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Highly-touted forward Alade Aminu makes his D-League debut tonight for the Erie BayHawks.

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Tonight marks the beginning of the preseason!  Which means games!  D-League games!  Okay, let's not go overboard, these are D-League preseason games.  But still!  Tonight the Sioux Falls Skyforce and Dakota Wizards face off, as do the Erie BayHawks and Fort Wayne Mad Ants.  Both games are at 7 pm eastern/6 pm central.  I probably won't do this for all preseason games, since they're, you know, preseason games, and because the regular season is only a week away anyway, but let's break them down!

Erie vs. Fort Wayne

Both of these teams bring back a lot of key players from last year's rosters, but I think the Mad Ants' guys are slightly better.  I mostly say that because Erie's two best players last season were Erik Daniels and (arguably) Maureece Rice, and neither of those players are around.  Fort Wayne, on the other hand, brings back Chris Hunter, who was on the all-D-league second team.  Chris Hunter is not with the team in Erie.  Interrobang.  The BayHawks do have some nice three-point shooting in Ivan Harris, but Fort Wayne can counter that with Ron Howard's excellent perimeter defense.

As for who's joined each team this year, again, I think Fort Wayne again has a bit of an edge.  Donell Taylor's defense will likely show itself against a team that may be more perimeter-focused in Hunter's absence, but Rob Kurz is a very good three point shooter, Fort Wayne's other former Notre Dame guys (Ryan Ayers and Kyle McAlarney)) should do well in the D-League, and they've added enough solid pieces that I think they'll be a lot deeper than they were last year.  Alade Aminu is probably better than I think he will be, and he's talented enough to some problems for Hunter defensively, but I just don't love the rest of their additions enough to say they'll outperform their counterparts.

One final thing to note is that each team is looking for a point guard to hitch their respective offenses to, with Rice gone for Erie and last year's Mad Ant PG Walker Russell taking his game overseas.  McAlarney and Andres Sandoval will be the rotation for Fort Wayne and I expect Derrick Mercer Donell Taylor to get some or all of Erie's minutes at the point (even though he's more of a shooting guard), but the fact that all of them are new to their teams and getting used to running the offenses could be something to watch.

Dakota vs. Sioux Falls

Whereas the last game saw two teams with new point guards, this one has two teams with new coaches.  Rory White for the Wizards and Tony Fritz for the Skyforce have solid resumes, but this will be the first time we'll see them run things in the D-League.

As for the returning players, you have to give this one to Dakota, which returns five or six key guys from last year's playoff team, while Sioux Falls no longer has former D-League MVP Kasib Powell.  With Blake Ahearn gone, Romel Beck and David Bell will carry more of the scoring load, and they should be able to do it.  Bell should, anyway.  Beck isn't always consistent offensively, a function of his preference for the isolation game.  When he's on, though, he's excellent.  Keith Brumbaugh is talented, and David Bailey is a decent option at point guard, but missing Powell hurts.

I think Sioux Falls might have the edge in new additions.  While Curtis Withers should be solid for the Wizards and Marcus Dove is a good defender, I'm not entirely sold on D'Lancy Carter, and you can only play so many frontcourt defenders at once.  I thought the Skyforce did a good job drafting for scoring with Reggie Williams and Leemire Goldwire, and Raymond Sykes is an athletic dunker, which counts for something at this level.  They also have allocation player Joe Krabbenhoft, who (if local news reports are to be believed) is on a few NBA radar screens

So join me tonight, as I OSLB some D-League preseason games while watching Futurecast!  Be there!

Today's the deadline for teams to get down to 12 players so expect to see a lot of these announcements throughout the afternoon.  According to a team press release, the Dakota Wizards have released Rashaad Powell, Manny Quezada, Cameron Stanley, Derick Payne and Lorenzo Davis.

