D-LEAGUE VALUE EVIDENT IN BOBCATS MINI-CAMP

He chose the latter, and it has made all the difference.

The Bobcats called Carroll up from the Roanoke (Va.) Dazzle in February. He finished the last 25 games of the season averaging 9.0 points and 2.4 rebounds. For Carroll, choosing to play in the NBA's developmental league was a worthwhile investment.

“If you want to get to the NBA and you hit it big, it’s like hitting the stock market big,” Carroll said. “You take a risk and it pays off, and that’s what it did for me.”

Carroll isn’t the only success story out of the D-League, as the NBA’s developmental league is known. More than 100 players have been called up to the NBA since the league began four years ago. Three of Carroll's teammates on the Bobcats’ summer league squad – forward Antonio Meeking and guards Rashad Phillips and Terrance Simmons - are trying to follow his path to the NBA.

The NBDL players could be called the interns of the NBA. They work for a fraction of what they could make elsewhere and there’s none of the glamour of a top league. But as Carroll said, it’s an investment that can pay big dividends.

After all, this isn’t the German Bundesliga or the CBA. It’s the NBA’s own league and has the purpose of getting players to the Big Show. It helps hopefuls get the connections, experience and exposure needed to climb that ladder.

“I’m trying to get here, man, trying to get to the NBA” Meeking said. “Guys have a tendency to go overseas and get lost in the system, so it was a sacrifice for me. I sacrificed two years and a lot of money to stay here. But I felt like it wasn’t about the money; it was about getting into the NBA.”

Bobcats assistant Jeff Capel also has an NBDL connection, coaching the Fayetteville Patriots for two seasons prior to joining Charlotte. He said not only has the NBDL become the top U.S. minor league with a pipeline to the NBA, but it helps players learn NBA rules that are different than those found in college and other leagues. For starters, the NBA doesn’t limit players to three seconds of man-on-man defense, while perimeter players have to find their touch from the longest three-point line in the world.

“In some of the other minor leagues and European leagues, it’s good basketball, but they don’t use NBA rules,” he said. “The D-League is a copy of the NBA. It gives a player a realistic look at how the game is played.”

And now the NBDL can give more players that experience. Under the new collective bargaining agreement, players as young as 18 can suit up for one of the league’s teams, making it comparable to Major League Baseball as a minor league for the NBA. That’s something Carroll welcomes as a way to give more players opportunities, as long as they have the patience to wait for their break.

“The guys who are the younger first- or second-year players are lucky,” Carroll said. “They might not think so. They might look at the NBDL and see it’s a little bit different lifestyle than the NBA has. You’re sharing apartments like you're in college again, riding 10-hour bus rides and not staying at the Ritz Carlton. That’s not what it’s all about. It’s about getting ready to get in this league.”

Phillips knows this after playing for the now-defunct Mobile Revelers in his first season out of college. He’s taken a “no pain, no gain” mentality to the experience. If the long hours spent on the bus and the evenings spent at fast-food joints and roadside motels are the pain, the gain might just be that much sweeter.

“That’s life, man,” Phillips said. “Life is about changes, it’s about trials and tribulations. If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll make you stronger.”

By Kevin Hilgers, BobcatsBasketball.com