The Washington Wizards released rookie small forward Kevin Palmer on Thursday, reducing their training camp roster to 17 players including fellow training camp invitees Cartier Martin, Adam Morrison, Lester Hudson and Sean Marks. Though the Wizards have not yet posted a press release on their website announcing Palmer's release, they did remove him from the game notes for tonight's game against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Palmer, a 6-foot-6 swingman out of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, appeared in just one preseason game for the Wizards this fall, grabbing a single rebound in four minutes of action.  Nothing impressive there, but Palmer's performance in the Wizards last Vegas Summer League game - where he made 8-of-14 field goal attempts on his way to 21 points and eight rebounds - is probably what earned him his training camp invitation.

I really have no background on Palmer, so luckily Draft Express's Kyle Nelson has a scouting report on him that was written following this year's Portsmouth Invitational.

Though he has a very skinny and undeveloped upper body, he has good size for the wing at 6'6. His style of play is heavily reliant on his athleticism, from running the floor well in transition to making an impact with his physical tools on the defensive end. While his defensive fundamentals are not great, he has some intriguing things to work with and should only get better with continued coaching and increased strength.

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Palmer is very much an incomplete player at this point and, like Edwin Ubiles, has the potential to transform into a much better player down the road. He will have ample opportunities to develop as a role player the D-League or Europe as he showed some intriguing potential in college and at Portsmouth.

Seeing as Nelson suggests the D-League as a suitable option for Palmer, it will be interesting to see if he decides that developing in Dakota - the Wizards D-League affiliate - makes sense for him career-wise.

Chris Sheridan included former NBA Development League official Kane Fitzgerald in the headline of one his ESPN TrueHoop articles Wednesday, noting that his quick whistle when it came to his calling a pair of technical fouls had "a bigger impact on the outcome of a game than someone such as Kevin Garnett."

Who, you ask, is this Kane Fitzgerald?

He is an 29-year-old NBA referee beginning his second full season who pulled out his best Shag Crawford imitation and gave a quick pair of technical fouls (from 30 feet away) and a full-armed heave-ho to Kevin Garnett in the second quarter of Boston's 104-101 victory -- the latest instance of a referee following the letter of the law and showing zero tolerance as part of the NBA's leaguewide crackdown against griping about or showing physical displeasure with calls.

Once I recognized this name (hat tip to Fort Wayne Mad Ants president Jeff Potter), I immediately looked through the Ridiculous Upside archives to see if Fitzgerald had ever drawn my ire and, disappointingly enough, there were only three articles mentioning the former D-League official.

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The NBA's preseason is a time for experimentation, for players to get in shape, for chemistry to be forged and to rest the team's starters so that some of the backups get a chance to show the coaching staff what they are able to bring to the table outside of practice.

For instance, if one would look at last night's game featuring the Miami Heat and New Orleans Hornets, they would see all sorts of fun things: Marco Belinelli reverting to his 2007 Summer League-self by leading the Hornets with 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting frim the field; Aaron Gray being relatively productive; Pops Mensah-Bonsu playing (!); and LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Mario Chalmers, Eddie House and Carlos Arroyo all picking up DNPs for the Miami Heat, leaving Miami without any true backcourt options aside from Patrick Beverley and former D-Leaguer Kenny Hasbrouck.

Beverley took advantage of his time on the court, filling up the box score with nine points, five rebounds, four assists, four turnovers and a steal before leaving the game after "taking four stitches to his head" according to Heat beatwriter Ira Winderman.

Hasbrouck probably wishes he also could have left early due to needing four stitches to his head because, frankly, the box score tells me he played absolutely awful. 

How awful, you ask?

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It isn't often that I fault players for going to Europe for a big payday instead of playing a few months in the NBA Development League because I understand that with professional basketball players, just like myself and the Wu Tang Clan, cash rules everything around us.

Still, the decision for recent NBA training camp cuts Oliver Lafayette and J.R. Giddens to forego a few months in the D-League while staying relevant with NBA talent evaluators and instead chasing more lucrative European paychecks (Lafayette with Partizan Belgrade and Giddens with Asseco Prokom) has yours truly questioning their decision making process.

