The National Basketball Developmental League is the brainchild of Commissioner Stern's NBA properties team.

It has a lot going for it. The obvious association with the NBA, the contract for game coverage with ESPN/ESPN2, and the deal with SFX Entertainment to bring in more quality events around the NBDL product at their venues all look very promising.

Still those pundits in the local press who are calling it the death-knell for every other league are just dead wrong. What is clear from the news releases last week is that the NBA doesn't have the stuff to create much more than an alternate league, not a full-on minor league system.

Despite their size and clout, without certain key elements, the NBA is nothing more than an oversized promoter of regional basketball.

The teams in the NBDL are pools of potential talent for the NBA, but they are not a guarantee of a pathway to the big leagues by any means.

The NBDL has no exclusivity. While the NBA has a relationship with the NBDL, the individual teams do not. Further, sources at the NBA say that the league will not cut out the teams' access to other talent pools.

If the Lakers, for example, wanted to draft someone from the Cincinnati Stuff of the IBL, there would be nothing either contractually or practically to keep a team from doing so.

When we asked the NBA's spokesperson, Brian McIntre, whether the league's participation was, in any way, an endorsement by the individual teams in the league, we were told "No. This is a league effort."

Meaning? These teams will have no affiliation directly with NBA franchises. The major teams won't own contracts, and will be allowed to shop around the NBDL, IBL, ABA-2000, CBA, USBL, NRL or any other set of league-sounding initials that a few cool millions whizzing down the janitorial plumbing can cook up.

In point of fact, the NBDL is not much better or worse than your garden variety minor league, save the ESPN contract.

Television is a powerful lure to quality talent and sports agents. It's also appealing to NBA owners anxious to train young players in the way of the jockstrap-cam and other intrusions into the practices of the game.

If the International Basketball League (IBL) develops sweatband cam and a twenty-four game television contract, then, for all intents and purposes, we have league parity. The IBL plays in better cities, on the whole, too.

Sources tell us this week that the NBA's roll-out of the NBDL has hit a few minor snags with cities and arenas. A situation all too familiar to any imprimatur of minor league sports used to working the trenches, finding good arenas and good owners with deep pockets in the right cities is more mystic art than science.

The power and might of the NBA may meet its limits in standards that are frankly a little highbrow for some of the towns where minor league teams do best.

As excited as many of these towns may be to have the NBA and the NBDL as partners, they may not be putting up new arenas, and making long-term promises with limited resources and/or college competition up the street. College teams are often seen, particularly in the media, as the real minor league system of basketball.

There is also rumor about the CBA. It is wholly owned by Isiah Thomas. It is sitting in a blind trust, in the hot little hands of Isiah Thomas' Trustee, and running out of time to find a buyer before more Draconian measures kick in to prompt a sale and keep the league afloat next year.

The CBA, which is currently the sanctioned baby of the NBA, would still be a sweet deal if the good Commissioner and his gang can reach accord with the trustee. They weren't so lucky with their direct offer to Isiah last year. But hope, and no competitive offers might spring eternal. Or are there other offers? Little birdies also cheep the sounds of other leagues shopping the CBA and other mergers.

The one thing for certain is that nothing in minor league basketball is certain. The fat lady isn't wearing anyone's jersey yet. More importantly, the NBA has a lot of proving to do in the minor league NBDL cities of things it takes for granted in its vaunted big-city show palaces.

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What the NBDL Means (Really)