I spend the majority of my time GTLing and dominating the local YMCA league, so I miss a lot of news when I'm not available to watch what is happening around the reporting world.

Thank God for technology, however, because I've been able to keep up with everything with just a few simple searches.

After waking up Thursday morning, a handy Google Alert was waiting for me in my Gmail inbox, alerting me that the Rashad McCants-to-Texas-Legends thing is still in a bit of flux according to Percy Miller via ESPN's Marc Stein.  Since it seems McCants will probably be the D-League story of the year in some form of fashion, I'm glad I was able to find out that McCants is represented by Percy Miller (AKA Master P / AKA the leader of the No Limit Soldiers) especially since Stein didn't tweet the link.

I was also able to use this technological advancement called Youtube to find Master P's greatest hits as well as the time he appeared on WCW Nitro and then linked them above. Seriously? Love technology.

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Since Gordon Hayward's halfcourt shot rimmed out, I've been filling my free time with baseball and chocolate milk until the college basketball season was again here. The most encouraging sign of its impending arrival is the preseason top 25, which was announced a few days ago. This year's top teams are ripe with young talent that could overtake the obvious (to me) number one team in the nation, the Duke Blue Devils, who are led by returning seniors Kyle Singler and Nolan Smith. But more on them later. Numbers 25 to 17 for now.

25. San Diego State Aztecs (25-9, lost first round to Tennessee)

The Aztecs bring back all five starters from their Mountain West Championship team. They're anchored by beastly sophomore forward Kawhi Leonard, who's coming off a stellar 13 and 10 freshman campaign. His game is similar to Providence's Jamine Peterson, who went undrafted after being dismissed by Keno Davis. Leonard combines tremendous rebounding IQ with NBA-level length and athleticism and shows it by pulling down 27% of his team's rebounds. He needs to improve shot selection and either develop a reliable outside shot or stop shooting it because his percentages should be higher. With another good season, he could find himself in the first round, helping out a playoff team right away.

Charlie Day Wild Card: Malcolm Thomas, another efficient forward with more size than Kawhi. They'll both be tough to stop for MWC opponents all season.

Continue to count backwards with me after the jump.

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As most that frequent Ridiculous Upside know, the returning/allocated players list is probably more important than which players are in the actual draft.

Thanks to Aol FanHouse (via me), after the jump I have included a list of players that are either returning, allocated or participated in local tryouts and have ended up on D-League training camp rosters.

Hit the jump to see who they are (Hint: They include Maureece Rice)!

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Okay, so I don't actually have a Halloween story to tell you all but I figured a picture is worth 1,000 words (and normally my stories don't even equal 1,000 words so I guess we should be covered, eh?).

The above picture is of Dallas Mavericks President of Basketball Operations and General Manager Donnie Nelson, a man dressed as a pimp wealthy American businessman and a cardboard cutout of Moussa Seck that was posted on the NBA Development League's Texas Legends Facebook page.

Without all of the new technology in our lives, I never would have been able to see the gloriousness that is the picture above.  See, even with simple technology like Facebook, it's enhanced my ability to throw out Friday afternoon posts that do nothing but entertain (myself).  Imagine what might happen when the NBA decides to use the D-League as a league to experiment with new technology instead of new balls.

Wait! Actually, I might have a story.

Seck, a 7-foot-4 center out of Senegal, has played for the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Summer League the past two seasons even though I haven't been able to find anything about him playing any professional basketball otherwise.  In fact, according to his Eurobasket profile (subscription only), Seck "was discovered by a basketball scout in 2006, on the dusty streets of Kaolack, Senegal, a city 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the capital Dakar. He was probably the world's tallest cosmetics street vendor at 7-4."

Interesting story, huh?

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Remember the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons championship team? You know, the one that starred such luminary players as Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, Ben Wallace, Rasheed Wallace and Darvin Ham (among others)?

Well, I'm not sure if that entire team is still friends with each other (I can't imagine Darko Milicic has sent a text to former teammate Tremaine Fowlkes recently), but thanks to the recent New Mexico Thunderbirds local player tryout I am able to confirm that Thunderbirds head coach Darvin Ham is still friends with fellow frontcourt teammate Rasheed Wallace.

"I told him to come on out and feel free to come out and help us out," Ham said of inviting his former teammate to his local player tryout. "He's like, 'yeah, I'm gonna come in and check y'all out but I'm not gonna do too much."

