Bakersfield Jam Shuttering is Black Eye for Commissioner Stern and NBA

MAJORBLOGS.net - 05.02.09 -Minor league teams come and go, but for NBA D-League, back-stopped by the full-faith and credibility of the National Basketball Association, the news Thursday from the Bakersfield Jam, affiliate of the Golden State Warriors and the Orlando Magic, that they would cease operations, is a particularly big blow to the D-League program because these owners had something to say on their way out.

The release, carried by MLN - The Raw Feed yesterday, stated:

(Bakersfield, Calif., April 30, 2009) –The Bakersfield Jam, proud affiliate of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and Orlando Magic announced yesterday that the organization will cease operations, effective immediately.

The decision from owners Stan Ellis and David Higdon to shut down the team was announced to the Jam front office staff Wednesday afternoon. “It’s not a reflection on the economy”, Ellis said. “Our other businesses are doing very well. It’s simply this: we have other business opportunities out there that are scary phenomenal – they’re great. There is so much more potential in those businesses that it’s not fair to the other 300 people we employ to continue to incur the losses of the Jam.”

The contentious part of Ellis and Higdon's parting shot at professional basketball was this statement:

Ellis continued, “When you have bad business deals that start to go south, you cut your losses and go on to the next one. This is a simple business decision.” When commenting on the move to cease operations, Higdon echoed Ellis. “No one has told us we made a bad business decision.”

That affiliating with the NBA can be called a "bad business deal" and that exiting was essentially a good business move says a lot, but none of it good for the Jam's owners, the D-League, or the players and fans who are short-changed here.

To Messers Ellis and Higdon:

This is a sports venture, not a solar panel farm. If you wanted the latest hottest investment, minor league sports is not it, nor was it ever going to be it. Any lawyer with half a brain in their head advising you should have clued you in on that secret if they did a shred of due diligence.

Minor league sports teams require institutionalization in a community to develop the loyal following that they need to succeed. You did some, but clearly not enough, of that.

In this nano-second world of immediate gratification, the battle plan for running five or ten years to establish a successful sports franchise, particularly one bucking the billions-dollar machine of the NCAA, and an NBA ownership that remains highly skeptical about the value of the D-League, should have been in the front office playbook for the Jam from the outset.

Losses in the start-up of a developmental league in development itself are a given. Fair to your 300 other employees? If you wanted to keep them out of harm's way, you should never have signed on the dotted line to begin with. D-League club ownership is more ego trip than business deal, and you sound smart enough to know that.

Still, you are not alone on the hook for this failure. The Warriors and/or the Magic needed to invest in the community as well, because it is there name on the door along with yours. The Dodgers made a big deal of coming back to Albuquerque this year from their major league press office. The Atlanta Thrashers are proud of their Chicago Wolves affiliate. Where was the love from Golden State or the Big-O?

The NBA has done a pretty pitiful job of supporting its D-League in its mainstream media operations. Its D-League division has done as well as they possibly could to get the word out, but without the help of the NBA main office institutionalizing the player development system in the minds of fans and players by making it relevent, all is lost. Clubs in the NBA need to make the same adoption of a city and their farm system that the MLB and NHL clubs do. That means press releases. That means showing the farm city a little love with an exhibition game once a year that fills in the seats and makes people think more positively about the D-League team's connection to the NBA.

If there is one door for the NBA Draft players and another door for the D-League-drafted players than the NBA D-League is not a development system; It is a temp agency for hoopists. Have basketball, will travel.

The major league clubs need to make a development investment that has their particular team name on it when they draft every player.

This business of one tier of players assigned and another tier that can be shuffled, like so many wooden pegs, to this or that NBA team on demand, is about as stupid an idea as allowing SFX Entertainment to run the top-down McLeague concept that was the NBDL.

It not only sullies the D-League or NBDL brand. It sullies the NBA brand. MLB and the NHL can operate successful minor leagues and benefit from them. The NBA, which is supposed to be one of the smartest marketing operations in sports, looks more like MLS when one of their Triple-A player development franchises goes bust.

It goes beyond business though, right to the core of a DEVELOPMENT system.

Keeping all D-League players in LINEAR development systems that end with a shot at a particular NBA bench helps the mindset of the players. They work towards the purpose of fitting into one club, not just any club.

The generic developmental player does not help attract fans either. There are the few A-listers from the NBA clubs on these D-League teams, then there is, as one fan related to me "everyone else." Whether you are an NBA fan or a D-League fan, knowing that your player is connected up the feeding chain, even if only by a contract, means that they have a shot at your club's bench. A real shot. That kind of connectivity keeps fans interested in the players up and down the system.

So I'm going to say it once more: The NBA needs to man-up:

• One draft with more rounds;
• All players under contract to an NBA club directly;
• One-for-one relationships with NBA and D-League clubs, even if you have to do what the Lakers do, and set up a team that plays in the same building, to remove Pat Riley's objection that there is not enough space for players to develop, or to end the frustration of great coaches like the Idaho Stampede's Bryan Gates at having to try to develop kids for two seperate major league playbooks;
• NBA Club PR departments have to support and plan events to include the communities in which their branding is served that include their minor league towns;
• End the half-hearted support of the hard work of the D-League operations and media staff by the NBA's main PR department and by NBA-TV attitudinally. These players are prospects. They are the focus;
• Put all rookies through the D-League system. ALL ROOKIES. Even if someone is that good that they can clear camp and start for the NBA club, assign them to a D-League squad in camp. The top-tiers of the draft must pass through the player development system, if this really is a player development system.

If the NBA Owners cannot wrap their head around this, then the best intentions of Commissioner Stern and the NBA head office are well-meaning but, to paraphrase ol' Willy Shakes', full of sound and fury, but signifying NOTHING.

Shutter the D-League, and let the CBA teams that you swallowed up go back to being the CBA, and do what they have done well for longer than the NBA has been around: Play respectable ball. You can buy their contracts for supporting cast as you once did.

With this kind of support for the efforts of minor league owners and staff, signing on with the NBA brand may have been a bad deal. There is no reason that the NBA should not be able to support its developmental league at least as well as the NHL. Yes, hoops fans. Your owners are being punked by the pucks proprietors.

If they cannot make money with the outstanding quality of players being put on a D-League court in a decent market like Bakersfield, then owners like Ellis and Higdon are right to shut their doors and tell the NBA to go stick it, even if they were a little starry-eyed while inking the deal in the first place.

My shiny two.