Powell is the one I'm most surprised about, as he was named the Big West conference defensive player of the year as a senior.  He's bounced around various minor leagues (he was an IBL all-star a few years ago) and has spent some time playing in lower-level overseas leagues.  He played at the University of Idaho, so I suppose he could try to get on with the Stampede at some point if he wants to hang around the D-League (though the fact that they didn't draft him or try to acquire him through allocation makes me think it's not going to happen).

Quezada was a decent three-point shooter in college, but the rest of his offensive game wasn't as good.  Stanley and Payne were both small forwards trying to make a team that already has several guys who can play that position.  To be honest I don't know much about Davis,  but Dakota brought back some of last year's big men and drafted a few pretty high as well, so he was probably a longshot.

by Darron Cummings - AP

The Houston Rockets said goodbye to Pops Mensah-Bonsu this week. Frowny face.

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A few relatively big moves happened (in our world, at least),  but before I get to those, I realized that I never discussed the D-League trades from a few weekends ago at any length, so here we go:

Fort Wayne Mad Ants traded 10 pick (Alade Aminu) to the Erie BayHawks; Erie BayHawks traded Rob Kurz to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants

At least as it stands now, before any games have been played, this looks like a pretty good trade for both sides.  Fort Wayne returns Chris Hunter and Sean Sonderleiter in the middle, so as talented as Aminu is the team was already set at center.  Sure, Aminu most likely would've been an upgrade over Sonderleiter, Hunter gets the bulk of the minutes there anyway, and since he's a very good D-League center the Mad Ants were able to flip their pick to address other issues.  The team also has several other forwards back from last year, but they're mostly defense or rebounding specialists.  Rob Kurz should allow the team to stretch the defense a little more, to use that cliche, and because I assume he's going to start, it will be interesting to see if his presence at power forward pushes Anthony Kent to the bench, or whether Kent moves over to the 3 and Ron Howard, last year's starting small forward but 6'5", heads to the backcourt.  If the latter is the case, then Kurz's shooting skill will be even more of a necessity as Howard's not much of a shooter (or scorer generally, come to think of it).  Fort Wayne also had been angling to get Kurz as a local allocation player because of his time at Notre Dame, so the team is hoping that bringing him in (along with other Notre Dame players) will help them at the gate as well as on the court.

For the Bayhawks, Alade Aminu seemed to be one of the most sought-after players in the draft, at least among teams looking for raw talent.  Aminu didn't play a whole lot for Washington's Summer League team, though his defense was alright when he did, and the Miami Heat gave him a look during the preseason.  Aminu was a bit turnover-prone in college and needs to develop some post moves (along with some strength), but he's very athletic and handles the ball fairly well for a 6'10" guy.  Erie needed a center to replace the departed Erik Daniels, and as I wrote around the draft, bringing in actual centers like Aminu, John Bryant and Jeff Skemp is a step in the right direction.  Erie already had some guys sort of like Kurz (Ivan Harris is a three-point shooting forward, Jarvis Gunter is an okay rebounder but doesn't do much else), so they didn't need to duplicate efforts there.

Los Angeles D-Fenders traded Earl Barron to the Iowa Energy; Iowa Energy traded Anthony Tolliver to the Idaho Stampede; Idaho Stampede traded Dar Tucker to the Los Angeles D-Fenders

I've given some brief comments on this one, but to recap, I like this trade for both Idaho and Iowa, but I'm a little baffled by what LA is doing.  To elaborate, let's start with Idaho.  Last year Bob MacKinnon's Colorado team liked to run, and they led the league in pace.  Sure they had Joe Dabbert and Kentrell Gransberry in the middle, but each of those players' proclivity for fouling meant that Josh Davis saw a fair amount of time at center.  Anthony Tolliver isn't the same player Davis is, specifically in the area of three-point shooting (Tolliver is okay but not great there), but he's a good passer, a pretty good rebounder and post defender, and he can score a little bit (in the D-League, anyway).  Tolliver should be a solid anchor for the Stampede, at least for as long as he's around (he has a history of leaving the D-League either to play in Europe or the NBA).

