On March 8, the Toronto Raptors recalled rookie Bruno Caboclo from the D-League.

It’s fair to say they didn’t do so to start working him into their short-term rotation; the 19 year old is widely considered one of the rawest prospects in the league, with a grand total of 16 minutes played this season, and the Raptors are not looking to tank out the season. When Toronto shocked the basketball world by picking the little-known Brazilian with the 20th pick in last year’s draft, ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla hilariously described Caboclo as “two years away from being two years away.”

He was also described as the “Brazilian Kevin Durant” and “this year’s Greek Freak” in the same segment, though, so even if he’s miles away, the destination ahead glows bright. It would seem, then, that if there is a single NBA player who should be stashed somewhere and given minutes to grow, it’s Caboclo.

So why the call-up from the D-League?

Unfortunately, there were no minutes for Caboclo down there, either. His most recent assignment with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants spanned almost three weeks from February 18 to March 8, and in that time, he appeared in just four games for a total of 23 minutes (picking up four DNP-CDs in the process).

Part of the issue is that the Raptors have no D-League team to call their own. 17 of the D-League’s 18 teams are all single-affiliated or owned by an NBA franchise, leaving the remaining 13 NBA teams to the Mad Ants. Naturally, so many teams sharing a single minor-league partner represents a problem, one that has been exploited before.

Caboclo, however, had been the only NBA assignee on the Mad Ants since March 3, when the Atlanta Hawks recalled Mike Muscala. But in the three games after that with Caboclo on the roster, he still failed to register any court time. This wasn’t a matter of there being too many mouths to feed. The Mad Ants just simply chose to sit Caboclo, his development a secondary concern.

As one of 13 teams sharing the Mad Ants, the Raptors don’t have the same level of established communication as teams in single-affiliate relationships. The clubs’ goals don’t necessarily align in the same way, and the Raptors’ appeals to play Caboclo carry far less authority.

In a feature on the D-League’s growth by former Atlanta Hawks writer Robby Kalland, one of the people interviewed was Hawks assistant GM Wes Wilcox. Before coming to Atlanta, Wilcox served simultaneously as the Director of Player Personnel of the Cleveland Cavaliers as well as the general manager of their exclusive D-League affiliate, the Canton Charge. This puts Wilcox in a unique position to comment on one-on-one relationships. On the unique level of communication that a one-to-one partnership allows for, Wilcox said this:

“In Cleveland and Canton, we truly built a staff of people on both the business and basketball side. Sticking with the basketball side, our focus was on finding someone who would be willing to install our system and our four philosophical beliefs. Then, build a team that was largely competitive, but also about the developmental agenda of Cavalier players…Building a staff was just an extension of what we would hire for our NBA club is what we wanted to hire, and hopefully we would hire someone in the D-League that had NBA potential.”

Exclusivity means improved synchronization between a NBA team and its D-League affiliate, which truly gets taken under its big-league partner’s wing. What comes down the grapevine from the NBA team can be more effectively translated into reality in the D-League as they work off the same structural page.

The Hawks are one of many teams sharing the Mad Ants as an affiliate. Last year, they split the Bakersfield Jam with Phoenix — but over the offseason, the Suns entered into an exclusive contract with Bakersfield, leaving Atlanta out in the cold. And it’s not just the Suns. All around the league, teams are taking note of, and signing up for the benefits of, a one-to-one partnership in the D-League. At the end of last season, the Memphis Grizzlies, Utah Jazz and New York Knicks all announced their own plans to enter into an exclusive affiliation with a D-League team. The Oklahoma City Thunder and the Detroit Pistons moved their own teams closer to home, and the San Antonio Spurs re-named their Austin-based affiliate to the Spurs for brand synchronization.

The D-League’s rate of growth has been picking up speed rapidly, and shows no signs of slowing down — an unequivocally great thing for the league. The Knicks introduced a new, 18th team into the D-League for this season, the Westchester Knicks, to be their affiliate. From here on out, every other team will have to do the same (or at least find a private owner to buy in) The overhead cost of starting up a D-League franchise is no small deal, and that will be an obstacle to overcome. But right now, it seems like a future in which each NBA franchise has a D-League partner — similar to how hockey’s minor-league system is structured — is inevitable.

In a recent op-ed at Grantland, agent Arn Tellem decried the NBA for continuing “to ignore its own developmental league,” but his column entirely tunes out the progress made in recent years. That progress is notable and should be acknowledged.

The bad part is that progress, as it oftentimes can be, is slow and ongoing, and, in the meantime, Caboclo and those that follow in his footsteps will lose out on valuable playing time. Granted, these are isolated cases, as most NBA prospects are good enough on their own to deserve their playing time, at least in the minors. The Charlotte Hornets’ Noah Vonleh, drafted in the lottery with the 9th overall pick last summer, averaged just 13.4 minutes in two games with the Mad Ants earlier this season, but he’s one of sparingly few players to suffer from his team’s disconnected D-League affiliation.

All the same, limiting even one player’s growth is undesirable. Perhaps Caboclo’s plight will compel the Raptors to invest in their own D-League partner this summer, and that the league in general continues to advance their farm system’s growth. The D-League is a rising force, and it’d be unfortunate if this summer’s big draft project lands in the wrong NBA home that simply can’t offer him a place to grow.