketball
Welcome to
extreme basketball
The Rio Grande Valley Vipers play
like they’re double-parked.
Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey has some
unusual ideas, and uses the team’s D-League
affiliate as a not-so-secret laboratory for what
ESPN calls “Extreme Basketball.”
The Rockets affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, take half
their shots from 3-point range and the rest from inside five
feet. Only 3% of the team’s shooting is from mid-range. They
don’t even warm up from there before games, and after
tip-off, nobody pushes the ball faster. In 2013-2014, the
Vipers averaged 109 possessions and 123 points a game,
compared to NBA average 101 possessions and 98 points
a game.
Funny thing. The Rockets now send up more 3’s than any
other NBA team. During the 2013-2014 season, Nevada
Smith, Morey’s coach at Rio Grande Valley, is test-flying new
inbounds plays, new defensive schemes, and playing faster
than any NBA team in the last twenty years. Morey’s hope is
that they will uncover innovative new tactics with the Vipers
that can be implemented at the NBA level.
Finding simpatico coaches willing to challenge conventional
wisdom isn’t easy. The Vipers’ last two head coaches got
NBA jobs. Morey looked at 35 college coaches before
pulling Smith out of Division III.
It was love at first sight. Smith is a guy who will try anything.
Nobody’s watching in D-III, he figured, so why not? In five
seasons since affiliating with the Rockets, the Rio Grande
Valley Vipers have been D-League champions or runners up
three times. And Daryl Morey is still thinking up new ideas.
the vipers
either jack
it from 3,
or they
dunk it.
13
14
now try this
Now try this
Welcome to extremebasketball
The D-League gets everything first.
CMO’s see
the future
first
in the
d-league.
D-League players don’t get many
luxuries, but there was a time
before the 2010-11 season when
they had better uniforms than their
brothers in the NBA.
The new NBA Revolution 30 uniforms, developed
in a secret adidas lab, were lighter, cooler, and
made rivers of sweat disappear—and that was
just the fabric. Virtually seamless construction
eliminated friction, so players felt better and
moved better. The miracle uniforms went up to
the NBA fast.
Under their game jerseys, many D-League players wear a small sensor that sends gigabytes of
data to courtside.
Cardio and musculoskeletal exertion, acceleration and deceleration, calorie burn, hang
time, even the player’s path on the court goes
into the telemetry stream. Like early astronauts,
everything these men do is analyzed to identify
factors that can improve performance and
safeguard health.
The NBA teams gather practice data, but the
teams don’t practice all that much as the
season wears on. The D-League now measures
game data as well. They’re learning how different practice regimes prepare players for ingame stresses; the physiological factors that
matter most when money’s on the line; and
whether it’s possible to see injuries coming
and prevent them.
When the 2014-15 season tips off, at least six
D-League teams will be using these in-game
wearable devices. By the Playoffs, many will
be generating data, testing systems from four
different tech vendors.
NBA players and management all have skin in
this D-League experiment, because no one is
sure what will come out of it. Everybody has a
stake in player health and injury prevention, but
at the leading edge of sports and performance
science there are, for now, as many questions
as answers. Stay tuned.
The National Basketball Association is a target
rich environment for marketers and a showcase
for technologies that fuse entertainment and
engagement around the game. CMO’s see the
future first in the D-League.
Much like NBA players, new ad tech has to
prove itself in the D-League. The LED panels
on the horizontal stanchion that supports the
backboard spent two years in the D-League
while techies from Van Wagner Dorna fiddled
with brightness levels and the ad guys experimented with messaging. (A Eureka moment:
The basket signs could sync with other messages in the arena or on TV.)
The D-League players had the fun job of trying
to slam the signs into oblivion. No one wanted
a message from State Farm Insurance to die in
a crash at the NBA level. The dunk testing made
the signs—and the D-League’s big men—look
good. You see a lot of the signs in NBA arenas
now—and some of the men as well.
13
A crucible
for coaches
How bad do you want this job?
Two coaches who did.
There is probably no greater coaching
challenge in sports than a single season
in the NBA Development League. This is a
crucible for coaches.
like the
players,
Coaches
pay their
dues, too.
Like coaches everywhere, D-League coaches are judged
on wins—and a universe of other factors that are largely