Iowa-wise, Earl Barron is a solid center with some shot-blocking talent and NBA experience (specifically with Miami).  Barron upped his per-36 minute scoring averages and lowered his foul rates every year that he played for the Heat, so he's been improving.  He's 28 years old now, though, so this may be his last go-round in the D-League.  The Energy drafted a lot of scorers and wing players, and while Tolliver is a good player (see above) he likely would've taken up a lot of possessions that can now be distributed a little more equally.

As for the D-Fenders, it's not that Dar Tucker isn't talented, it's just that his shot selection is shaky.  He made less than 30 percent of his three-pointers last year at DePaul, which wouldn't be great even if he hadn't averaged more than six three-point attempts per game.  He shot just 39 percent overall, so it's not like he was great inside the arc either.  He also averaged more turnovers than assists and can't really go left.  Tucker is athletic, does a decent job of getting to the rim and is a decent rebounder, but his offensive game has a lot of negatives.  Plus there's the fact that he's a shooting guard, and that LA already has Joe Crawford and Charlie Parker, who are nominally point guards but are more scorers than distributor, Ryan Forehan-Kelly, who's a swingman who can do a lot of things but who also probably got accustomed to having the ball last year, Deron Washington, who's another (more efficient) slasher, and Jeremy Wise, a shooting guard.  As for big men, let's see...how does Longar Longar strike you?  It's entirely possible that Barron asked for this trade, but as it stands now the D-Fenders have a glut of shooting guards and/or backcourt scoring without a ton of guys who can rebound or defend the post.  This team could be really fun to watch, or it could be a horrible mess.

Rio Grande Valley Vipers traded Marcus Hubbard to the Reno Bighorns; Reno Bighorns traded Haminn Quaintance to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers

Here's the thing about Marcus Hubbard - I make snide comments about his game, but he's a decent player.  At least he could be.  He certainly has his moments.  He's athletic, he can rebound a little bit, he stays out of foul trouble.  But, somewhere in his career (it may have been at the beginning, who knows) he started viewing himself as a mid-range/perimeter player, and he's not very good at it.  He likes shooting threes, and he's about as good at it as Dar Tucker is.  Now that the Rockets are running the show, he really didn't fit what they look for in a big man, so it wasn't a surprise to see him go.

Quaintance, on the other hand, does seem like a Houston-type guy.  I don't know much about him, and called him a "three-point shooter" around the draft based on last year's EuroChallenge, but he's actually a power forward who was an excellent defender in college (he was MAC defensive player of the year as a senior) and gets steals blocks as well as blocks, plus he can score a little bit and passes pretty well for his position.  Oh, and he's athletic.  He profiles very well, so I'm curious as to why Reno gave him up.  He likely wouldn't have gotten a ton of minutes behind Boom Tho Rod Benson and non-boom tho Cezary Trybanski, but he could've slid into the lineup in the event of a Benson call-up just as well as Hubbard can.

Moving on to this week's, uh, moves, after the jump...

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I've skipped linking to all of the various "local player gets drafted by a D-League team" stories, mostly because they're all pretty similar and also because some of those players may get cut over the next week and a half.  There are still some interesting links to hit you with, as you'll see.

