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He signed a standard D-League contract of $25, 000, spurning better offers to play in Europe to stay Stateside, with obvious hopes of getting picked up by an NBA team in short order. Since he was in camp with the Pistons they can designate him as an affiliate player and assign him to their D-League team, which they did. So Thabeet, Bostic, Zo Brown will be Detroits affiliate players, with Tony Mitchell likely spending a lot of time with the Drive as well.

Thabeet can get signed away by any NBA team at any time, but as of this writing only three teams have roster spots open, carrying 14 players, all the rest of the league teams are carrying 15. So Hasheem could be in GR for awhile. Also 10-day contracts don't become allowed until January sometime so Thabeet would need to sign a full year contract to be snagged away before then.

Now he's not a world beater by any stretch, but the one benefit of this is that this will allow Mitchell to play PF during his GR Drive stints, rather than being forced to be overmatched and outsized playing center.

NBADL draft is tomorrow, with the Drive having the first and fifth overall picks.

Smart move. Nice posting and analysis, Kilo.

DX mocked the D-League Draft, well sorta as team needs are not taken into account, so really it's a ranking/rating of the top talent available - http://www.draftexpress.com/article/D-L ... Draft-4769

Will be interesting to see the Drive strategy - if they look to add the best talent that then might get signed away by an NBA team sooner than later, or grabs lesser talented types that will be there the whole year that they think they could develop and fit into their scheme. You have to figure both Teague and Elliot Williams will be signed by Philly, and Covington wouldn't be long for the league either. Convington is more a 4 anymore, and I suspect the Pistons will have Tony Mitchell down in GR most of the season, so no use getting a PF when Mitchell will get most of those minutes, and rightfully so.

Looking at this DX list I'll predict GR Drive select SG Carrick Felix and SF Fuquan Edwin with their first round picks. Felix initially made the Jazz roster but was cut when they claimed Jordan Hamilton and Ingles off waivers at the end of the pre-season.

Joonas Caven could be interesting given he's draft eligible this upcoming draft (would be a second round guy at best), and is Finnish. With Jonas Jerebko on the main roster, maybe could help in NA transition a bit here.


As a late round sleeper I'll throw out the name center Adam Kemp, who was Bower's center with Marist last year, a co-captain on that team.

Seems like GR acquired the rights to Daniel Orton, trading a 3rd round pick in tomorrow's draft for the rights to Orton and a 6th rounder. According to one news report when googling Orton he's signed with a Chinese team for their upcoming season - so this is more a long view trade, unless that China team deal never happened. From what I can tell the China BB season ends in February, so maybe the thought is Thabeet will get signed away once the 10-day contracts become available in January, so Orton will be a Ce reinforcement for the late season and play-off or something.

First pick for the Drive (1st overall) - Robert Covington SF/PF. NBA DL Rookie of the league last year, almost signed with Philly 76ers this off-season but couldn't come to an agreement. Sixers were offering a four year deal and Covington wanted a shorter deal and they couldn't get the numbers to work. I'd guess that means Philly wanted to lock the kid in relatively cheap, and the kid has confidence in himself to the point where he wanted to be a FA in a couple of years to cash in or something. He was a stat line stuffer last year in the D-League,23.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.4 steals, 1.7 assists, and 1.4 blocks. He probably won't be in the D-League long though as a team from the NBA will come calling. 10-day contracts are not available to NBA teams until January though, so anybody who wants him would have to sign him to a fully guarenteed one-year contract. I guess covington is the guy the GR Drive will use to sell tickets off of early.

Second pick by the Drive (5th overall) Ben Hansborough - PG/SG. Seemed to be better talent still on the board here, but I'm guessing GR likes him because he won't be getting any NBA interest and thus is there for the season+, he's a gritty kid, gym rat, tough as hell - so seems like a character/lockerroom atmosphere tone setter type guy that Stan wants organization wide.

http://www.mlive.com/drive/2014/10/form ... _hash.html They had those guys already. Robert was someone they had to pick (seems weird to say that about a minor league team). Ben has NBA experience, could actually fit with the Pistons and won't have teams trying to grab him up.

Its hard to really analyze Minor League draft picks. i'm basically happy as long as they don't pick the guys in their mid 30s. Robert Vaden was drafted into the NBA in like 2008. Damien Wilkens is 34 or 35.

That is some insanely deep analysis into the D-League.

Props bro!

Rest of their draft -

2nd - Omondi Amoke PF - Rebounding machine

3rd - Shaun Pruitt Ce - Traditional big bodied slow center type

3rd - Kammeon Holsey PF - undersized four, no shooting range.

3rd - Dominic Waters PG - pure pass first point guard

4th - Renaldo Woolridge SF - Son of ex-NBA player Orlando Woolridge. Also aspiring rapper with own label.

5th - Kelsey Barlow SG

6th - Jerrell Sanders G/F - Grand Rapids local, attended try-out camp

And the Philly 76ers are going to sign Robert Covington to a four year contract - so Grand Rapids gets one pre-season game out of it's first overall draft pick.

Yep, the D-League sucks. And so does the GR brainiacs who wasted the first overall pick on a guy who was offered a four year deal by the Sixers shortly before the D-League draft.

You knew it was going to come sooner or later. Until all 30 teams have a D-League Affiliate, things like this will happen. Sixers will probably cut him by Christmas. Robert was the guy they had to pick at 1.

About the only thing that I wished Grand Rapids was draft some of the guys that were using the D-League to showcase for the 2015 NBA draft. Those guys are ineligible for call-ups. And with several of the picks they made, they were very interested in having guys that wouldn't be called up right away.

I still think you have to pick Robert at 1.

^They're not going to cut the guy after giving him a four year contract. How does it work now - could they send him to their D-League team now for a stretch (for whatever reason if they saw fit - conditioning, PT whatever)?

D-League needs to be fixed - contracts should be doubled and then they have to play at least 10 games there or something. Either that or you don't waste a high pick on a player who is sure to be signed away by an NBA team very early.

Kilo wrote:^They're not going to cut the guy after giving him a four year contract. How does it work now - could they send him to their D-League team now for a stretch (for whatever reason if they saw fit - conditioning, PT whatever)?

D-League needs to be fixed - contracts should be doubled and then they have to play at least 10 games there or something. Either that or you don't waste a high pick on a player who is sure to be signed away by an NBA team very early.

Until every team has a designated minor league team, it doesn't really make a difference IMO. Not a big deal at all to me though. We can just as easily sign someone away from another D-League team, and the point of the league is to develop players and uncover gems. It doesn't matter to me what D-League team uncovers someone at this point, because everyone has an equal shot at the guy.

So until each team has a designated pipeline, the draft is relatively pointless and means nothing to me.


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It's a shame that we didn't sign Fuquan Edwin, I really liked him as an undrafted free agent. He's a limited offensive player, but he has some jump shot and can really play defense.

I wonder if we can get Jerrelle Benimon, another undrafted guy I liked. He's a smallish power forward who can shoot, rebound and handle the ball well. Really well-rounded and skilled player. I thought that he might catch on somewhere as a stretch 4 with some extra skills.