I agree that this is a good idea. The only downside I can think of is that it would make it even easier for the horrible teams to tank. Imagine Minnesota bringing in the worst player on their D-league team and playing him 30 minutes a night. Actually, I guess that's not too different from them giving minutes to Mark Madsen.
Yeah, when I saw the title, I thought it referred to more teams. But the idea of using an expanded roster the last 10-15 games of the season doesnt sound so bad.
Another great find! Totally agreed. I think this system is bound to improve the level of players, particularly at the 7th roster spot down.
i like the idea. i think it is obviously going to help the lottery bound teams the most, because contending teams would likely stick to their top 8 or so in the rotation to finish the season. but it gives all the teams more opportunity to evaluate some more players against NBA competition, which is good for the game. then i suppose you get some teams reluctant to showcase their top prospects for fear of losing them if they're free agents. i'm not real sure what the contract status is for the D-leaguers. Are their rights owned by the parent team?
Honestly, I don't see this as being much of a help. I suppose it's worth a try. The Rockets brought up James White with the 15-man roster, which should be enough.
Excellent find, Hayesfan. I think it would be a great idea. That's long been a gripe of mine about the D-League. How much of a minor league is tit ruly if teams rarely have roster spots to call someone up? We pulled up James White this year, but only because we had room after we cut Luther Head. That's a good idea that the NBA could easily implement next season.
I don't see much point either. Teams carry a couple of scrubs for these purposes anyway. Most don't amount to much. If a team saw value in this, they'd rotate out the last roster spot or two.
Nice idea to have in place for just in case. 18's too much, 17's about right, even 16 makes sense for just 1 extra guy. Though I dont think teams would even do the call-ups that much. Its tough enough getting the 13th man in let alone the 18th. It would make it where the NBA team wants its own minor leaguers under control to play on the farm club. So wouldnt that mean the D-League draft would be an extension of a team's regular NBA Draft? Right now its only players on the NBA 15 man roster that can get sent to the D-League and called back up. Why would the Rockets want to call up a random 28 year old dude Rio Grande picked up the other day? Just cuz thats the Rockets affiliate team, they can only choose what Rio Grande brought in? Lot of teams already have a minor league - Overseas basketball
The 14th and 15th players on most teams aren't sniffing the floor in our current system. What makes you think the 20th player can get any play time? What needs to be done, imo, is to get rid of guaranteed contracts. That would get rid of a lot of dead weights and leave room for promising young players.
You're missing the point. They aren't saying that those players need be added at the beginning of the season. They are saying bring them in at the end of the season for teams like say... Minnesota who have lost half their talent to injury or the Clippers who have no chance of winning anything who want to shut down their big money guys. The idea is to integrate more of a farm system than what is in place now. IF you look at the way that baseball does it and they bring up kids from the farm teams in September. One such player on the Reds opening day roster came up and had a stellar end of the season last year and as a consequence was included in spring training and made the roster. The way the NBA system works you have no real flexibility with the D league teams... or your roster post the trade deadline. It wouldn't be as useful for the playoff teams as it would the lottery teams, but it would get more bodies for practices and introduce kids to the system and give them practice against the guys they would have to fight for a roster spot. The benefits are all easy to identify imho and there are few cons to the idea.
While this is a great idea for the talent-level and having good players, it will probably not be a great idea economically for the teams. First, increasing the number of players increases the team salary, and then increases all the other aspects of having that player travel, practice, use team resources, etc. Suppose it take 25 such players to find 1 true NBA-quality player, those other 24 players can take on a strain. Especially given how supposedly most teams are losing a lot of money right now, this would not be an option that most teams would use right now. Secondly, how many times do we see players who go on crazy streaks for a month or so in the regular season or playoffs, and then when they get to the off-season, some team overpays them because they see some potential or something in them. Yes, there is talk that a new CBA will decrease all contract's maxs, lengths, and raises, but this still happens a great deal. Frankly, this already happens a great deal with the players many teams have on their 15 man team. Take for example Von Wafer. We all put him up as potentially being a very good player and want to keep him after this good year. Well what happens if he then, never matches this year, like Maloney, Moochie, Cato, etc, and that is just a few mentions from the Rockets. It sounds like a great idea, but I think that this upcoming time in the NBA, with the entire league bracing to have to cut back on lots of things is the wrong time. Also, there would have be some different rules set into it, sort of like having the rookie pay-scales but for these players as they are brought up and evaluated.
I think this could have interesting unintended consequences, especially if all 17 or 18 guys can be active. Imagine some team running a 48 minutes of hell offense against a team that totally outclasses them normally.
I think it would be a good idea. Plus with morey on our side, I think we could find alot of different players who become some decent role players. Morey is the king at finding diamonds in the rough.
Won't work! Basketball only has 5 starters, but has a 12 man roster. The 11th & 12th man rarely get any PT as it is. Baseball has 9 starters with a 25 man roster. They have 5 or 6 players to back up the 8 non-pitching starters while playing twice as many games.