The jet-lagged season for three-teamers and four-teamers

I’d like to give a huge shout-out to the YouTube user No. 1 Pelicans Fan. There is no disputing, I don’t think, that this person really is the Pelicans’ No. 1 Fan. It takes a fan of No. 1-caliber to post little nuggets like this open baseline jumper from Axel Toupane from the consequence-free 82nd and final game of the New Orleans season:

A large percentage of even well-connected NBA fans have probably not heard of Axel Toupane before. Even among those who have heard of Toupane, though, only the most religious readers of Hoops Rumors were aware that Toupane was with the Pelicans. After all, it was only a week ago that Toupane was dropping 41 points in a D-League playoff game for Raptors 905. Toupane’s three-day contract with the Pelicans netted him a sweet $15,000 and no time in New Orleans, with the team ending their year on a West Coast road trip.

Those same religious readers will also remember that Toupane’s campaign with the 905 was interrupted in February when he signed a ten-day deal with the Milwaukee Bucks, appearing in two games and leaving scant photographic evidence behind.

This means that Toupane just barely managed to join my very favorite club of small, under-appreciated players: the three-teamers. Getting traded in mid-season just once has to be something close to a spiritually harrowing experience — the world spinning into an endless, hellacious network of practically identical hotels, gyms, locker rooms. This is just the warm-up for the three-teamer, though, who is then moved a second time, their teammates’ names and next-day itinerary warping into the unknowable. Ever since being bewildered by the improbably busy basketball card-backs of Jud Buechler or Sam Cassell as a kid, the three-teamer has had my full attention and respect.

The D-League has completely exploded the definition of three-teamers. It used to be that maybe one or two unlucky souls a year would be inadvertently inducted into the club. For all of the very real career opportunities that the D-League is providing for so many players, it’s also birthed a society of very, very tired three-teamers. While many D-League players are playing for their parent team’s own affiliate — and thus don’t have to truly pack up and change addresses — the player is still flying to a new, unknown place to meet a new, unknown locker room before playing a new, unknown opponent and then finally collapsing into a new, unknown bed. Moving between affiliates maybe doesn’t have the clearly defined purity of the three-teamers of yore, but I’m sure it makes the season a bewildering slog all the same.

The list of players who, like Toupane, are D-League-to-NBA three-teamers is harrowingly long. In alphabetical order: Quincy Acy, Anthony Brown, Quinn Cook, Jarell Eddie, Yogi Ferrell, Archie Goodwin, Aaron Harrison, R.J. Hunter, Johnny O’Bryant, Tim Quarterman, Mike Scott, Wayne Selden, Diamond Stone, Edy Tavares, Hollis Thompson, and Briante Weber.

It’s a staggeringly long list. Too long to ever document the travels of each of these very tired men. In this, the age of the D-League, a player only truly stands out if they either: (1) stay in the NBA the entire season (a “classic style” three-team journey), or (2) play for four different NBA + NBDL teams during the regular season. Here are their stories of heartbreak, cobbled together via so many transaction logs:

The Classic Style Three-Teamers

1. Omri Casspi: Kings / Pelicans / Timberwolves

Midway through his fifth season (across two different tenures) with the Kings, Casspi was shipped alongside DeMarcus Cousins to New Orleans — a part of the trade I feel like I didn’t learn about until a few days later. Towards the end of Game #1 as a Pelican, Casspi broke his thumb. Boom, New Orleans cut him — a move that is straight. Savage. When Casspi’s thumb healed a month later, Tom Thibodeau added the freely available veteran to his injury-battered rotation down the stretch.

2. Roy Hibbert: Hornets / Bucks / Nuggets

History will probably forget this three-teamer, so let us remember this now: in three February weeks in Milwaukee, Hibbert did not appear in a single game for the team. That means, on the back of Hibbert’s basketball card, 2016-17 will look like a regular ol’ two-teamer year. But oh, it was so much more! (Prediction: a playoff team is going to grab Hibbert on the cheap next year, and he will provide massive defensive value off the bench.)

3. Ersan Ilyasova: Thunder / 76ers / Hawks

For a while there I thought Ilyasova was about to become the next Nick Collison and just stick with a team forever, logging an impressive seven seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks. By now, though, Ilyasova is due for another run of stability after getting moved around to five teams over the last two seasons. Ilyasova put together one of the very greatest three-teamer seasons of all-time — not to mention he was one of just 17 players to appear in 82 games. Traded just three games into his tenure with the Thunder, Ilyasova spent most of the year with the Sixers: the team won just seven games all year without him on the floor. Moved at the Trade Deadline to Atlanta, Ilyasova immediately became a positive contributor to their rotation.