• SLAM Online has a nice profile of Latavious Williams and the process he and his agent Tony Dutt went through to decide on joining the D-League.  There is no relation between my linking this article and the fact that it and Dutt make a lot of the same points (he'll get to play against better competition, with better coaching) that I always make.
• Quincy Douby just got cut by the Raptors, and the Erie BayHawks have first dibs if he comes back to the D-League.  I'd bet he goes to Europe instead, but maybe he wants to be on hand for another 10-day.
• Okay, so one exception to the kind of story I mentioned above: Robert Swift, who's trying to come back with Bakersfield.  I'm a little skeptical that he can stay injury-free, but as the article notes, Swift has bulked up a little bit so perhaps his body will be a little more stable.
• Ronald Dupree is playing in Germany this year, and Bonn's General-Anzeiger Online has an interview with him about being cut by the Jazz and his decision to play overseas.  It's in German, of course, so you may need to use your translation website of choice, but here's a choice quote, roughly translated: "For me it was no longer meaningful to return there. It's okay if you're young and coming out of college, but I had come to a point in my career where I had to take the step to play in Europe.
• I don't put much stock in "power rankings" as a general rule, for any sport or other thing that you can rank power-ly, but in the interest of full bulleting, D-League.com has released their preseason power rankings.  I think Maine might be a little high and Idaho a bit low, but otherwise it mostly tracks with my own thoughts.
• Jeff Potter has been posting his thoughts on how Fort Wayne's Mad Ants practices have been going, but the most interesting one to me is the idea that Sean Sonderleiter has slimmed down a bit over the summer.  I doubt it's made him a whole lot quicker, but he was always active and a solid rebounder, so if he's a little leaner (he was never as bad as a Nate Jawai or a Kentrell Gransberry, but his conditioning could've been better) then he should be a very good backup for the Mad Ants this season.

Latavious Williams was just drafted out of high school into the D-League. It's your move, David Stern.

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(I've moved this back up to the top after receiving an e-mail from Shoals clarifying/correcting my characterization of his position, which in turn helped me strengthen the end of the piece, I hope.  Apologies to Shoals, and please enjoy the new paragraphs.)

I've made a few references to this in the last few days, mostly around the D-League draft, but it's probably time to talk about Latavious Williams.  Because honestly, everyone else has so why not RU?  Williams, if you haven't already read, was Tulsa's first round pick in last week's D-League draft.  That fact is notable because he's the first player in D-League history to go straight there from high school.

The D-League wasn't Williams's first option.  His "mentor/advisor" Trey Godfrey wanted Williams to follow in the footsteps of Brandon Jennings and Jeremy Tyler and play overseas.  Said Godfrey (back in June):

There's no deal in place...There have been conversations with several teams in several different countries. China is one of them, but there is no deal on the table.

Four months later, there still was no deal on the table, and Williams entered the D-League draft pool.  The reaction to this news usually fell under the category of praising (or at least noting) it's historic nature and/or proclaiming what this move means for the future of basketball.  As someone who has called for those high school players who won't be attending college to take their game to the D-League instead of Europe (or Asia, or South America), my own reaction may surprise you: it's just too early to tell what this will mean.  I'll explain why after the jump.

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Chris Hunter is one of only a few of last season's D-League leaders coming back to the league.

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I've made a few oblique references this offseason to all of the D-League three-point shooters who will be playing overseas this year, and it's true that there will be some unfamiliar faces jacking up perimeter shots next month.  But it's actually even more remarkable than I thought.  Heres is the list of last year's D-League award winners:

MVP - Courtney Sims
Defensive POY - Brent Petway
Impact POY - Eddie Gill
Rookie of the Year - Othyus Jeffers
Coach of the Year - Quin Snyder
Sportsmanship Award - Will Conroy

Notice anything?  With the exception of perhaps Sims, all of the players listed above are playing overseas (and RU's Coach of the Year pick, Bryan Gates, is in the NBA now).  True, one of them could come back midseason (and be in the running for the Impact award), but those are still some relatively big names missing.  It gets even more drastic than that.  Here are the All D-League teams:

First: Blake Ahearn, Will Conroy, Erik Daniels, Courtney Sims, Marcus Williams

I expect Williams to join back up with the Toros, and we're still waiting to see what Sims will do, but Ahearn, Conroy and Daniels are all overseas now.

Second: Derrick Byars, Josh Davis, Chris Hunter, Trey Johnson, James White

Hunter's back in Fort Wayne, but Byars - gone; Davis - gone; Johnson - gone; White - gone.

