Rockets, NBA begin to reap rewards from D-League

MCALLEN — The time on the fourth-quarter clock was running out, and so was most of the 17-point lead that had appeared safely tucked into the hip pocket of the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

The ball went from the high post, down into the corner, then back out to the key, where Steve Novak caught the pass, did a nifty spin move away from his defender and buried an 18-foot jumper.

A minute later, after a timeout, the play drawn up in the huddle had the ball finding Novak again. This time, he stroked a 24-footer from the left wing to finish with 26 points and a 6-for-6 night from behind the 3-point line in a 132-125 victory over the Idaho Stampede.

After spending his rookie season mostly glued to the bench, the second-round pick in the 2006 draft by the Rockets was moving and shooting on the outside, hustling and muscling on the inside, and doing the necessary things to develop his skills and confidence.

"There is only so much that you can do in drills and practice," said Novak, a 6-10 forward. "Playing in game situations, getting back into a rhythm, it means so much. Basketball is a huge part of my world, my identity. And to make the step to that next level, I definitely needed this."

This is the NBA Development League, more popularly called the D-League, consisting of 14 teams stretching from Fort Wayne to Los Angeles, from Boise to the Rio Grande Valley. Now in its seventh season, the D-League is blossoming into the full-fledged feeder system for talent that NBA commissioner David Stern envisioned.

"I couldn't be happier," Stern said. "We very much wanted to have a minor league that could be like Triple-A baseball to the NBA, and I think we're moving rapidly in that direction."

Ten percent of all players in the NBA have had D-League experience: Matt Barnes and Kelenna Azubuike of Golden State, Rafer Alston and Chuck Hayes of the Rockets, Martell Webster of Portland and Matt Carroll of Charlotte, to name a few.

Attendance has increased roughly 30 percent this season across the D-League. The Vipers, a first-year franchise, are regularly drawing near-capacity crowds to their 5,000-seat Dodge Arena in Hidalgo.

What fans in each city are getting is a level of talent that is dramatically improving. What NBA teams are getting is a training ground for younger players, coaches and, possibly, club executives.

The question now is: How will the D-League continue to grow and serve the NBA?


To buy or not to buy
There are two ownership models. The San Antonio Spurs and Los Angeles Lakers purchased their own D-League franchises. The Rockets and 27 other NBA teams have little financial investment and share a loose affiliation with other D-League teams.

The Spurs, winners of four NBA titles in the past nine seasons and often called the "model franchise" of the 21st-century NBA, chose to jump into the D-League pool. That means they control the hiring of coaches and staff, the signing and development of all players. And that means a young player who is brought in to play for the Austin Toros can have the offensive and defensive philosophies — as well as the intangibles — of the parent club instilled and hammered home.

"One of the things we have found is that even for veteran players, let alone young players, it takes a year to become comfortable in your Spurs skin," San Antonio general manager R.C. Buford said. "It's a big change when you're coming into such a structured system that also comes with a set of expectations that may not be the case in other places. So we think it's very valuable from that standpoint.

"Also, in the next couple of years, we're looking at retooling our roster at some point, as Tim (Duncan) and Manu (Ginobili) and some of our bench players are getting older. We've also got a group of players in Ian Mahinmi (first-round pick, 2005) right now and Tiago Splitter (first-round pick, 2007) a year from now who need to play. We're finding a hard time creating learning opportunities on the parent club.

"We didn't have to buy the club. But we felt the more we could control those developmental opportunities, the more we were assuring ourselves. We could control the strength training, the on-court training, the coaching."

That control did not come cheap. The Spurs paid roughly $1 million to buy the Toros and have all of the operating expenses They hired their own coach in Quin Snyder.

"My hope is that we develop one player in a three-year period more quickly than we would have here," Buford said. "That we find one player in a three-year period in the D-League that we might not have focused on the other way. That we develop one staff member, whether a training staff member or assistant coach, in a three-year period."


Rockets tread lightly
The Rockets, though making use of the D-League by sending Novak and first-round pick guard Aaron Brooks for stints with the Vipers, are more cautious in their approach. They share their Vipers affiliation with the Cleveland Cavaliers and New Orleans Hornets.

"We're big supporters of the D-League concept and sending our players there," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said. "But in moving that to an investment in a team — and we've shared this with the commissioner — our interest getting past this early stage goes up if teams became closer to what you think of with minor league baseball."

Currently, as bargained with the National Basketball Players Association, only first- and second-year NBA players can be assigned to the D-League. Those players must count against the 15-man NBA roster, and all other "unassigned" players on D-League teams can be signed as free agents with any NBA club.

"I don't think it's a monetary thing but a structural thing," Morey said. "If we're making a major investment of time and staff and energy in a player, the fact that he could go to another team is a major difficulty to us."

The Spurs could develop 2007 second-round pick Marcus Williams (not on the NBA roster) in Austin and then lose him.

The Spurs believe in their commitment. Team owner Peter Holt was one of the most avid proponents of buying the D-League franchise. He also is looking at marketing opportunities in Austin.

With younger players in recent years, the NBA sees the D-League as a way to improve the quality of players at the upper level. Stern envisions a time when there are 30 D-League franchises and a one-to-one relationship with NBA clubs.

"Affiliate is the right word," he said. "As long as the relationship is good on the basketball side and there is cooperation in terms of marketing. I don't know that every NBA team owning a D-League team is our manifest destiny. There are always different strategies."


Differing philosophies
And different results — which put the Rockets and Spurs on opposite ends of the court again.

"I don't understand where the investment works for them," Morey said.

But the Spurs were at the forefront of the international player wave, too.

"Economically, under the current collective bargaining situation, it doesn't make a lot of sense," Buford said. "We're approaching it like research and development. We've got to look forward."

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