D-League Decoded: Mark Madsen's Impact on the Los Angeles D-Fenders

Mark Madsen brings youth, familiarity to SoCal. (jimrome.com)

In mid-May, the Los Angeles D-Fenders — the Lakers' D-League affiliate — announced in a press conference that they hired former Laker forward Mark Madsen to be their new head coach going in to the 2013-14 season. Madsen will replace former coach Reggie Theus, who took a similar job at Cal-State Northridge. Despite only being out of the NBA for four years, Madsen has already held assistant coaching gigs with the NBADL's Utah Flash (now Delaware 87ers) and Stanford before ending up in L.A.

This won't be the first time the D-Fenders have experimented with a former NBA player as the head coach. Theus had a 14-year career in the NBA, but Chucky Brown (part of the 1994-95 NBA Champion Houston Rockets) held the job during the 2009-10 season before being let go.

Were there more deserving coaches that could have been hired over Madsen? Most likely. But the D-League is a business and Madsen has been a relatively big name around Southern California since his playing days at Stanford in the mid to late '90s. Fans are more apt to pay money to go to a game if they recognize a certain player or coach they remember watching. That will be key for Madsen and the D-Fenders because those Laker fans will have nostalgia of when he was performing (or dancing) with the Lakers.

Add that with a good amount of experience both in the D-League and college level and Madsen will probably be a solid fit with the D-Fenders. One of the biggest challenges an NBADL coach faces is the constant change that happens to his roster on a night by night basis. While that won't be much of an issue with a team like the Lakers, who are built around veteran players, Madsen will still have to be creative with his roster and game-by-game rotation on a nightly basis.

One of the better parts of Madsen being with the D-Fenders would probably be his relatively young age (37). Having a young coach like that will not only be helpful to his future as a coach in the world of professional basketball but also helpful to the Lakers organization because they can help nourish his development as a leader. While it would be bizarre to predict his future as a coach in the D-League and the NBA, it's quite possible that he can land an assistant coaching gig like former player Vitaly Potapenko, who was hired to be with Mike Brown in Cleveland. Of course, those dreams and aspirations will have to wait as Madsen and the rest of the D-Fenders are going to have to take that day-by-day journey to reach the mountain tops that the young coach once reached 12 long years ago.

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D-League Decoded: Philadelphia 76ers and the D-League

Philadelphia has a new D-League affiliate in the Delaware 87ers. (nba.com)

Late last month, it was announced that the Philadelphia 76ers acquired the defunct Utah Flash D-League team and moved them to Delaware to become the 87ers (or Sevens per the team's Twitter account).

Previous to this acquisition, the team's affiliate was the Sioux Falls Skyforce, who were co-owned by three other NBA teams, the Timberwolves, Heat and Magic. Of course, if you know anything about geography you would know that Sioux Falls, South Dakota is a long ways away from Philadelphia, which made it hard for the 76ers to use the D-League until now.

Avoiding the team's weird name that's based on the Constitution, the 76ers are now able to use the D-League to their overall advantage to help develop some of their young players. Now, the team is probably going to be facing a huge overhaul after the Andrew Bynum disaster from this past season. With a team that's rebuilding, you're going to have a lot of porspects that will be in need of developing. Sure, the team can immediately put those players on an NBA court but may be at the risk of putting them out there too early.

At this moment, the 76ers have seven players who are 24 years old or younger, which should increase during the upcoming NBA Draft because of their three picks (No. 11, No. 35 and No. 42). Using Delaware as a means of development for those rookies will be crucial for the simple fact that they'll be able to transfer them in between each location. That alone will allow Philiadelphia's front office to use the same approach that teams like Oklahoma City and Golden State used this past season who both had their own D-League team.

Despite being a solid developmental move,  they only assigned one player (Arnett Moultree) during the 2012-13 season, which does make sense of the strange situation the team was going through. With that said, Philadelphia did use the other teams involved in the D-League to call up two players (Shelvin Mack and Justin Holiday) who turned out to be below average pickups but still meant that there was that connection.

Speaking of connection, the 76ers front office hired and assigned Aaron Moszer to be their first team president. This was possibly the best overall hiring for this new ball club because of Moszer's 15-year experience working in the world of minor league sports. Before signing on to Delaware, Moszer worked as the VP of Sales/Marketing for Ripken Baseball, which is one of the top developmental leagues for youth baseball in the US. While helping out the future of the game of baseball, Moszer was also an instrumental part in the inagural season of the Aberdeen Ironbirds who are the Class A affiliate of the Baltimore Orioles. Of course, Moszer won't be in charge of the on-court aspect of the team but will be the key man in charge of making sure things go right in the first season of this team.

Again, we're about six months until the team will open up shop to start its first season so a lot can happen in that time frame, but this is still a great move for the future of a rebuilding Philadelphia 76ers franchise.

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D-League Decoded: Welcome to the Small Show

The Texas Legends pursuing Allen Iverson was one of the biggest D-League stories of the week. (usatoday.com)

Hello readers of Beats, Dimes and Drives. My name is Dakota Schmidt and I'm addicted to basketball. Sure, most of you are also addicted to the sport since you're reading this site, but I'm a little different. You see while most people like the Heat, Thunder or Clippers, I personally like watching the Bucks, Bobcats and the NBA D-League. If you don't know, the D-League is the NBA's minor league where players develop and teams feature creative names like the Mad Ants, Red Claws, Skyforce and — of course — the Bighorns. Yes, the D-League has been around for more than 10 years, but this is quite possibly the greatest season yet with better teams and a vastly improved pool of players. With that said, the D-League is still kind of a hidden commodity so I'm going to take you on a little tour of the best stories from the past week in the NBADL.

