Nice to see we still could use him. Link. What does "protected for D-League assignment" mean? Does that mean we have rights to him before another team? Or just that he has a spot protected on the team reserved for him if he wants it?
I'm trying to find the documentation on it, but my understanding is that it's like a 40-man roster in baseball. The three "protected" players in the D-League aren't on our 15-man lineup (if we were to, say, send down Leonard he would count for our 15 but be on the "inactive" list that doesn't count for the 12 we need for each game--8 suited up) but other teams can't sign them. For instance, Dallas can't call up Lauderdale's agent and say "we need a big man, here's a 10-day contract". They CAN do that for the other 9 unprotected players.
