Former NBAers Jamario Moon, Antoine Walker headline D-Fenders-Stampede D-League showcase

It took Jamario Moon six years the first time.

This time around, he’s hoping it’ll be more like a couple months.

Moon, who averaged 23 minutes and 6.5 points in 278 games for four NBA teams from 2007-11, became the latest member of the NBA Development League’s L.A. D-Fenders on Mar. 1. And on Monday night, when the D-Fenders take on Antoine Walker’s Idaho Stampede (10 pm ET), you can watch the next step in his comeback live on SportingNews.com.

Moon hasn’t played in the NBA since April, when he finished the 2010-11 regular season with the Clippers after being part of the deal that sent Baron Davis to Cleveland. But, if you put the last 10 months in the context of Moon’s career, they’re really nothing.

After declaring for the 2001 NBA Draft and leaving Meridian Community College (Miss.) after only a year, Moon spent the next six years touring the Americas, splitting his time between the NBA D-League and the now-gone CBA, WBA and USBL, trying to find a way into the NBA.

He started in Mobile, playing for the NBA D-League’s now-defunct Revelers in 2001-02, then took his show down whatever highway or dirt path would have him. He made stops in Dodge City, Kan., and Enid, Okla., Rockford, Ill. – home of the Peaches – and Rome, Ga. He even spent time in Mexico and did a stint with the Globetrotters, until, finally, after six years grinding down tires, he got signed by the Toronto Raptors.

That first year, 2007-08, was his best, with Moon averaging 8.5 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in 78 games (75 of them starts) with the Raptors. His numbers trickled slowly downward over the next three years, but he was still good for 4.3 points and nearly three rebounds in 17.7 minutes a game in 2010-11.

Now, with the NBA entering a grueling seven-week stretch before the start of the playoffs, Moon’s looking to do what five D-Fenders have already done this year – including longtime NBA point guard Jamaal Tinsley, who opened the NBA D-League season with the D-Fenders and hasn’t left the Jazz since training camp – and make the jump to the game’s highest stage.

On Monday, he’ll bang bodies against Walker, the former NBA All-Star, and Mikki Moore, the Stampede’s 7-foot center and veteran of 85 NBA games. Moon won’t be called-up to be a scorer, but as NBA teams start thinking bigger, he’ll have a chance to gain the attention of NBA teams by showing he can still plug the lane and come up the ball off the glass against bigger bodies.

Moon will be joined on the inside by fellow top prospects Zach Andrews and Malcolm Thomas, with the trio constituting probably the best assortment of forwards in the NBA D-League. Andrews is a big body who can leap like a guard, and Thomas – who’s already spent time with the Spurs this year – is one of the league’s top shot-blockers.