The NBA Development League has needed new assignment rules ever since they made it possible for the D-League to receive its big league brethren during the last NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement. Those changes have been made, too, according to CBS Sports' Ken Berger.

The current rule had been that first and second-year players were eligible to be assigned to a team's D-League affiliate up to three times each season. The new rules, though, allow for unlimited D-League assignments within the first three seasons of a players career (though Berger reports the NBA wanted five years instead of three).

The bigger move, however, is that veterans will now be able to be assigned to the D-League with their consent, thereby allowing the possibility of injury rehab stints as players work their way back toward 100 percent.

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Walker Russell Jr. is playing his fifth season in the NBA Development League, but it seems this might finally be the year for the veteran point guard out of Jacksonville State. The 6-foot point guard has had a solid last couple of days, anyway, as he was named the D-League Player of the Week on Monday after learning he's been invited to attend training camp with the Detroit Pistons.

The veteran playmaker is averaging 20.3 points and 11 assists through the first three games of the season, moving himself into sixth all-time with 969 career assists in the D-League. All-time records aren't something one ever wants to achieve in the D-League, though, so it's a good thing Russell is headed to NBA camp this weekend.

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The Cleveland Cavaliers made an excellent addition to their coaching staff on Monday, hiring Tulsa 66ers head coach Nate Tibbetts as an assistant coach. Tibbetts' assistant with the D-League's 66ers, Dale Osbourne, will take over head coaching duties in Tulsa.

Tibbetts was hired as the 66ers head coach prior to the 2009-10 season after two years as head coach of the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Prior to his D-League head coaching positions, he spent time as an assistant with the Skyforce as well as the University of Sioux Falls.

"Nate comes from an organization that has developed a young core and a similar belief system in creating success with a defense-first mentality and Aubrey is an accomplished and respected player development coach that is going to be a great fit with all our coaches and our players," Cavs head coach Byron Scott said about Tibbetts and fellow hire Aubrey McCreary in a press release. "I am very excited for our group to get started with our team soon."

The 34-year-old also served as an assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder during their playoff run last season and was most recently head coach of Team USA's entry in this fall's Pan-Am Games. It's an excellent hire by the Cavs and a much-deserved promotion for Tibbetts.

The NBA Development League is going to see plenty of changes over the next five days as their parent clubs open up training camp for the first time ever in the middle of the minor league's season, but we have all week to talk about that. Instead, it seems like as good of time as any to look back on the first two weeks of D-League basketball on this beautiful, blizzardy Monday morning.

The biggest development of the weekend probably has to do with the Maine Red Claws. The team picked up its first victory in four tries as they defeated the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, 99-91, while holding Cameron Jones to just six points and three turnovers. Kenny Hayes led the Claws with 32 points in the victory while Corey Allmond led the Mad Ants with 26 points in defeat.

The Red Claws did suffer a loss on Sunday, though, it just didn't register in the loss column. Dave Leitao's team lost J.R. Reynolds, the point he also coached while at the helm of the Virginia Cavaliers, to an overseas job. Reynolds scored 25 points in the Red Claws season opener, but the veteran guard will play the remainder of the season with BCM Gravelines in France.

Before we get to the rest of today's stories, we're still taking submissions for our next D-League player blogger (Click here for details).

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Dear D-League Players,

I put out a call on Twitter last week looking for someone playing in the NBA Development League to write about their D-League season. There were numerous responses, but I realized that not everyone follows my Twitter account (or the website's)and decided to post it here before making a decision on our new contributor.

Ridiculous Upside has a rather high bar set when it comes to player blogs as the first player in site history was the memorable Mike Gansey. Gansey wrote about Kaley Cuoco, which D-League assistant coaches looked most like John Cena (Hint: His brother) and a comprehensive review of the 2010 D-League season while giving fans an inside look at the league.

Anyway, if you think you can follow in the footsteps of Mr. Gansey, please send me an e-mail (located here) and we'll get things moving. If there's enough interest in players interested in getting their stories to the masses, we might even be able to add multiple bloggers!

Have a great weekend!

NBA training camps will open on Dec. 9 if all goes according to plan, meaning next Friday should be a pretty important day in the lives of many players hoping for their first chance to play in the Association. One might think the Development League will provide the majority of the players, but considering there were 154 training camp invites last season, that isn't in the realm of possibility.