1. Rumors that the Texas Legends would be going after Allen Iverson
Around Monday morning, ESPN's Marc Stein reported that the Texas Legends were going after former NBA MVP point guard Allen Iverson, who hasn't played in the United States since his '09-'10 stint with the 76ers. The 37-year-old declined the invite from the Legends after stating on his Twitter account that he thinks that the D-League is a great opportunity for players, but he wanted to complete his "legacy" in the NBA.

I do understand that Iverson would want to go straight into the NBA because he was one of the most popular players in the first half of the 2000's. With that said, it's 2013 and teams aren't really looking forward to acquiring a player in his late 30's when they really don't know how he could still produce after not playing in the league for three seasons.

Iverson's refusal to join the Legends leaves the door wide open for former D-League MVP Justin Dentman, who was acquired last week from the Austin Toros. Dentman may be familiar to NBA fans because he had separate stints last season with the Toronto Raptors and San Antonio Spurs, but he has really made his mark in the D-League, where he helped lead the Toros to a title last season. Dentman is perhaps one of the top scoring guards in the league with a solid mid-range shot and a quick first step that helps him drive to the basket.

2. Toko Shengelia's Monster Night
The young Brooklyn Nets prospect straight out of the country Georgia has seen very limited minutes in his rookie year, which has allowed him to have two separate stints with the Springfield Armor. Springfield has one of the worst records in the D-League, but they were the center of the universe this past weekend simply because of the play of the 6'10" Shengelia. In Friday's game against the Maine Red Claws, Shengelia possibly had the best performance by any player in the D-League this season when he put up a 39 points and 18 rebounds.

While Maine did have a good crop of forwards (Chris Wright, Micah Downs and Fab Melo), Shengelia basically chewed them up and spit them out by being a fiend on the boards and working his mid-range shot to perfection. It's unclear how many times Shengelia will be assigned back to the Armor this season, but it is clear that it will most definitely be must-watch action if he is reassigned.

3. Royce White to the D-League?
The long-winded controversy between first-round pick Royce White and the Houston Rockets appears to be over as White is scheduled to debut with Houston's affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, on Feb. 11. The Rockets have been one of the best teams when it comes to using their D-League counterpart after sending players like Terrence Jones, Donatas Motiejunas and Patrick Beverly to the team so far this season. The main issue between White and the Rockets front office has been White's fear of anything involving flight, which is odd because the D-League flies commercial airlines rather than the private airlines of the NBA.

I've stated my personal opinions about White on my Twitter account, but I think his stint with Rio Grande Valley will prove how important his future as a basketball player really is. Royce's skills are undeniable and he should have a good career in the NBA, but there will always be questions about if he's going to be focused more on his battle with anxiety than with his play on the court.

4. Potential D-League PGs that could replace Rajon Rondo
This past Sunday it was reported that Boston Celtics All-Star point guard Rajon Rondo would miss the rest of the season because of a torn ACL, which only hurts a team that's already fighting to stay in the playoffs. Boston does have a wide variety of combo guards like Avery Bradley, Jason Terry and Leandro Barbosa, but none of those guys are really a pure PG.

The D-League has a wide variety of point guards that official D-League blogger Kevin Scheitrum wrote a piece about earlier this week. The first player that stands out at me has to be Delonte West because he's an NBA veteran who has also played multiple seasons under Celtics head coach Doc Rivers. While he's had a troubled career, West is still a talented player and is definitely worth at least a 10-day contract.

While the rest of the D-League PGs don't have the experience of West, there are still a wide variety of players Boston can choose from. For example, Courtney Fortson of the Los Angeles D-Fenders — the  No. 1 D-League prospect — is the type of high energy player the Celtics could use to energize their squad. Fortson is improving both as a scorer (19.1 PPG) and as a distributer (6.5 APG) while also pulling down 5.3 RPG, which is outstanding when you look at the fact that he's 5'11".

Some other notable PG's in the D-League include Donald Sloan, Andre Barrett, Sean Singletary and Ben Uzoh. Both Sloan and Singletary have experience playing in the NBA and are similar players because they're solid distrubters and are solid shooters. Barrett has been around both the NBA and the D-League since the early days of the league and he's probably the best passer in all of the NBADL. Like Rondo, Andre is never going to be the best shooter around, but he is notching 11.3 assists per game while playing with the Celtics-affiliated Maine Red Claws. That is key, as Barrett would be able to make the smooth transition between leagues because Boston and Maine run similar systems. Last but not least, former Nets guard Ben Uzoh has been one of the top prospects in the league all season long simply because he can do anything on the court from leading an offense to being one of the best rebounders in the league for a guy his size (6'3", 205 lbs.).

5. Rise of DaJuan Summers
Former Pistons/Hornets forward DaJuan Summers has been of the more pleasant surprises in the D-League so far with the Red Claws. Now of course people know about his talent since his college days with Georgetown, but he's really exploded as the third forward on that Red Claws team. The team was going into the season expecting things out of Micah Downs and Chris Wright, and they have definitely produced in their roles but Summers has been the standout player since being signed in early December. Recently DaJuan had a career night against the Springfield Armor where he put up 34 points and 10 rebounds but only to get out-shined by Toko Shengelia who had that outstanding game I previously talked about.

DaJuan might not be the best player you've ever seen play but he's really worth taking the time out of your schedule to take a look at him like a lot of the other talent in the D-League.

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