Trip to D-League a temporary detour for Aldrich

Published Nov. 28, 2010 9:06 p.m. EST

foxsports

By Pat DeCola
FOXSportsSouthwest.com

After an impressive debut in 10-plus minutes of play in the Thunder's third game of the season, Cole Aldrich looked like he was ready to burrow his way into consistent playing time for Oklahoma City.

But soon after, this was proven to not be the case.

Maybe his initial performance can be credited to the fact that he saw his first NBA action on his birthday, which just also happens to be Halloween. Let's be honest, some 22-year-olds still go trick-or-treating and it isn't out of the question that Aldrich was on a sugar rush when he had that memorable putback slam against the Jazz on Oct. 31.

Unfortunately, he has yet to find the bottom of the net since then in nearly 40 minutes of play, which needless to say the Thunder (11-6) found "spooky."

So they sent him down to the Tulsa 66ers of the NBA Development League this past Wednesday.