Atlanta Hawks
Atlanta Hawks

With purchase of Fort Wayne, Hawks without D-League affiliate

By Chris Vivlamore
Sept 9, 2015

The Hawks are without an NBA Development League affiliate.

So are 10 other NBA teams.

With the official announcement that the Pacers had purchased the Fort Wayne Mad Ants Wednesday, all 19 franchises in the D-League are singly-affiliated with an NBA team. Last season, Fort Wayne served as the affiliate for 12 teams. The league enacted a flexible assignment system for teams to assign players to Fort Wayne or another D-League team under certain criteria. The flexible system will be used for the 11 non-affiliated teams this season.

According to the league, upon receipt of an assignment from an independent NBA team, the D-League will identify any team willing to accept the assigned player. The assigning independent NBA team will then choose the destination for assignment between those teams. If no D-League team is willing to accept the assigned player, he will be assigned to by lottery.

The Hawks used the flexible assignment system several times last season to get Adreian Payne to play for Austin and John Jenkins to play for Idaho. Mike Muscala played several game with Fort Wayne. The Hawks were able to put players in a system similar to the one they run with the flexible assignment.

The Hawks have watched and signed several players from the D-League in the past three seasons when needed.

About the Author

Chris Vivlamore is the sports editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has served as reporter and editor at the AJC since 2003.

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