Dan Reed, president of the D-League, has resigned. After seven years with the company, he will be taking his talents to Facebook, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.
"After seven years as National Basketball Association Development League president, Dan Reed has resigned to take a new job, league sources told Yahoo Sports.Reed will take a job running sports partnerships at Facebook, sources told Yahoo Sports."
The repercussions of a move like this are unknown right now. What is known is that the league is losing an excellent leader. Reed led the D-League through vast expansion while fostering tremendous business growth in process. The league continually set attendance records, broadened its distribution platforms, and will now have a record 18 teams in action next season. The stability that Reed provided the league was essential to this growth.
Most importantly for the purposes of this site, the league will now be in a bit of a weird position. It will be leaderless for the first time since 2007, and it will be during a time when the league itself is undergoing major changes. Just this weekend, Oklahoma City has threatened to revolutionize the way the D-League is used for player development. The way the league is used for development will be a major talking point during the next collective bargaining session. Getting a strong leader in place will be essential to its growth and ability to become a natural minor league system for the NBA.
But today should be a celebration of Reed. Now, 30% of the players in the NBA have D-League experience, and 15 teams now have one-to-one hybrid affiliations with NBA teams. Reed put the league on track to become that eventual minor league system for the NBA, and he should be celebrated for those contributions.
He will assuredly be missed as the league continues to go through changes.