by T, TheAngryT
Before the NBA season began, fans in Detroit were clamoring at the arrival of Amir Johnson, a talented high SF/PF who the Pistons drafted out of high school in 2005. Johnson tore up the NBDL last year and had Pistons fans salivating at the prospect of Johnson playing 20 minutes a game this season.
Amir has yet to see those type of minutes and has yet to make a contribution at a meaningful time in a meaningful game. Antonio McDyess’ 65 year old legs has been forced to play 31 minutes a game partly because Flip Saunders doesn’t think Johnson is ready and partly because Nazr Mohammed decided to play the entire season with a pair of oven mitts on his hands.
Amir’s struggles should have been fairly easy to predict as most NBDL call ups have been damn near useless to the teams that called them up.
Take a look at past All-NBDL First Teams:
2006-2007
Center Elton Brown Colorado 14ers
Forward Louis Amundson Colorado 14ers/Philadelphia 76ers
Forward Renaldo Major Dakota Wizards
Guard Von Wafer Colorado 14ers
Guard Randy Livingston Idaho Stampede
2004-2005
Forward Isiah Victor Roanoke Dazzle
Forward Kirk Haston Florida Flame
Center Hiram Fuller Florida Flame
Guard Matt Carroll Roanoke Dazzle
Guard Cory Alexander Roanoke Dazzle
2002-2003
Guard Devin Brown Fayetteville
Guard Tierre Brown Asheville
Forward Jeff Trepanier Asheville
Forward Tang Columbus
Center Mikki Moore Roanoke
The NBA takes this league so seriously that it doesn’t post statistics from any previous seasons nor do they post any of their prior All-NBDL teams on their website. These are the only three I could find after scouring the internet for 7 minutes. In any event, you can look at this All-Call Up Team, or this list on the NBDL website and it becomes painfully obvious that very few good players ever come out of this league. In fact, it begs the question as to why this league is even around. There aren’t even close to being enough teams for each NBA team to have one NBDL team. Most of the players in the NBDL would rather be playing in Europe and making more than the 5.75 an hour they currently in exotic ports of call like and Roanoke. The only good thing that Isaiah Thomas ever did was try to run a terrible minor league basketball league into the ground. They should appoint Zeke commissioner and watch this terrible league go down in flames. We will have to take our chances that we are denying the world Denim Brown and Louis Amundson.
Thursday, January 3, 2008
IT IS OFFICIALLY TIME TO IMPLODE THE NBDL
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4 comment(s):
I still think we need to give the D-League time to develop. If by some miracle they can get attendance to a reasonable place, the Suns and Spurs have had some success. I really like the idea of using it as a forum to rehab guys coming back from injury. Instead of rushing Elton Brand back into the lineup this year, wouldn't it behoove the Clip to send him in against some scrubs and get him back to full strength?
I'm not saying it's working, at all, but I think it has a lot of potential, especially with the number of quality players in the league that need time to develop skills.
How is Amir Johnson struggling when he doesn't play?
And who would you play him over....Dice is having a great season...10 and 8 and is shooting 54% from the field....
I cant name any 5th option on any team that can give you that
How is he not struggling? I am pretty sure Flip would rather not play Dice 31 minutes a game. I think the fact that he is not playing Amir when it really doesn't matter speaks to where Amir is as a player at this point.
Don't get me wrong though, I think that dice is a very solid player even at this point in his career, by no means do I believe that Amir will be terrible just because he isn't playing this second.
http://aol.nba.com/dleague/tracker/index.html
Now, I don't know how much TIME these listed guys actually saw in the D-league, but that is an awfully long list of guys.
Your problem with the D League is that it doesn't appear to be working in a "Triple A" type feeder manner. You would like to see every guy below #20 in the draft start out in the D League and play 20-30 games and then get "called up." Doesn't happen. Instead your D League all-star team includes 36 year old Randy Livingston and someone akin to Rick Rickert.
The D league faces two huge obstacles: 1) guaranteed contracts -- you aren't going to send a guy with a $4MM deal down to Roanoke so you can bring up a guy who may or may not play. Owner just isn't going to stomach that; 2) 15 man roster -- you can stash your young guy in street clothes and keep him around where you can keep an eye on him -- why send him away to the D league where he might get hurt or get in trouble with the law?
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