Well, it turns that he did show up - and apparently was the loudest voice in the gym. It's all good, though, because Ham says he calls him "his brother from another mother."

I hope this is the first step into Sheed becoming a coach because that would be really, really entertaining.  

Note: Add an extra 'really' to that last sentence if Wallace is unaware of the new technical foul rules.

If you read one thing about the D-League every morning, make it my Twitter account (I'd say Ridiculous Upside, but I'm slowly transitioning to FanHouse as well). If you read multiple things about the NBA Development League in the morning, I encourage you to check out all of the other regulars as well one site that I don't think gets enough credit in the blogosphere: the unaptly named Potter's New Blog (it's been running since October. Last October).

Jeff Potter, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants' team president, blogs about everything from Miley Cyrus to Project Runway to marathons to even basketball and occasionally drops interesting nuggets like he did in yesterday's column.

Magnum Rolle of the Indiana Pacers was cut yesterday, and I got myself quite happy with the thought of this young big man donning a Mad Ants jersey for us this fall. However, there is a little known codicil in the Faber Constitution that give the D-League powers to smash my dreams. The deadline for players to be cut and eligible for the new allocation rule was last Thursday. Because Magnum was cut yesterday, if he signs in the D-League, he will go straight to the draft.

Um, that's kind of big news for those that had planned for Rolle to be allocated directly to the Mad Ants following his release.  It also will have an effect on a few other recent cuts:

• Los Angeles Clippers - Marqus Blakely (Bakersfield Jam)
• Miami Heat - Da'Sean Butler, Patrick Beverley (Sioux Falls Skyforce)
• New Jersey Nets - Brian Zoubek (Springfield Armor)

It wouldn't be surprising to see Blakely and Zoubek in the D-League (and Beverley if he isn't picked up soon), so this is kind of a large missed opportunity assuming the NBA teams knew about this rule.  Butler probably wouldn't have been worth occupying the Sioux Falls Skyforce 10-man roster as he's still a bit away from a full recovery.

Brian Skinner and Jeff Pendergraph were also waived, though Skinner is old and Pendergraph is out for the season so I can't imagine either might have joined the D-League regardless of when they were released.

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Scottie Reynolds, the first AP All-American to go undrafted since the ABA-NBA merger after starring four years at Villanova, has told his team in Italy that he'll be returning stateside after signing with them in early August.

Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 combo guard, signed with Prima Veroli in Italy's second division shortly after a stint with the Phoenix Suns' Summer League team in which he impressed enough to have earned a training camp invite from the team.  After just four games with the team, though, he apparently became homesick and will return stateside by the end of the weekend.

"The player has expressed a desire to go home and we certainly can not force him to stay against his will," a team official said on the team's website. "With his attorneys we are trying to find a solution, but the player has already made the decision."

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The opening night of the NBA is, well, tonight and even though that makes me happier than Screech the time he and Lisa were husband and wife for a class project, I can't help but look at the past month's roster cuts and think about what might have been.

I mean wouldn't it have been fun if Matt Rogers, the 6-foot-11 center out of Division II Southwestern Baptist University who describes himself as "tall, goofy and different", were able to make the Charlotte Bobcats roster?  Who didn't want to see Anthony Mason (Junior!) sitting on the Miami Heat bench when Pat Riley decides to make his return to coaching? Lance Allred fit right in on the Indiana Pacers, but the NBA's silly 15-player maximum rule did him in and last, but not least, what if Tweety Carter and Longar Longer would have made the Oklahoma City Thunder's roster? We could have a "who has the best name in the NBA" contest and only have included Thunder players!

Instead, we'll be subject to see Melvin Ely, Brian Scalabrine, Joe Alexander, D.J. Mbenga and the always exciting Malik Allen - among others - sitting on the bench while browsing through NBA League Pass Broadband while bored on a Friday night.

Life isn't fair, really. There were 154 players that received some sort of contract during this preseason and just 44 of those players lasted until yesterday's roster cut deadline. There were 42 rookies in camp without guaranteed contracts, but only 11 were able to start their career in the NBA. There were 32 players that played in the D-League last season, but only five start the season with an NBA contract with a return to the D-League being the decision facing the other 27 who were thisclose to sticking this season.

As a reminder as to why life isn't fair, I've decided to list every player that didn't have a guaranteed contract after the jump (with some help from the always lovely ShamSports), breaking it down by players that were able to make today's opening day rosters as well as those that weren't so lucky (have fun in Serbia, Oliver Lafayette!).

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