It's been suggested here before that the NBA D-League needs to change it's name to more accurately reflect the nature and talent level of the league. With an abundance of misconceptions out there, it's no surprise to followers of the D-League that player assignments tend to drawn some fire from sports beat writers across the nation, but a recent article out of Houston took the NBA D-League haterade to a new level.

The author contends that the D-League is not nearly as mature as MLB’s farm system and that an assignment to the D-League is a demotion. These points are certainly open for discussion, however; when he labeled all NBA D-League players as ‘scrubs’ he showed his unfamiliarity with the D-League and its current level of play.

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This story isn't about "Linsanity".

This isn't about Jeremy Lin going undrafted out of Harvard, signing with the Golden State Warriors, being waived twice over by the Warriors and Houston Rockets, claimed by the New York Knicks and surviving another cut four days before transforming into the Messiah of Madison Square Garden.

This isn't about Lin becoming the Knicks' first player (along with center Jerome Jordan) to be assigned to their D-League affiliate, the Erie Bayhawks, last month or entering the league as the NBA's first American-born player of Taiwanese or Chinese descent or his open devout Christian faith.

This story isn't even about Lin blowing up this past week by scoring 89 points in his first three starts with the Knicks, featuring his latest miracle on Friday night in New York against the Los Angeles Lakers: a career-high 38 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 2 steals and shooting 56.5% from the field.

Instead, the feel-good story of this NBA season is a testament to a young player's overall development in the D-League, deeply rooted in two stints during the 2010-11 season with the Reno Bighorns.

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The NBA Development League has found more than its fair share of players looking for an NBA comeback this season as everyone from Greg Ostertag to Ricky Davis to Rafer Alston to Jerome James have decided playing in the D-League would give them the best chance to make it back to the big leagues.

The newest player to decide to give the D-League a shot, Kareem Rush, is another name people should recognize. The 31-year-old shooter was given solid role player minutes with the Los Angeles Lakers, Charlotte Bobcats and Indiana Pacers in between an otherwise injury-riddled career that seemingly ended when he tore his ACL in 2009.

It looked like that would probably be it for Rush's basketball career as he ventured into R&B; singing, even getting National Anthem honors at a recent Lakers-Pacers game, but the older brother of Brandon Rush announced on Twitter Thursday night that he plans to enter the D-League.

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The NBA Development League isn't the most glorious place to play basketball considering the bus rides from Bismarck, N.D., to Sioux Falls, S.D., and the occasional spending of major holidays with teammates at a gas station diner. As the great lyricist Hannah Montana once sang, though, life's what you make it -- and it seems some NBA players being assigned to the D-League get that while others, frankly, do not.

There have been two out-of-the-rotation NBA players sent to the D-League this week as the Philadelphia 76ers assigned forward Craig Brackins while the Houston Rockets re-assigned Marcus Morris following a couple of weeks of rehab on an injured ankle.

Brackins plans to take advantage of the playing time opportunity he'll been given with the Maine Red Claws, while Morris has shown no indications he's happy about the move ... and, unfortunately, it seems the Rockets' beat writers have backed him up on that crusade.

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The NBA Development League has shown that it isn't all about development this season, disproving its own name by taking on reclamation projects like Rafer Alston, Greg Ostertag, Jamaal Tinsley and Mike James as they all look for a way back to the big show. Those players' NBA comebacks pale in comparison the newest player to sign with the D-League.

Former NBA center Jerome James signed a contract with the league on Tuesday, according to league sources, and will find out his new team sometime after clearing waivers Thursday afternoon. The 36-year-old big man is apparently attempting an NBA comeback after playing a total of four regular season games since the 2006-07 season.

The comeback seems, at least at first glance, to be an ill-fated one.

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Gerald Green was the top-ranked player in his high school class, a first round pick in the 2005 NBA Draft, the NBA Slam Dunk Contest winner in 2007 ... and then sort of disappeared off of the face of the earth as he struggled to find playing time from the end of the bench with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks. The 26-year-old swingman is working his way back toward relevancy, however, while playing in the NBA Development League for the Los Angelels Lakers' D-League team, the L.A. D-Fenders.

It couldn't have been easy to decide to try and change the perception of his being a freak athlete with no discernible basketball IQ to speak of while swallowing his pride and joining the Eric Musselman coached D-Fenders, but it seems there might be a happy ending in the not-so-distant future.

The NBA was able to begin offering 10-day contracts on Monday and, as if on cue, Green busted out the big guns in the D-Fenders game that evening. The NBA veteran hit eight of his 11 shots from beyond the three-point arc en route to 35 points and seven rebounds in Los Angeles's victory over the visiting Erie BayHawks.

Highlights of the game are embedded below (Turn up the volume at about the one minute mark to hear the best part as the always-excellent Eric Rothman mentions Green's "ridiculous upside").

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It wasn't long ago that I led off a post over at Pro Basketball Talk with the old D-League adage that "nobody's goal should be to break all-time records while playing in the NBA Development League" because it essentially means that the player has probably spent too much time playing in the minor league when more lucrative overseas options were likely available.

It'd be quite negligent of this here blog, however, if we didn't point out the fact that Blake Ahearn became the D-League's all-time leading scorer over the weekend. The 6-foot-3 guard has amassed 3,457 points in 171 D-League games, surpassing the 3,398 points Desmon Farmer scored during his four seasons in the D-League.

Hopefully Ahearn doesn't have to add too many points on to that total as he's having a pretty outstanding season for Paul Mokeski's Reno Bighorns.

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Over the weekend, your's truly argued that the NBA Development League needs to change its name considering it seems the "Development" portion of the D-League's name is a bit out of date. A couple of newly-signed players show that isn't always the case, however.

Point guards Ish Smith and Devan Downey have signed D-League contracts as they look to further their basketball careers, according to a league source. Smith will find a team when he clears waivers on Tuesday while Downey, a former SEC scoring champion, cleared waivers on Friday along with NBA veteran Rafer Alston.

It's a surprising move for Smith to sign with the D-League considering just one month ago he was starting for the Golden State Warriors as an injury replacement for Stephen Curry, but it shows he wants to get back to the NBA as quick as possible -- and the D-League is likely going to be his quickest route.

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