Welcome to the D-League: "They Have What We Want"

I rarely remember anything that the person I'm interviewing says. As an unskilled interviewer myself, I’m more focused on trying to get the next words out of my mouth without sounding like a total idiot or slipping up on my words (which, well, happens all the freaking time. Just go and look at any one of my interviews with the Cardinal Channel. Anytime I look good in any of those videos is because of the editing job done behind the scenes by Bud Anderson, Hunter Armor, Anthony Benares or Mike Johnstone. Trust me – interviewing is not my forte).

But at Summer League in Las Vegas last July, things were different for one Q&A. The NBA D-League Select team was fresh off a win over the Denver Nuggets late on a Wednesday night in a game in which barely anybody bothered to stick around and watch, and I had the chance to speak with Tre Kelley, a guy whose game I had admired from afar while watching him destroy opposing defenses on YouTube (he probably indirectly sent the Santa Cruz Warriors to the 2013 D-League finals after his 4^th quarter performance in Game 2 of a first round series with the Austin Toros against the Bakersfield Jam; the Jam went 4-1 against Santa Cruz that year and were the last team the Sea Dubs needed to see in the semifinals). I was looking forward to finally get a chance to speak to the former South Carolina Gamecock.

The interview started off normal enough, but I’ll never forget Kelley’s response when I asked him about D-League Select having a collective chip on its shoulder playing against NBA teams in Summer League.

“They have what we want.”

There was more to the response, but that's the part that struck me right away. I don’t think there is a better five-word phrase to describe a D-Leaguer’s mindset, be it player, coach, staffer, whoever.

They have what we want.

You’re in the D-League because you’re chasing a dream – to play or work in the NBA, something you’ve aspired to your whole life. There are much better opportunities to get paid elsewhere in basketball outside of the D-League if you’re a player; there are much better opportunities to get paid elsewhere in life if you’re not lacing ‘em up.

But you’re in the D-League to reach that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, fueled by doubters or maybe your own self-doubts.

That phrase will stick with me as long as I am able-minded. It might not translate well in the video above (which, yes, I know, has horrible audio quality. Our budget for Summer League included our iPhone cameras and that’s it), but I could sense the hunger in Kelley; he was seething for a chance to finally make it through a training camp and stick on an NBA roster. He was ‘bout it (it hasn’t worked out yet for Kelley, who is now playing in Italy according to RealGM, but there's always the chance that we’ll see him back in the states at some point for another go at his NBA dream).

Now it’s time for a new D-League season, filled with new teams, new coaches and new players. It’s time for more guys to grind away in hopes of fulfilling that lifelong dream.

It’s one reason why I love working in the D-League so much. Like the music I listened to growing up, the D-League is the basketball underground; it's backpack basketball. The D-League is “The Life of The Party” remix by Little Brother; it’s full of the best basketball players in your apartment complex. Not rich enough to have their own crib, but dammit, they can play, even if you don't really know who they are because who do you really talk to in your apartment complex, anyway?

Outside of basketball circles (and even in some -- just ask Larry Brown), it's a league that gets little respect. I was listing for a friend of mine all the broadcasting jobs I do, and he asked me, “so which one of those is the highest-profile, the high school football gig?”

I nonchalantly responded, “Nah, it’s my radio gig with the Santa Cruz Warriors,” but inside, I was sort of pissed like the Utah women's basketball team was after being picked to finish 11th in the Pac-12 this year (yes, I just made a reference you almost certainly didn't get so I could link to an article I wrote three weeks ago). Are you serious? High school football players, more prestigious than professional athletes?!  It served as a reminder that I have to keep plugging away.

I’m far from being polished enough to score super-duper major broadcasting gigs, which is why the D-League is a great place for me personally. Hella games means hella reps. Archived games on YouTube just allows me more practice time. Do I want to one day do NBA radio? Hell yeah; no doubt about it. But I’m in no hurry to jet from the D-League, a place that has given me a platform to hone what I want to be my craft for the rest of my life.

The best thing about the D-League is that you have to grind to survive and advance, to borrow NCAA tournament terminology. It’s the only way; you can’t survive on $25K (around the highest allotted salary for a player) forever.

It’s time for the games to begin, and I can’t wait to get my verbs straight, to work to get to the point where every action on the court is narrated by a descriptive-and-not-repetitive action verb to come out of my mouth. I can’t wait to hit the road and stay in hotels that aren’t five-star accommodations (for the most part, the hotels are usually pretty decent, but you know who you are if a place is known to have bugs in its towels and Pepsi cans with 1990s labels in the soda machine…).

The next five months are going to be filled with 185-175 games between the Reno Bighorns and Rio Grande Valley Vipers (featuring 115 combined three-point attempts and 70 combined turnovers) and four-and-a-half-hour bus rides from Sioux Falls to Des Moines. May the spirit of Tre Kelley be with everyone trying to grind their way to The Association.