Third: Lance Allred, Ronald Dupree, Eddie Gill, Dontell Jefferson, Cartier Martin

Jefferson is back with Utah but I would expect a call-up for him at some point this season (the defense is too good).  Otherwise, they're all in Europe and elsewhere.  And while I won't bother listing all of the honorable mentions, by my count less than half of them are with the D-League again this year.

So what's the point of this?  Change, and lots of it.  Sure it will be disappointing not to see these talented players, but I prefer to see it as a crisi-tunity.  With training camps underway and the regular season starting in just two weeks, a lot of players will have a chance to make their mark on the D-League.  Some of them we can probably guess - expect Marcus Williams to tear it up again until he gets called up, Garrett Siler should be one of the best big men in the league and Carlos Powell and Anthony Tolliver should both fill up the box scores.  But just as likely is that we can't predict right now who's going to make those 2009-2010 All-D-League teams.  It could be someone like Amara Sy, who started his career off promisingly in Europe; or Reggie Williams, who was a smart, crafty scorer in college; heck, it could even be Yaroslav Korolev (it probably won't be Yaroslav Korolev).

All this turnover at the top of the league, talent-wise, is both likely a little daunting for the league and a pretty exciting development for D-League watchers.  Teams are busy right now sorting out who can play and who can't, then it will be our turn.

The Colorado 14ers were your D-League champions last season.

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The D-League announced today that its playoffs are expanding to include best-of-three series in both the first and second rounds.  Previously, those rounds had been a single-elimination format.  The league also announced that the top four seeds will select their opponents for the second year in a row.

Increasing the number of games seems like a smart move.  Every team will now get one home playoff game (the lower seed hosts the first game, the higher seed hosts the second and third), which means more money for them (although it also means increased travel costs).

As for the seeding, each division winner will get a spot along with the teams with the next six best records regardless of division.  The top division winner gets the first choice of opponent, followed by the other division winner and then the two other top-ranked teams.  I had thought the league might split the playoffs up by division and have the Western champ meet the Eastern champ in the finals, but given that Dakota and Sioux Falls are considered "Eastern" teams, this is just as well.  Of course, all that happened last season was that the #1 seed picked the #7 seed and #2 played #8, so we'll see if teams are encouraged to get a bit crazier this year.

It also raises the question as to whether this is a trial run for the NBA.  There was some discussion several years ago (that's died down since) about whether the NBA should seed it's playoff teams by record regardless of conference.  This was back when there would be one or two Eastern Conference playoff teams with records under .500 while talented Western teams were left out.  While the D-League began this "pick your opponent" system last year, there are two divisions now rather than three, so it matches up with the NBA's division organization a little more.  I doubt the NBA will move in that direction, but the D-League is (partly) about being a test lab for the NBA, so this could be a step closer to seeing more NBA playoff teams from one conference than the other at some point down the line.

The Springfield Armor apparently still don't have a name for their mascot which, if you recall, looks like this:

The team held a naming contest which ended this past Sunday.  Why didn't Ridiculous Upside write about it before then, so that you, our readers could participate?  Well you see, the thing about that is...[runs away]

Sorry about that.  Here are the REAL, NOT JOKE names that the team put up for a vote, which I must again emphasize are the REAL options, and are NOT A JOKE:

• Ax
• Lance
• Link
• Sabre
• Steal

Personally, I will continue to call the team's mascot Moltar, but I'll discuss each of the team-derived options after the jump.

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More photos » by Mike Roemer - AP

Derrick Byars is taking his shot (and the rest of his game) to Germany.

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Now that all the draft hubbub has died down a little bit, it's time once again for the weekly transactions report.  Not much this week, as a lot of guys were likely waiting to see if/where they'd get drafted by the D-League before looking at signing overseas or elsewhere.

