The Texas Legends, the NBA Development League affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks, completed their expansion "draft" Monday with the results being announced this afternoon.
The only surprise from my projection of what head coach Nancy Lieberman and company would do was the selection of James "Mookie" Wright instead of Rodney "I used to look like this but now I look like this" Webb. The other players picked up in the draft were Joe Crawford, Diamon Simpson, Dar Tucker, Michael Fey, Ryan Forehan-Kelly, Gabriel Hughes, Frank Robinson, James Peters, and Keith Clark.
This doesn't mean that these players will play for the Legends this season, just that if they decide to play in the D-League this season, they'll play for the Legends. Essentially, the Legends are now caught up with every other team in that they have a list of returning players that have yet to decide (in most cases) if they'll actually return.
I would expect a maximum of five of these players to actually end up going to camp with the Legends because Simpson, Fey, Robinson and Forehan-Kelly are already signed overseas and I would assume Crawford will either end up in the NBA or Europe before all is said and done. This doesn't mean that they won't eventually play for the Legends, however, as numerous players have been able to pick up a couple of paychecks in Europe before returning to the comfy confines of the D-League in search of the elusive call-up.
As the team's press release noted, "Now that the Legends have made their draft picks, the players must sign with the D-League in order to truly be Legends."
I wonder what this means for Draino.
Comments
RFK is signed overseas?
By Sham-onnnnnnnnnnna on 08.31.10 7:57pm
According to my sources
By sources, I mean his father-in-law. He also recently became a father himself.
By Scott Schroeder on 08.31.10 8:13pm
Does Japan count as “getting paid to play”? Maybe in relative terms to the D-League. Unless he got lucky, there’s not much money there. But good luck to him I guess.
By Sham-onnnnnnnnnnna on 08.31.10 8:35pm
Yeah
I’m sure he was a B salary in the D-League, so it’s probably at least double what he was getting. Not that that’s great, obviously, but yay RFK!
By Scott Schroeder on 08.31.10 10:21pm
Question,
can a team sign a player outright without rights, or must they draft the player in the D-League pool draft? I hope the Legends sign McCants if he plays in the D-League. (While most Mavs fans had a weird obsession over Matt Carroll, I have one over Rashad).
By tomkanti on 08.31.10 8:01pm
Umm
If McCants wanted to play for the Mavericks, there would be numerous ways to go about it.
Easiest would be if the Mavericks were to bring McCants in for training camp. If he didn’t make it, the Legends would have his rights.
Otherwise, he could enter the D-League Draft if the Legends have a high enough pick where they could grab him – I’d assume top 2 without knowing the talent coming this season.
If that didn’t seem like a likely option, he could always wait until the Legends were able to position themselves at the top of the waiver wire (think fantasy sports) and then sign with the D-League so the Legends could grab him.
All that said – there are ways that McCants could end up in Frisco if that’s where he’d want to be.
By Scott Schroeder on 08.31.10 8:17pm
Thanks Scott
Mavs have been looking at him all last year, but with no time to give him, he wasn’t signed. If they dump Stevenson at the trade deadline, I feel that Mavs will sign McCants if he plays like he did in Minny(save the last year), and doesn’t have that ego that ruins relations.
By tomkanti on 08.31.10 10:17pm