By Brian Spencer
The NBA D-League is a good thing that has the potential to be a very good thing for professional basektball in the United States. We want to see it thrive, expand, succeed. Unfortunately, like most people, we rarely get to see anything from these games beyond the brief late-night highlights on NBA TV. ESPN and Fox Sports barely touch it, which means that casual b-ball fans barely even know it exists.
Enter writers like Steve Weinman, the thoughtful wordsmith behind D-League Digest who’s helping introduce the D-League to a wider audience and revealing its teams, players, and coaches through comprehensive coverage and analysis on the everyday happenings in the NBA’s still-developing minor-league system. The guy knows his stuff, and in the wake of the recent D-League Showcase in Boise, we’re fortunate to have a two-part Q&A with him here on Empty the Bench.
Let’s get to it… stay tuned for Part II.
Empty the Bench: I read a report that said NBA executives left this year’s D-League Showcase in Boise saying it was the worst crop of talent they’ve seen yet. What’s your take?
Steve Weinman: I saw that line from Marc Spears as well, and truth be told, I’m not sure what to make of it. As someone who followed the D-League peripherally in previous seasons and has become much closer to it over the last 2 years or so, especially now that I’m covering the league on a regular basis, I’m not I’m the best person to compare the overall talent distribution between this year’s Showcase and previous ones.
But what I do know is this: the executives I spoke to certainly sounded positive about the way the D-League is moving. With the Rockets’ use of the hybrid model in Rio Grande Valley, GM Daryl Morey and his crew from Houston have been very involved in bringing in the players there, and Morey said the situation with RGV has been fantastic from his perspective.
Between Morey and other executives I spoke with, there was plenty of chatter about an expansion of the D-League’s role and a desire to have NBA teams hold player rights outside of their 15 roster spots. One would think some of that excitement would have been tempered if the player crop were all that uninspiring.
None of that, however, is meant to dispute Spears’ report. One of the great things about the Showcase is that it simply crawls with team staffers, and I don’t profess to have had a chance to speak with all of them. Marc is a terrific reporter, and I have no doubt he talked to plenty of sources on this. Still, I didn’t leave the conversations I had with the same vibe that he did.
As for what my own eyes tell me about this year’s group of players, I think there are several players around the D-League capable of being at least fringe NBA players right now if the roster spots become available, and a few youngsters who will be at that point before too long as well. Speaking of which…
ETB: Spud Webb, the President of Basketball Operations for the new team in San Francisco that debuts next season, recently said he thinks there are “four or five guys [in the D-League] that are pro players.” Name the four or five guys you feel have the best shot at not just getting called up to the NBA, but making an impact and sticking around.
Weinman: Anthony Tolliver would be the easy front-runner for this list, but let’s rule him ineligible since he received his second call-up of the season last week, this time to Golden State. Tolliver is a do-it-all big man who posts up, crashes the glass, and defends, but can also handle the ball a little bit and shoot from the outside. Love watching him play.
Of players currently in the D-League, Mike Harris from Rio Grande Valley (he of the recent 48-24 performance) already received one call-up this season (to Houston) and will likely be back sooner or later. He’s a bruising forward who loves to bang around inside, pounds the glass (8.9 per game this year in the D-League) and is also developing his offensive arsenal from mid-range and beyond. The big question for Harris right now is position: playing in RGV’s three-guard lineup, he’s played something of a big-man role at times this year, and he’s been successful at it, but he’s also just 6-6. Whether Harris has the quickness and whether he will develop the outside game to be a successful small forward remains to be seen, but he does too many things too well to not get another good shot to stick in the Association.
Carlos Powell of Albuquerque is a terrific offensive player who can score from inside and out, and isn’t a liability at the defensive end either. In our last edition of the Randy Livingston Memorial Call-Up Rankings, hosted at Ridiculous Upside, I was the only one of four panelists to rank the southpaw as low as second on the list.
Sitting on top of that call-up rankings list before Powell usurped the top spot was Dontell Jefferson from Utah. Widely expected to fill the Jazz’s need for a backup point guard before some late-breaking concerns about the health of his knees led to Idaho’s Sundiata Gaines getting that call (and please remember to go ahead and ask the Cleveland Cavaliers how that one turned out), Jefferson is a 6-5 point guard with the skills and size to play both backcourt spots. He’s a dynamic slasher who also scores from the outside, gets to the foul line with regularity, and distributes the ball unselfishly. His height, length, and quickness allow him to defend ones and twos, and that would allow an NBA team to use him to cross-match defensively if need be.
While four people does not a complete list make, and there are several other guys who deserve to be in this discussion – Rod Benson (Reno) has been around and offers size and defense (though I’m not enamored with him), Morris Almond (Springfield) is a super-dyanmic scorer who we’ll get to later, Mustafa Shakur is doing a terrific job in Tulsa, Dwayne Jones (Austin) has NBA size and eats up offensive boards, and I’m sure there are a few noteworthy folks I’m omitting here to boot – I’ll stray a bit from the beaten path with a personal favorite for my final selection here: Rio Grande Valley’s Antonio Anderson.
He may not be at the top of the call-up list right now, and he has slumped through January after earning performer-of-the-month honors in December, but Anderson’s versatility makes him really promising. He’s a 6-6 off-guard by trade, but he handles the ball plenty for RGV and is a terrific passer. In fact, Vipers brass believe he’ll even be able to get a spot at the next level as a second or third-string point guard.
That’s not to mention that the guy who garnered all sorts of defensive accolades during his collegiate tenure at Memphis has made a successful transition to the D-League game at that end of the floor as well. AA needs to become a more consistent outside shooter, but his mid-range game is already improving, and he’s just a smart decision-maker on the floor. I’m buying him as a permanent NBA player within the next two seasons.
Much more from D-League Digest’s Steve Weinman after the break…
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