There really hasn't been much to write about recently regarding the NBA Development League, but there's a rather large event happening in Chicago this week. The D-League is holding its sort-of annual "Elite Mini Camp" this week.

The purpose of the camp isn't really all that clear considering it seems to be a tryout for the D-League's own Summer League team with the added bonus of possibly being picked up by an NBA team provided their scout is in attendance and impressed by a player's performance.

Summer League mentioned in the press release detailing the camp, though, as it instead keeps it pretty vague aside from it being a random camp featuring drills and scrimmages in front of an audience.

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Cory Higgins, son of Charlotte Bobcats president of basketball operations Rod Higgins and a former shooting guard for the Erie BayHawks, was picked up by his father's team on Sunday night after being the last cut of the Denver Nuggets earlier in the weekend. It's a move that'll be scrutinized by many due to nepotism, but it isn't a bad basketball move in general.

The Bobcats signed Higgins to fill out the 15th spot on their roster, one that has been left open on the majority of NBA rosters this season despite the truncated schedule likely leading to exhaustion quicker this year than in year's past. He's likely their only as a practice body and someone that will push the players in front of him, though -- and in that case it isn't a bad move.

"A lot of people are going to think I'm here just because of him," Cory Higgins told the Charlotte Observer on Sunday night. "That's not the case. I worked hard to get here and I'm here to prove to everybody, and the coaching staff, that I belong here and that I'll keep this spot."

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NBA opening day was postponed a lot longer than most basketball fans had planned, but all will likely be forgiven soon as regular season games officially tip-off on Christmas afternoon. The rosters were officially released on Saturday night for this afternoon's games and, despite some taking a depressing look at the roster, it's almost refreshing that new blood has entered the NBA this season.

Roster upheaval is likely going to happen sooner rather than later considering teams only have 66 games before the NBA playoffs begin. As of today, however, there are quite a few names that will be on an NBA roster that likely would not have been had the lockout not happened.

I'm not going to intimate that everyone that made an NBA opening day roster would have made it if the lockout hadn't happened and the European exodus didn't take place this summer, but I don't think it's going to hurt having new blood at the end of NBA benches either.

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The deadline for NBA teams to submit their opening day rosters to the league is drawing near, and as such teams are making their final cuts. Over 100 players with D-League ties were invited to various NBA training camps after the lockout was lifted. That number is now down to 28, with more cuts still to come. Make the jump to see whose NBA dreams are still alive.

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The NBA preseason is almost always sort of all sorts of funky results and lines in the box score, but that figured to change this season due to the truncated exhibition schedule caused by the NBA lockout. Tuesday night still allowed for a pleasant surprise, however, as Dallas Mavericks camp invitee Jerome Randle burst on to the scene with 17 points to lead all scorers in the Dallas Mavericks loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Randle's performance was far from flawless as he worked his way into traffic only to get swatted on three of his first four shot attempts and had a few sloppy turnovers to boot. The Mavericks have shown they're okay with taking a bit of bad with the good, however, as shown over the past few seasons with fellow waterbug guard J.J. Barea.

Like Barea, who has moved on to a lucrative contract with the Minnesota Timberwolves, Randle is a small and fearless guard that seems to be at his best when he's just told to do whatever it takes to make shots. It might not always be pretty, but he's shown the ability to get the job done one-on-one at the hoop and can knock down the open jumpers afforded to him by defenses afraid of his speed.

The most interesting part of Randle's performance on Tuesday night was that he was best while playing off the ball while fellow training camp invite Drew Neitzel handled the primary point guard duties. It came mostly in garbage time (but isn't all of preseason, in effect, garbage time?), but it may have been part of the Mavericks plan to see if he can be a sort of poor man's Barea who's game they can refine while playing in the D-League with their Texas Legends.

Speaking of the Legends, Del Harris will get a solid infusion into his lineup on Wednesday night against Eric Musselman and the Los Angeles D-Fenders as Randle, Neitzel and new signee Sean Williams are expected to be in the D-League lineup as the Mavericks decide what to do as far as training camp cuts are concerned.

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The NBA Development League is a bit watered down right now as the majority of the best players are either just returning to the D-League or still holding out hope that they can make it past the training camp roster and on to the regular season. Two of those players may have convinced someone they belong in the big leagues during Sunday's preseason action, too, as Greg Stiemsma and Terrel Harris both stood out in their preseason debuts.

Harris probably doesn't get enough credit here at Ridiculous Upside, in part due to his averaging less than 10 points per game over three seasons in the D-League, but the 6-foot-5 guard put himself on the map with Sunday's shooting performance in a blowout victory with the Miami Heat.

The Rio Grande Valley Vipers sharpshooter made 4-of-5 from beyond the three-point arc to finish with 16 points, second on the team to some guy named LeBron James who scored 19 points in the 118-85 victory over the Orlando Magic. Fellow D-Leaguers/Heat camp invites Jeremy Wise and Mickell Gladness chipped in four points apiece while former D-League Derrick Byars scored 12 points in a return to relevance.

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The NBA invited 60 players from the NBA Development League to vie for spots on the team's regular season rosters, but there are plenty of other players invited that were sitting at home waiting for their next opportunity when the lockout ended earlier this month. Those players could end up back in the D-League, too, thanks to a loophole the D-League has once again decided to instill this season.

D-League affiliates will own the rights to three players invited to their NBA team's vet camp for the second straight season, meaning some of the training camp signings could simply be leveraging those players for extended looks with the D-League affiliate -- particularly in the case of the nine NBA teams that are directly affiliated with a team in the Development League.

29 players found their way on to the roster of an NBA team's D-League affiliate after being released from vet camp last season, the first time such a rule was in place, and it's quite possible a similar number of players could be added to the D-League this season under the same rule.

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The NBA Development League was ravaged quite a bit as 60 players were called up over the past few days to fill out training camp rosters, but games still happened. Not all of them were pretty and many didn't feature the usual allure of NBA prospects, but games still happened as the box scores located here will show.

Now that that's out of the way, though, it would seem that looking back on exactly what happened as far as NBA prospects and the NBA are concerned is of a bit more importance -- game recaps aren't particularly important when most teams have make-shift starting lineups in place and a few players stepping onto the court right off the plane.

The NBA has picked the D-League pretty clean, but there are still a number of players toiling in the D-League with legitimate basketball careers ahead of them ... or in their recent past, which should allow them at least another training camp invite).

Players like Durrell Summers (Charlotte Bobcats), Marshall Brown (Portland Trail Blazers) and Casey Mitchell (Miami Heat) all earned camp invites a bit later in the process than most and, if the NBA decision makers are smart, there are a few players that should still be headed to the NBA as camp progresses in the next couple of weeks.

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