After seeing limited action during the regular season, the Seattle SuperSonics assigned green center Mouhamed Sene to the team’s NBA Development League affiliate the Idaho Stampede this weekend.

"I feel badly he’s not with us," Seattle coach P.J. Carlesimo said. "But he has a chance to get a lot better more quickly down there playing with them than he does sitting around with us."

Carlesimo said Sene needs playing time, and even when Sene is around, he doesn’t see much playing time during practice, with Chris Wilcox and Kurt Thomas working with Seattle’s starters and Nick Collison, Jeff Green and Johan Petro working with the team’s second unit.

In his second year, Sene's only appeared in nine games, averaging 1.7 points and 1.2 rebounds in 4.2 minutes a game.

Sene played in 15 games for the Stampede last season, averaging 9.9 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.5 blocks a contest in 21.7 minutes a game.

"As crazy as it sounds, you should prefer to play in the D-league then opposed to not playing at all, or even worse, being inactive in the NBA," Carlesimo said. "I mean it's nice to travel on the charter and get the per diem and all that stuff, but it’s about playing basketball. We’ve had guys in the past say, 'Hey, send me down. I want to go play 35 minutes.'"

The 10th pick overall in the 2006 draft, Sene's played a limited amount of organized basketball, which is another reason Carlesimo would like to see him get extended minutes in the development league. Sene also is familiar Stampede head coach Bryan Gates, who helped coach Seattle’s summer league team in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City.

"I think he’s going to be a good player in this league, but the timetable is hard to set," Carlesimo said. "But I think what will accelerate the timetable is him getting game experience."

NBA teams can assign up to two players who are rookies or in their second season to their D-League affiliate. Players can stay with the D-League team for as long as the team wishes, and be recalled back to the NBA at any time. A player can only be sent to the D-League a maximum of three times during the season.

Idaho is 7-5 on the year, and has 38 games left on its schedule. The Stampede host Bakersfield on Wednesday and Anaheim on Friday.

Listen to Carlesimo talk about the decision to assign Sene to the D-League here.

Also, Seattle guard Delonte West worked out with the team for the first time since a Nov. 30 game against Indiana. West has missed 10 games with plantar fasciitis on his right foot.

Carlesimo said West looked fine during practice on Sunday, and if he feels good during shootaround on Tuesday West could see action against Portland on Christmas day.

Carlesimo said he’ll look at West a little more a shooting guard for awhile.