What Is The Nba Development League?
The NBA Development League, or NBA D-League, is the official minor league basketball organization of the National Basketball Association
. Known up until the summer of 2005 as the National Basketball Development League (NBDL), the NBA D-League started with eight teams during the fall of 2001.
In March of 2005, NBA commissioner David Stern announced a new plan to expand the D-League to fifteen teams and develop it into a true minor league farm system, with each NBADL team affiliated with one or more NBA teams. For the 2010-11 season, it consists of 16 teams.
At the conclusion of the 2008-09 season, 20 percent of NBA players had spent time in the NBA D-League. As more and more players go through this new system, the NBADL has more and more of an impact on the professional teams.
The league began play as the NBDL in the 2001-2002 season. The original eight franchises were all located in the southeastern region of the United States.
Some of these teams were purchased by private owners and relocated in the summer of 2005 the same year the league's name was changed, in a bid to appeal to more fans nationwide. As a result, franchises were established in or moved to Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Florida and Oklahoma.
In February 2006, the NBADL expanded to California for the first time with the addition of the Bakersfield Jam franchise. Two months later, the league announced that four teams from the Continental Basketball Association were joining the league: the Dakota Wizards, Sioux Falls Skyforce, Idaho Stampede, and one originally scheduled for CBA expansion, the Colorado 14ers.
A few days after that, the league announced that Anaheim, California, would also be getting a franchise. One week after that, they announced that the Los Angeles Lakers had purchased a team, making them the first NBA team to own an NBADL team.
The westward expansion contributed to the contraction of the NBA-owned Roanoke Dazzle and Fayetteville Patriots. Today, no NBADL teams remain in the original Southeastern region.
The D-League has started to make great strides in professional basketball history. On November 5, 2009, Frisco made history by hiring Nancy Lieberman as head coach, the first female head coach to lead an NBA or NBADL team.
The rules and organization are a little bit different than the National Basketball Association's. For example, players for D-League teams do not sign contracts with the individual teams, but with the league itself.
As usual, team rosters consist of a total of 12 players, with 10 or fewer being D-League players, and 2 or more NBA players. The rosters are put together in a number of ways: the previous years' players, players taken in the draft, allocation players (meaning players who are assigned to a team with which they have a local connection, such as a University of Texas player being assigned to the Austin Toros), NBA assignments, and local tryouts.
Each NBA team can assign two first or second year players to its affiliated NBADL team. If more than two NBA players are assigned there, they must reduce the number of NBADL players to keep the total roster size to 12.
Each franchise also has local tryouts, and one player from the tryouts is assigned to play for them. The minimum age to play in the NBADL is 18, unlike in the NBA, which requires players to be 19 years old and one year out of high school in order to sign a contract or be eligible for the draft.
NBA teams can call up players as many times as they choose, but a player can only be assigned to the NBADL three times in a season. Players who come down are often called back up soon after because they begin to play better.
But the NBADL follows a lot of the standards and traditions that exist in its mother league. They have an All-Star Game, different awards such as the Most Valuable Player, Rookie of the Year, Defensive Player of the Year, and other honors.
And as more and more players have succeeded in the NBADL, the professional teams notice and can harvest those players to make their teams better. The NBA is becoming more and more competitive, and one of the reasons for this is the existence of the Development League.
by: Tom Selwick
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