November 3: Derrick Byars - signed with Alba Berlin (Germany) Richard Roby - signed with Maccabi Haifa (Israel); Goran Suton - signed with Spartak SPB (Russia)

None of these guys were in the draft pool, of course, but for slightly different reasons. Roby is an Israeli league vet, and he was the University of Colorado's leading scorer in college.  He likely would've been a high pick in the D-League draft had he chosen that route, but he fits the Euro-ball profile.  Roby went to Summer League with Oklahoma City, but didn't play a whole lot.  Suton also likely would've been a high pick given his NBA draft-ee status, but as a center with a mid-range game Europe is a good fit for him as well.  He had a somewhat up-and-down Summer League for Utah, and the Jazz already have a passel of big men so his being cut wasn't a huge surprise.  Suton's deal is reportedly for three years, so we probably won't be seeing him for awhile.  Byars wasn't available to be drafted because he actually made an NBA roster.  I thought he played reasonably well for the Bulls during the preseason, but they cut him one day into the regular season.  Partially guaranteed vs. fully guaranteed contracts, etc.  Byars chose the Europe route rather than diving into the D-League player pool (sorry) because he's 25 years old, which isn't that old for an NBA player, but he's been out of college for several years now and Chicago was the best NBA opportunity he had.  Since that didn't work out, he chose the larger paycheck instead of waiting around for a potential call-up.  I do wonder if we'll see Byars in the D-League in the future or if it's Europe from here on out, where truth be told he should do very well.

November 4: Robert "Tractor" Traylor - signed with Martos Napoli (Italy)

Were you aware that Traylor was still playing basketball?  Because I wasn't.  Now that he's playing in Italy (he was in Turkey) he'll get all the carbs he can handle.

November 5: Chris Ellis - signed with Union Atletica (Uruguay)

Ellis spent the bulk of his D-League career in Tulsa, although he split last season between the 66ers and Sioux Falls.  He never put up a great shooting percentage as a 6'9" power forward but he's a decent rebounder.  Come to think of it, I don't recall him being on any Summer League or preseason rosters.  The only offseason action he's had was participating in the NBA Asia Challenge, which raises the question of why it's taken him so long to sign an overseas deal, since the NBA clearly wasn't calling.

November 6: Memphis Grizzlies - waived Trey Gilder

I became engaged in a Twitter discussion with Mark Deeks from ShamSports about Gilder's being waived, and as you'd imagine I made my standard points about Gilder being cheaper than players that Memphis isn't playing and who are terrible, like Steven Hunter or Marko Jaric.  Deeks made the competing (valid) point that waiving Gilder is a money-saving move in itself because he wasn't even on the active roster.  At the heart of our 140-word discussion was a disagreement over whether Gilder can play in the NBA.  I obviously believe he can, and as quoted in that profile, so does his 14ers coach and former NBA scout Bob MacKinnon (and I realize a coach isn't going to badmouth his player, but coaches also don't just offer up the phrase "NBA prospect" all the time).  Deeks noted that Gilder was a sixth man in Colorado, but he actually started about a dozen games, and he was behind players like James Mays and Josh Davis on the depth chart, so I don't think there should be any knock on him there, particularly since undebatably-NBA-level-talented Sonny Weems also came off the bench for that team at times.  Gilder isn't perfect as a player, of course, and I think he'd do well to come back to the D-League this season where he'd be more accessible to NBA scouts, and work on building up some muscle and maybe a mid-range game.  I don't think he's very far from making another NBA roster, though.

Now that some time has passed and I've had a chance to look over all of the picks, I thought I'd lay down some more thoughts about how each team did.  I'll try to make this as brief as I can, because there are 16 teams, but I'll also try to give a pretty good picture of how the teams look heading into training camp.  Also, just as a warning, I'm going to be here for most of the weekend, so posting might be a little light.  I'll try to catch any big news, of course, but hopefully this and last night's first impressions and the OSLB comments should be enough draft coverage to tide you over for a few days.  Anyway, on with the teams.  The key picks are listed followed by the round in which they were drafted, below the jump:

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