Post#7 » by justinb80 » Fri Nov 6, 2009 7:37 pm
This makes me wonder: how many players who were in the D-league have ever been called up by an NBA team and actually stuck in the NBA? (I'm not considering players who were drafted into the NBA and then sent to the D-league just to get some play until the team was actually ready for them.)
I can't think of any, but I have a feeling it's a very small number. Seems to me that the D-league is more of a place where moribund players go to watch their careers die. Most of the time D-league players seem to be just called up as practice players or so a team can officially have 13 men on their roster, even though they know they won't be playing that many.
I'm sure there's lots of really talented guys in the D-league that for some reason or another, went undrafted, but I don't think the NBA really uses the D-league seriously -- certainly not to the same degree that MLB uses their farm system.