PORTLAND, Maine— Maine's largest city was awarded a franchise in the NBA Development League on Wednesday, with the team likely being affiliated with the Boston Celtics.

Members of a Maine investment group, NBA Development League President Dan Reed and the president of the Boston Celtics were on hand for the announcement, which was made in front of the student body at Portland High School.

"I'm so excited to get this thing started I wish our games would start tomorrow," said Jon Jennings, the team's president and general manager and a former assistant coach with the Boston Celtics.

The D-League, which has been playing for eight seasons and has 16 teams from Los Angeles to Erie, Pa., serves as a feeder league to the NBA. The Portland team, the league's first in New England, will begin play in the fall. A team name has not been chosen.

The investment group, Maine Basketball LLC, is seeking to be affiliated with the Celtics, who currently have an affiliation with the Development League's Utah Flash. Boston is about a two-hour drive from Portland.

The league will officially announce the team's NBA affiliation this summer, with the top two factors being preference and geography, Reed said.

Even though the official announcement is months away, all signs point toward Boston.

The team offices in downtown Portland have photos and framed jerseys of former Celtic players on the walls. The team plans to put in a parquet basketball floor — the same type of floor the Celtics play on in Boston — in the Portland Exposition Building, where the club will play.

The club plans to spend more than $200,000 on the new floor, as well as additional seating, a video scoreboard and other improvements to the arena, which will have a seating capacity of about 3,200. Ticket prices will range from $5 to $25.

Bill Ryan Sr., one of the members of the ownership group, is president of TD Banknorth Inc., whose name is affixed to the TD Banknorth Garden, where the Celtics play their home games.

Celtics President Rich Gotham and former Celtics player and coach K.C. Jones, who is working as a consultant for Maine Basketball LLC, were on hand for Wednesday's announcement. So were the Celtics Dancers, who handed out D-League T-shirts to Portland High School students.

"We're looking forward to having a D-League team up here," Gotham said. "It'll be a shorter commute than Utah."

Another D-League franchise will be awarded in the Northeast in the coming weeks, Reed said.

Portland had two United States Basketball League franchises — the Mountain Cats and the Wave — in the 1990s that folded after one year. This time will be different with the club being in an NBA-sanctioned league, said Bill Ryan Jr., another member of the ownership group.

"The NBA D-League is the second-best basketball league in the world," he said.

About 15 percent of last year's NBA players played in the D-League, Reed said. Sixty-three former D-League players are now on NBA teams, he said.

The Portland team will let fans choose the name of the team from a final group of six names. Voting will take place online beginning next week.