Earlier this week, the NBA announced the alignments that will make the eight clubs that form its semipro affiliate, the National Basketball Association Development League (NBADL), into a formal feeder system of the big league. Each Development League roster will be supplied with one or two players by three or four NBA teams; the remainder will be made up of free agents without big league contracts.

The restructuring of the NBADL was one of the biggest changes in league business mandated in the new six-year collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified earlier this summer. Since its formation five years ago, most observers have assumed that the NBADL would someday function as an official minor league. So far, it has done well as an unofficial one; 34 players (notably Bucks swingman Bobby Simmons and Pacers guard Anthony Johnson),11 assistant coaches, and 29 front office executives have ascended from the NBADL to the big time.

The new system marks the first time NBA teams will have an option to send players down for seasoning, but it also reflects the interference of the NBA Players Association, and amounts to a small step where bigger steps are necessary to maximize the league’s potential.

The players’ union, fearing that veteran players would be sent down and that some players would be left in the minors to rot, offered moderate opposition to the formation of an official minor league. Consequently, the NBA was overly generous in its concessions. According to the new agreement, only rookies and second-year players can be sent down, and no player can be sent down more than three times in a season.

This ensures that the self-esteem of young players won’t be damaged by racking up frequent flyer miles between Fayetteville and New York. But it also prevents the NBDL from assisting players who have been riding the pine for two years or more and may just need a healthy dose of floor time at a lower level to find their games. Perennial punch line Darko Milicic of the Pistons comes to mind.

As presently structured, the “new” NBADL, with its eight teams in Austin, Tex.; Fort Worth, Tex.; Fayetteville, N.C.; Tulsa, Okla.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Roanoke, Va.; Little Rock, Ark.; and Naples, Fla., will serve to help hone the games of young players who stand little chance of seeing playing time with their NBA clubs. C.J. Miles, a 6-foot-6 guard drafted straight out of Skyline High School in Dallas this year by the Utah Jazz, has become the poster boy for the new-look NBADL. Miles, who’s brimming with talent but lacks the refinement needed for NBA action, will likely start the season in Albequerque rather than being buried on the Jazz bench.

NBADL rosters will undoubtedly load up with other 11th and 12th men who aren’t ready for prime time, and if they get the playing time and – more importantly – the coaching to enable them to be a valuable NBA player, then their time will be well spent. But a minor league should do more.

One of the biggest problems in the NBA today is that too many teams have exhausted their salary cap space by paying mediocre players anywhere from mid-level exception money ($5 million per year) to max-level contracts ($10-$12 million a year). A fully stocked minor league system would give teams a clear view of what level of talent is cheaply available to them and stem the temptation to throw large sums of money at one-dimensional players.

But that fully stocked minor league won’t happen within the current set up, where it’s likely that shooting guards, small forwards, and power forwards with NBA contracts from different teams will vie for playing time in lineups with NBADL veterans at the point and pivot. The NBA has said that it could reassign a player if one NBADL team is overstocked with NBA players at a particular position, or if one team has an inordinate number of assignees. But until there are more teams and fewer restrictions, big league teams won’t be able to make broad use of the minor league as a talent development resource. Once teams get in the habit of taking unfinished talents and shepherding their rise, they may finally realize that marginal production shouldn’t have to cost major money.

It isn’t often that a sport should use Major League Baseball as its template for business decisions and strategies, but the NBA should do just that for future structuring of an expanded minor league. Baseball’s options rules, which limit how often a player can be sent to the minors during his first six years as pro, and its Rule 5 draft, which makes players who haven’t received a roster spot after several years in the system eligible to change teams, are things that NBA will need to parallel.

Luckily, the NBA recognizes that this is an experimental phase for the NBADL. Development League President Phil Evans acknowledged recently that the league will have to juggle rosters this season to prevent too much duplication of talent at individual positions.

Overall, a minor league should enable a broader pool of talent to hone their skills before reaching the NBA’s marquee stage. Teams will benefit from having a new resource pool of players to draw upon, and the league will spread into precincts where only the NCAA presently exists. But this long-term goal is only faintly hinted at by the first year of the new NBADL. League officials will have to watch the new arrangement closely to make sure that a basketball minor league reaches its full potential.

mjohnson@nysun.com