The Detroit Pistons have had a disappointing season overall and that includes their G-League affiliate the Motor City Cruise.
For a young team with so many injuries, it’s disappointing that the Pistons couldn’t use their two-way contracts to find players with some promise. They’ve gotten next to nothing from their G-League affiliate, which is a knock against their player development this season.
But the G-League itself is part of the problem, as there isn’t much motivation to actually develop players who can leave at any time to join another NBA team. With only two players really connected to the parent team, the G-League is far different from the minor leagues of baseball, where teams can develop players at all levels with the goal of them someday joining the team or being traded as part of a package deal.
I was chatting with Detroit Pistons’ Twitter regular, Rudy, who represents the Canadian delegation, and we bounced around some ideas of how to improve the G-League. To be fair, the G-League is still in its nascent stage, already producing some top NBA prospects, and Scoot Henderson is going to make that path even more appealing when he gets drafted in the top-5.
But as it continues to evolve, here are some tweaks that the NBA and G-League could make to make it a true minor league system.
Detroit Pistons: 3 tweaks to improve the G-League
Add more two-way contracts
One way to make the G-League more useful would be to expand the number of two-way contracts teams can use. This would allow teams to have a couple of young developmental players, but also keep a veteran or two that could step in when needed.
Even if teams didn’t want the “break in case of emergency” veteran, they would have more players under team control and learning their system. This would create more connection and continuity between the NBA team and its affiliate.
Link every G-League player to the affiliate NBA team
I have to give Rudy credit for this one, and I like it, even though it would represent a fairly dramatic shift in how things are currently done.
I’d be fine if every player on the G League team was linked with the parent club. The G League feels dumb with only 2 players on the roster controlled by the parent team
— Rudy (@rudyjuly2) March 28, 2023
I would love to see the G-League go the route of Major League Baseball and have the affiliate team connected to each guy. This would allow the G-League teams to build actual teams, increase the level of competition and reduce the mercenary aspect of the current G-League where every guy is just out for himself. There is a lot of stat hunting, which makes it difficult for guys to play the role they might on an NBA team.
This could also help the G-League teams gain more of a following (like minor league baseball has in a lot of markets) and give fans a reason to get behind players that might actually be on their NBA team.
Obviously, some players might object, as they want the freedom to join any team that wants them, so there would have to be a way for teams to buy the rights to players or make swaps, which adds more motivation for teams to actually develop good players, as there would be more financial reward for doing so.
Like I said, the G-League is still in its early stages and has been a success so far, but some small changes would allow teams to develop more talent and more cohesive teams that fans are more likely to follow.