Sports

Wolves' D League affiliate now those mad, mad Mad Ants

Wolves will share Fort Wayne affiliate with 12 other NBA teams

By Jerry Zgoda

September 16, 2014 at 11:19AM

The Timberwolves will have a new D League affiliate this season after having an arrangement with the Iowa Energy last season and the Sioux Falls Skyforce for the seven seasons before that.

This year, they will send players to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in Indiana.

That's right, the Mad Ants.

And if...

If the Fort Wayne team has room for that Wolves player or players.

See, the Mad Ants are the only independent D League team left, that is the only one that doesn't have a single affiliatation agreement with a NBA team.

The Detroit Pistons (Grand Rapids), Memphis Grizzlies (Iowa), New York (Westchester), Orlando (Erie), Phoenix (Bakersfield) and Utah (Idaho) are entered into affiliations with D League teams this summer.

That leaves Fort Wayne as the only one left for the other 13 NBA teams.

The NBA has implemented a new "flexible assignment system" that will allow those 13 NBA teams to still send players in the D League.

If the Mad Ants already have the maximum of four assigned NBA players on their roster or two assigned players at the same position as the Wolves players, the Wolves can send their player to any D League team willing to take him.

The Wolves will choose from any D League teams willing to accept their player. If no D League team volunteers, a lottery will send the player to a non- NBA owned, single-affiliate D League team.

Seven of the 17 single-affiliate D League teams are fully owned and operated by their NBA club. NBA are operated under a hybrid system, in which the NBA team funds and manages the D League's team basketball operations but local ownership has control of the team's business and community-relations departments.

Players in the first three years of their NBA career can be assigned to a D League team an unlimited number of times during the season. Players with more than three years' NBA experience can be sent to the D League with both their consent and the NBA Players Association's consent.

Flip Saunders has expressed interest in being part of a hybrid arrangement with a D League team so the Wolves could install their own coach who'd run the NBA team's offensive and defensive systems and the Wolves also could groom coaches and front-office personnel there. He'd prefer it'd be a short drive from the Twin Cities -- say Rochester or St. Cloud or perhaps even Duluth, for example -- so a player could practice with the Wolves in the morning and still play a D League home game at night.

That idea is on the back burner for now, both because Saunders has been plenty busy with many other things and because the supply for available D League teams obviously is running thin.

On other matters with training camp now fewer than two weeks away...

The Wolves will tip-off their camp week in Mankato with a midnight-madness event late Monday night, at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday Sept. 30 actually after the team holds its annual media day at Target Center Monday afternoon.

They also will have a Sunday afternoon scrimmage on Oct. 5 in Mankato before they break camp.

Both events will be open to the public.

Look for more information from the team on both events soon.