Those around the league estimate that there will probably be 30 or 40 players called up to compete for NBA roster spots during training camp -- taking place from Dec. 9 to Christmas Eve, essentially -- though conventional wisdom would indicate that estimation should be at least slightly higher.

32 players that played in the D-League during the 2009-10 received training camp invites for 2010-11, but that was when they still had to compete with players that were sitting at home and waiting for an NBA look prior to taking their talents overseas. The lockout likely removed a fair amount of those players this year, however, as European and Asian teams swooped in and signed them to deals while the NBA season was in question.

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Jarrid Famous has secured an invite to the Indiana Pacers training camp after just three games of action in the NBA Development League, according to a source close to the player. NBA teams were allowed to begin contacting players on Wednesday morning, though agreements can't officially be signed until Dec. 9.

Famous is playing for the Iowa Energy and, following Wednesday's matinee game, the 6-foot-11 rookie out of South Florida is averaging 24.7 points and 12.7 rebounds -- 6.7 of which are coming off of the offensive glass. The 23-year-old averaged 8.7 points and 5.4 rebounds during his senior season with the Bulls.

The Energy are off to just a 1-2 start, but Famous has held his own early on his first season of professional basketball. Against the Sioux Falls Skyforce, featuring the best front line in the D-League with Greg Stiemsma and Charles Garcia, scored 33 points and grabbed 15 rebounds in a losing effort.

Having only watched Famous for three games thus far, deferring to the always excellent Jonathan Givony on his shortcomings seems to be wise:

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NBA teams are officially allowed to talk to agents, essentially tipping off what should be an NBA free agency frenzy (even if the names involved aren't exactly the stars of the league). That shouldn't affect D-League call-ups quite yet as teams work to lock up the bigger names first, meaning Ridiculous Upside will have to focus on other things happening around the Development League.

There will be a random 10:30 a.m. matinee game between the Iowa Energy and Rio Grande Valley Vipers if anyone's looking to watch actual basketball this lovely Wednesday morning. Until then, however, Ridiculous Upside has rounded up the most interesting links from around the web.

Starting it off lighthearted, there was a fun feature on the Maine Red Claws' Kenny Hayes and Chris Wright published on Tuesday. Apparently they both were aspiring professional wrestlers before their basketball careers took off:

Kenny Hayes was Stone Cold Steve Austin. Chris Wright was The Rock. Or maybe The Undertaker. They would arrange the furniture in Wright's basement to simulate a wrestling ring. And then they would go at it, Hayes usually mimicking all the best moves of their favorite pro wrestlers at the time, Wright usually the victim of his moves.

"Oh yeah," said Ernestine Grigsby, Wright's mother. "Down in the basement. They did all that stupid WWF stuff -- the DDT, the Piledriver. They thought they were having a cage match, all that craziness."

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Jamaal Tinsley hasn't played in the NBA since April 4, 2010, during an uneventful stint with the Memphis Grizzlies. After sitting out all of last season, though, the talented point guard is currently working his way back into the minds of NBA decision makers while playing under Eric Musselman for the Los Angeles D-Fenders.

The D-Fenders, the NBA Development League affiliate of the Los Angeles Lakers, have won two of their first three games with Tinsley at the helm of the offense. The former starting point guard for the Indiana Pacers dished 13 assists in Monday night's blowout victory over the Reno Bighorns in just 26 minutes of playing time.

"Jamaal came into camp in great physical condition," Musselman told Ridiculous Upside after Monday night's game. "Players love playing with him and he's like having a coach on the floor ... I've loved coaching him."

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The NBA lockout is set to end sometime this week if all goes according to plan when the i's are dotted and t's are crossed, meaning quite a few changes to the basketball world. Since this lovely website focuses on the NBA Development League, however, it seems pertinent to address what is in store for the next few weeks.

First, though, the reason the D-League world will be likely be turned upside down is so that NBA training camp rosters can be populated. There will be players that return from their contracts overseas and there were plenty of free agents still waiting for the right opportunity, but it's worth looking at what happened during the last lockout to really have an idea what we might be in store for prior to Dec. 9.

Looking back at the 1998-99 lockout, 176 players were signed to what basically amounted to training camp invites. That number isn't exact as there were probably a few players that were given guaranteed contracts that went unreported prior to the internet age exploding, but it's as close to exact as anyone has at this point.

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