By John Diaz
The Austin Spurs will be part of a four-game slate on Thursday, January 15th, to help kick off the 2015 NBA D-League Showcase presented by Samsung.
The Spurs will take on the Grand Rapids Drive at 3:45 PM eastern, with the Texas Legends versus the Bakersfield Jam (1 PM), Maine Red Clams versus the Sioux Falls Skyforce (6:30 PM) and Santa Cruz Warriors versus the Canton Charge (10 PM) rounding out the first day of action.
Each of the 18 D-League teams will play two games a piece during the five-day event, which will take place at the Kaiser Permanente Arena in Santa Cruz, California.
This year’s D-League Showcase will also host the inaugural Showcase Cup, in which the top eight teams throughout the beginning of the regular season will participate in bracketed in-season tournament. All games played during the showcase will count toward the regular season total, except for the Showcase Cup’s championship game.
If the idea of having a mid-season tournament sounds oddly familiar to you, you may remember Adam Silver stating back in October that the NBA would like to eventually add a European football like tournament to the season. The Showcase Cup could be an example of a mid-season tournament that finds its way to the NBA, once the format and scheduling is tweaked and reformed.
Until then, the D-League showcase will give coaches and players alike the chance to flaunt their abilities for all 30 NBA teams, in hopes of securing a brighter future. In the last ten NBA D-League Showcases, over 40 players have received NBA call-ups in the immediate days following the showcase.