4. Lance Stephenson: Pelicans / Timberwolves / Pacers

If Larry Bird had a gigantic man-crush on me, I suppose I’d find it pretty hard to get motivated to play for other teams — a point that Lance has made in spectacular fashion during his last three years in the wilderness. In what has to be the very first occasion when a three-teamer has ended his odyssey by receiving a multi-year deal, Lance is not only home again: he’s also in a prime-time first-round series against LeBron James’ Cavaliers.

*****

The only all-NBA four-team season I’m aware of is Tony Massenburg’s unbelievable 1991-92 season — a crucial year in helping him tie for the most-travelled player of all-time. Even though all of the following players had at least one D-League stint this year, the fact that there’s seven four-teamers this year is astounding.

Instead of going in alphabetical order, I’ll attempt to rank these seven players from least to most tiring season. My tie-breakers will be: (1) number of parent franchises played for, then (2) number of separate trips down to the D-League (from RealGM transaction logs):

The Four-Teamers

Cheick Diallo: Pelicans / Austin Spurs / Long Island Nets / Swarm
Parent Organizations: 1
D-League Assignments: 4

How is 20-year-old Diallo’s development as a player going? Uh, it’s pretty tough to say, given that the Pelicans’ player development “plan” sent the poor dude all over the country just to get some live minutes in. Plus, the New Orleans locker room was getting made over just about every time Diallo would come back from one of his far-flung assignments. Here’s hoping this intriguingly talented player doesn’t bust due to mishandling.

Cameron Payne: Blue / Thunder / Bulls / Windy City Bulls
Parent Organizations: 2
D-League Assignments: 4

With just five total games in the D-League, Payne’s four-team journey wasn’t as bad as it could have been. On the other hand, Payne stuffed in his appearances for all four teams in just three months after injury kept him out until January.

Troy Williams: Grizzlies / Energy / Vipers / Rockets
Parent Organizations: 2
D-League Assignments: 7

Williams has had one of the most bizarre seasons of all-time: he’s been sent around to four teams even though he scored at least 15 points, as a starter, for two different playoff teams. The only other players to do that this season were Taj Gibson and Kyle Korver — who were definitely not shuttled back and forth from the D-League.

Given how the Rockets in yesteryear gave then-rookie Troy Daniels the green light to shoot in the playoffs, we might still see more from Williams this year.

Chris McCullough: Nets / Long Island Nets / Northern Arizona Suns / Wizards
Parent Organizations: 2
D-League Assignments: 21

Since the Long Island Nets also play their games in the Barclays Center, most of McCullough’s assignments were as logistically easy as could be. However, after his midseason trade to the Wizards, who do not have their own D-League affiliate, McCullough was sent all the way to Arizona for a month before rejoining Washington all the way on the other side of the country.

Chasson Randle: Westchester Knicks / 76ers / 87ers / Knicks
Parent Organizations: 3
D-League Assignments: 2

Even though Randle only played for the D-League affiliates of the Sixers and Knicks, he bounced around between those franchises mightily, effectively creating three separate tenures. After playing 19 games with the Westchester Knicks, Randle was signed by Philadelphia — appearing in eight NBA games, plus a quick dip down to Delaware. In late February Randle was cut loose by Philadelphia and then signed back by the Knicks, who this time cleared out a roster space for Randle by cutting Brandon Jennings. Randle mostly finished the season in the Knicks’ rotation — but not without getting another assignment to Westchester.

Jarrod Uthoff: Raptors 905 / Mad Ants / Legends / Mavericks
Parent Organizations: 3
D-League Assignments: 2

Another dimension to the new, modern D-League: its own trade market has slowly started to develop. Uthoff started out the season in Canada and then was dealt in January to the Mad Ants in Indiana. Uthoff was then signed to a pair of ten-day contracts by the Mavericks — who both times used some of those precious days to send Uthoff back to their affiliate, the Legends — before signing a multi-year deal and ending the year in the Dallas rotation.

Gary Neal: Westchester Knicks / Legends / Hawks / Bighorns
Parent Organizations: 4
D-League Assignments: 1

The D-League is so totally without frills that I have huge respect for any veteran who is willing to give it a shot. Plus, it can’t be easy to make your D-League debut at age 32 with 300+ NBA games (including Finals experience) under your belt. Still, it feels like something went awry during Neal’s season, which saw him play in only 11 total basketball games. Plus, Neal went from sitting at home, in mid-December, to four-teamer in the span of about six weeks. After getting signed by Westchester, Neal only appeared in a single game for the team before getting traded to the Legends. After a quick 10-day deal with the Atlanta Hawks — where Neal went a combined 0-for-7 from the field — he was signed back by the Legends and then traded days later to the Reno Bighorns, who shut it him down for the season in early March.

Next: In search of the most extreme triple-double known to man

I will feel both sad and thrilled to see what is surely inevitable in the coming years: the harrowing five-team season.