beyond their control. As a D-League coach, you’re entrusted
with developing NBA-assigned players as well as your own
roster players and giving them mucho minutes. You have to
devote coaching time to teaching them a system that may
or may not be your system.
The D-League is the ultimate test of coaching skills. The
better your guys play, the more likely it is they’ll get beamed
up to the NBA. Then you get a New Guy, maybe from the
NBA, maybe from overseas, college, who knows? Basically,
D-League rosters turn over twice during a season. You’ll see
25 guys during the year, all needing different things.
How do you forge a team (fast) and get it to play its best
(consistently) under these (ever changing) conditions?
Coaches that can move up because they can play any
hand: Over 40 NBA coaches proved their savvy, their
discipline, and their flexibility in the D-League.
Like their players, coaches move around to move up in the
NBA—maybe starting as an assistant in player development
or a big man coach—paying dues at every station of the
cross. Coaches say the hardest thing is being the third or
fourth guy on the bench instead of Number One. The best
move up. The others find their own level. That’s basketball.
a crucible for coaches
17
18
Quin
Snyder
Head Coach,
Utah Jazz
Quin Snyder’s journey to the Utah Jazz head
coach’s office included stops at four NBA
teams, two Division I NCAA programs, the
D-League, and Moscow.
Even in college he was the smartest guy in the room. At Duke,
he went to the NCAA Final Four three times as a player, then
picked up a law degree and an MBA. He had brains, energy
and a basketball pedigree. Enough to land an assistant job
with the Los Angeles Clippers and a reunion with Coach K at
Duke. Missouri made him a D-I head coach in 1999. He won
early. Then, not so much.
The D-League’s Austin Toros, now Austin Spurs, gave him
the platform to do what he does best. During three years
in Austin, Snyder mentored more players up to the NBA
than any other coach and still won more games than they
did. With “player development” written all over him, the
Philadelphia 76ers needed him. So did the Los Angeles
Lakers, and CSKA Moscow.
By the time he became head assistant for the Atlanta Hawks,
Snyder had seen and done everything at every level in the
game of basketball. Eight jobs and several million miles later,
he was ready to run the whole show for the Jazz.
David
Joerger
Head Coach,
Memphis Grizzlies
David Joerger has a gift for developing
young players and devising systems that
make the most of the talent he has on hand.
In seven years as a minor league coach, he
won five championships and sent eighteen
of his guys up to the NBA. Then it was his turn.
Five fast rings in any league gets peoples’ attention. After
Joerger’s Dakota Wizards won the D-League championship
in 2007, he was invited to come up to the Memphis Grizzlies
and do something about a defense ranked 26th in the NBA.
By the time he replaced Lionel Hollins as head coach,
Memphis had the stingiest defense in the league. In his first
full year as top guy, the Grizzlies went 50-32, finishing the
season with fourteen consecutive home wins, then losing to
Oklahoma City in the First Round of the NBA Playoffs. No one
ever said it would be easy. But this is what all the work was for.
19
Everyone on
a journey
It’s a long way to the front office.
For casual fans, the NBA D-League seems a
long way from the spotlight. But for coaches,
trainers, and front office executives looking
to move up, “Development” means life
under a microscope.
The Knicks’ Allan Houston learned to lead a team on the
floor. Now he wears a suit and is doing it from the front
office. Houston works two shifts. He’s the Assistant GM for the
New York Knicks that play in The Garden, and the head man
for the Westchester Knicks in White Plains. Houston has final
say on basketball operations from tryouts to trades. At The
Garden he’s part of the conversation. In White Plains he’s the
boss, but everyone will be looking over his shoulder.
New Orleans GM Dell Demps, another retired player, has
arrived where Houston hopes to go. He was Director of Pro
Player Personnel for the San Antonio Spurs before also taking
over the Austin Toros, serving as GM. After five years of investment in the Spurs organization, he got his opportunity in
New Orleans. Over 100 of NBA teams’ front office executives
worked their way up from the NBA Development League.
- 20 -
The league itself is on a journey.
Seventeen of the NBA D-League’s
eighteen teams now have oneto-one affiliation with an NBA
organization. The dream is that
one day all 30 NBA teams will
have their own minor league
franchise—a parallel universe
of professional basketball in its
most intense form.
Even the NBA has a dream.

The dream league

Transcription

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