Making the D-League a minor league system. Options

[Quinarvy]

One thing I really like about the MLB is the farm system. It allows for more trades and lets teams develop players.

It also creates scrapheap super finds (De Aza).

So, here's my idea for making the D-League a real system.

1) Each team gets a dedicated D-League team, no more sharing teams.

2) Each team should be relatively close to their home team (100 mile radius?) which would develop interest in local fans seeing them.

3) Let NBA teams draft high school players, but they have to play a year for the D-League team. Then can be called up. Adds some interest there.

And as for a maybe:

4) Bring back something along the lines of the territorial picks, but they have to play a season in the D-League, so players might just opt to go to college and be drafted the normal way. Can only use a territorial pick every five years.

A way this would work:

Say the Bulls have a D-League team in Aurora, Rockford, Joliet, or Naperville. Let's say Aurora for the sake of discussion.

After the 06-07 season, the Bulls like this Rose kid from Chicago. They take him with their territorial pick. He goes to the Aurora for a year, instead of Memphis. Still plays for Bulls, which is why I picked him.

[Jake]

It certainly would be cool in theory, but I have to think the NBA would have looked into this to some extent. Is this something that the NCAA wouldn't like? Does the NCAA really have leverage over the NBA?

Looking at it now, some NBA teams already have their own NBDL teams -- a potential problem may be sustaining more franchises in a league that no one cares about. But as you said, perhaps the situation would create interest. The thing that makes MLB minor leagues more popular to some extent at least is the fact that it really doesn't compete with the NCAA. For all intents and purposes, no one cares about NCAA baseball. The non-MLB baseball they'll see is the local MiLB team.

Can you convince a hardcore Illini fan to start going to an NBDL game when everyone's time for this sort of event is limited?

[Quinarvy]

It certainly would be cool in theory, but I have to think the NBA would have looked into this to some extent. Is this something that the NCAA wouldn't like? Does the NCAA really have leverage over the NBA?

Looking at it now, some NBA teams already have their own NBDL teams -- a potential problem may be sustaining more franchises in a league that no one cares about. But as you said, perhaps the situation would create interest. The thing that makes MLB minor leagues more popular to some extent at least is the fact that it really doesn't compete with the NCAA. For all intents and purposes, no one cares about NCAA baseball. The non-MLB baseball they'll see is the local MiLB team.

Can you convince a hardcore Illini fan to start going to an NBDL game when everyone's time for this sort of event is limited?

Well the thing is, it hurts the NCAA for sure. Some kids will jump right to pros. The NCAA stars go back to being the juniors and seniors who developed.

Meanwhile, the out of high school phenoms give star power to NBDL. Say a team is in Joliet. People might go see their teams players develop on that stage.

Crowds will follow the talent.