NBADL? Here's the lowdown

OREM — As the Utah Flash is an expansion team, fans in the area may not be familiar with how the NBA Development League works. Some might compare it to minor league baseball, but it is actually quite different.

Here is a quick primer.

In baseball, a minor league affiliate's entire roster is associated with one major league franchise, and each major league team has several minor-league affiliates, which are at different levels. With a few exceptions, any player may be assigned to the minor leagues at any time.

But in the NBA Development League, anywhere from one to three NBA franchises share a single affiliate. Each NBA team is only allowed to assign up to two players to a D-League team at any given time, and those players must be either in their first or second seasons in the NBA.

Currently, the Utah Jazz and Boston Celtics share the Utah Flash. The Jazz have assigned 7-foot-1 center Kyrylo Fesenko, and the Celtics have assigned 6-foot-9 forward Brandon Wallace to the Flash.

The rest of a D-League team's roster consists of players that were acquired through the D-League Draft, league allocations, local tryouts or those who were on the team last season.

In the Flash's case, they also acquired some players through the D-League Expansion Draft, in which expansion franchises were allowed to take unprotected players on other rosters.

In baseball, players on teams affiliated with major league clubs are controlled by those teams and may not join another team unless traded, waived or if they reach the end of their contracts.

In the D-League, with the exception of players who are sent down from NBA teams, the players don't sign with any team, but rather with the D-League itself. Players may also receive bonuses if their teams make the playoffs or if they receive individual awards, such as Most Valuable Player or Rookie of the Year.

The format of the contracts, along with the players who are sent up or down by the NBA franchises, make D-League rosters very fluid, so teams must adjust on the fly to roster changes.

There are 14 teams in the D-League, which are divided into three divisions. The schedule is 50 games long, about two-thirds of the games are played on weekends. Teams play the other teams in their division eight to 10 times during the season and the teams in the other divisions twice.

The 2007 season began Friday and runs through April 12 of next year. The winners of the three divisions, as well as the three teams with the next-best records, will advance to the D-League playoffs.

The two division winners with the best records will receive a bye into the second round, and the first two rounds will be single elimination. The D-League Championship is a best-of-three series.