The CBA "If" Draft of 2007
MAJORBLOGS.NET - The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) concluded the “If” draft two weeks ago.
“If” the player selected isn’t going to the NBA’s Development League (D-League) or taking part in their November annual draft, and “if” they will forego bigger money to play for Norway or Greece or Turkey and “if” they will come away without competing offers from the ABA, IBL, or another hoops-hand-hungry league, then they’ll make a swell CBA pick.
This was largely the repeated riffs of commentary from the CBA scouts in the live draft show from the Holiday Inn Parkway East in Pittsburgh, PA., nerve center of the 2007 CBA draft.
The webcast, which was marred by frequent audio problems, had a little of the magic of its grander NBA cousin with a heapin’ helpin of garage-style YouTube video production. Maybe they should have got the ‘Leave Britney Alone’ guy to shoot it. It stayed on time. A few media wags some teams having draft parties, and a smattering of fans tuned in. Players were the obvious intended audience, particularly with what became the running advertisement for the CBA: More playing time.
The D-League is still not big enough to do one-to-one player development for the NBA, where the jury is still out on Commissioner Stern's grand experiment. The configuration of the D-League this season will still not cure the ills that Miami Heat boss Pat Riley mentioned last year: Too many players, and not enough playing time. The CBA's recruiting commercial, er draft, was pitching the wide open spaces of their benches and courts.
Most NBA clubs are still doubling up on D-League teams, which means fewer spaces on that bench and less playing time for every player on the team trying to get their shot.
The pitch will work well with a select few players who are on the edge of swimming in the D-League talent pool. Those not selected to teams are put in the pool, and float out as needs arise. For someone in that situation, a CBA gig would seem like a better bet.
Caleb Green, the No. 1 pick in the CBA draft for 2007, was a good call. He'd fall in the middle of the D-League pack coming out of Oral Roberts University. The number one feather, and playing closer to home for the Oklahoma Cavalry might lure him into a little more of a showcase in the CBA.
Quibbling Brothers
The D-League and the CBA are halves of the same self. The NBA lacks expertise at operating in small markets. The CBA has the managerial and operational talent, but is down-river on the talent stream enough that the D-League can shut it down to a trickle from their bigger ranch up-river.
One size fits all: The initial NBDL concept was a top-down,
league-owned system where the teams, as indicated by their
generic logos, above, were as soulless as packaged paper goods
on a shelf. The D-League as an appendage of the NBA is an evolving thing. Remember back when the NBDL launched, those crazy logos that were IDENTICAL other than the color scheme for the founding clubs, which were all NBA owned? Hiroshima was only a slightly bigger disaster.
The D-League as it stands is an experiment, an after-thought to most GMs and owners at the NBA level. Most D-League staffers are the guys and gals trying to impress their NBA masters and then get the heck out of dodge to the NBA's primary level, which is where they all wanted to be in the first place. They want to do well to move up in the organization, but they lack the focus and commitment to this niche level of the market of basketball fans to really make the development system fly.
Sure the D-League was able to "borrow" a few of the top-line CBA clubs to expand its roster. The CBA can expect them to be back looking for that cup of sugar again, as the D-League will need to expand or close. Unless there is change, the CBA may spend more of its time developing clubs for the D-League than players. Yet without that quality management, what does the D-League do, other than NBA affiliation and a handful of games on NBA-TV, to help promote the minor league game build market share for the sport through a player development system, as baseball and hockey have done?
The D-League needs bright, passionate guys like Truax, Richardson, and coaches like Chris Daleo to take a lot of the quality guys coming out of the just-missed on the draft and the D-II schools who didn't shine as well, and turn them into real NBA prospects.
You have great management of a well-run CBA that used to be a player feeder for decades. You have a D-League in need of further expansion, and more aggressive management of its day-to-day by dedicated minor league career people to help keep it flowing talent to NBA benches. Why is this so hard to put together?
The ghost of Isaiah Thomas still haunts the CBA. His failure to strike a deal with Stern to sell the CBA to the NBA was a crushing blow that has dislocated the player development system, and made it far harder for both the once-dominant CBA to recruit players in drafts like these and for the D-League to get the kind of bold, entrepreneurial club system and dynamic coaching that are still hallmarks of the CBA system.
The D-League and the better-run CBA are still halves of the same broken system. Until Stern fixes the problem, the D-League will never really run with the heart of the CBA, and the CBA will be largely crippled in its ability to attract top talents, forced to take the left-overs from the D-League and the foreign systems.
The "If" draft and the "iffy" league need to be one whole again. The fans, coaching staffs, players, and clubs, deserve better.
Brian Ross
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