Both Giddens and Lafayette ended last season on NBA rosters (Giddens with the New York Knicks, Lafayette with the Boston Celtics) and both were invited to training camps this season (Giddens with the Sacramento Kings, Lafayette sticking with the Celtics) meaning that they were right on the cusp of being a full-time NBA player.  

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The Cleveland Cavaliers announced Wednesday evening that they have waived training camp invites Tasmin Mitchell and Cedric Jackson, reducing their roster to 17 players including fellow training camp invitees Manny Harris, Samardo Samuels and Loren Woods as well as 2009 second round pick Danny Green, whose contract is fully unguaranteed for the upcoming season if waived before opening day.

Mitchell, a 6-foot-7 combo forward out of Louisiana State University, went undrafted in this year's draft but almost immediately decided to sign with the Cavaliers for Summer League where he played all five games and averaged 5.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.2 steals in just over 20 minutes of action.

Jackson, a bit of a surprise for the NBA Development League's Erie BayHawks last season, earned call-ups with the Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs before finishing the season with Washington Wizards.  I've never been his strongest supporter, but his D-League averages of 16.4 points, 7.4 assists, 5.6 rebounds and 2.1 steals from the point guard spot are nothing to scoff at - though his shooting 42% from the field and 27% from beyond the arc is something at which I'd consider scoffing.

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Above is the NBA Development League's new basketball design, courtesy of Utah Flash team president Drew Sellers (via Twitter).

I don't know why it's been changed - I didn't even know they were planning a change - and therefore I'm not quite ready to know what to think about it (I hate change).

Instead, I'll open it up to the three regular readers of Ridiculous Upside ... so, what do you think?

The Fort Wayne Mad Ants announced Monday that Steve Gansey, brother of Mike Gansey, has been named assistant coach for the 2010-2011 season. This will be Gansey's second year with the team, as he served as a volunteer assistant under head coach Joey Meyer during the 2009-2010 season.

I believe I mentioned this on Twitter quite some time ago, but now it's official and I'm always happy to show some love to the Gansey family tree (What up, Mrs. Mazzella?).  The Gansey's are notorious gym rats and I've heard nothing but good things about Steve - and he's got Mad Ants president Jeff Potter gushing about him as well.

"I am extremely excited to have someone as talented as Steve Gansey join our staff. Steve is smart, passionate, and has a work ethic that is second to none," Mad Ants President Jeff Potter said in a press release. "He is one of the top young coaches in our league, and he was a huge part of our strong finish last season. He and Joey make a fantastic coaching staff, and I feel our basketball team is in great hands."

Rumor has it that Rod Wilmont has been in Fort Wayne working with Steve all summer so we should be able to see his player development abilities in action when the D-League season tips off next month.

For bonus coverage featuring Steve, here's brother Mike telling us about Steve's rap battles with former Austin Toro Luke Bonner, here are a couple of his look-a-likes and here Mike includes Steve along with new Utah Flash head coach Kevin Young and new Idaho Associate head coach Joel Abelson as the top assistant coaches in the league.  Looks like Mike knows what he was talking about.

The Houston Rockets announced today that they have added former Marquette guard Jerel McNeal to their preseason roster which probably doesn't make much sense on the surface considering the Rockets had 18 players on their roster before this move was made.

Still, knowing that Daryl Morey is probably the savviest NBA general manager this side of me on NBA 2k11,  I'm willing to make an educated guess that this move has more to do with the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League than anything Rockets related.

Take a walk down memory lane with me, if you will, all the way back to when I broke the D-League's new allocation rule change over at Aol FanHouse:

In accordance with the NBA, the NBA Development League will implement a rule change with regard to how D-League rosters are assembled. Beginning this season, up to three players cut last from the roster of an NBA team before the D-League Draft will be allocated to that team's D-League affiliate provided they sign the standard D-League contract.

Remembering that, along with sources telling me early last week that McNeal was looking at entering the D-League player pool, and this seems like Morey taking advantage of this new rule to ensure that McNeal can play for the Vipers (who utilize the Rockets' system) right out of the blocks instead of having to spend one of the Vipers' early-round draft choices.