Thanks Jason!
A few more questions:
1. If a returning team decides to give up their team, will they be randomly
seeded with all the other new dispersal teams?
2. What will the draft order be for the rookie/free agent draft (returning
teams, new teams, etc)? I noticed you posted a lottery listing but that only
has the returning teams....so I wasn't sure how the playoff teams and new teams
would fit into that order?
3. Do we have an official date for the Dispersal Draft yet?
4. I know we can all look up the All-Stars and All-NBA teams. But it might be
good to have an official list posted? Just so there is no discrepancies in case
someone looked at a list online that turned out to be inaccurate.....just a
thought.
5. You had answered this already for me, but Returning teams can technically
lose up to 2 players each round (if they select one of their own players and
then another team in the dispersal draft selects a player from their roster as
well). Just adding that here in case others were unclear on that like I was.
Thanks for the clarifications, Jason! Very excited for the season this fall
with a full league and great coaches! Can't wait! Thanks for all your guidance
and planning with all of this.....much appreciated.
-- Dale (Lexington)
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Blaze" <jason@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: somiba@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 2021 11:07:01 PM
Subject: [somiba] New League Rules
Hello Coaches!
Now that we have filled the league to 24 teams again and I have caught up on
Rating Guide orders, I will be spending the next week or so finishing the
constitution. But before I am finished with it, I would like to go through some
of the bigger rule changes for the league, and although I have mentioned some
of these to the group, now that we have all 24 coaches signed up the email
list, I may go through some of them again.
Before I get to the first, you can find the history of the league at
http://somiba.marathoncoder.com/ . Eventually, I will eventually transfer the ;
league website over to the somhoops.com server ( www.somhoops.com/somiba/ ). I
do not plan to use the website to host the news or any other daily information
on the league including daily standings. Instead, I use the workbook to store
most of the information in the lague and updates that file as Ed and Charles
would update the league website with information. This just works easier for me
and the even in the internet was completely wiped out I would still have our
workbooks from each season with plenty of backup copies out there as I send
those files out to our coaches. Also, I am not a big proponent of posting our
last names, emails, where we reside, and cell numbers on the internet. While
our hobby here is harmless, I don’t believe that someone should be able to do a
web search on our names (i.e. Jason Blaze) and find that I participate in a
basketball league and grab my personal information. Since our email list cannot
be made private other than just not listing it on our website, I plan to send
out the workbook and backup through an email list that I plan to create in
outlook.
8-Keepers – The first big change is coaches will only be able to protect
8-players heading into what we refer to as the Keeper/Cut Deadline, which will
be about a week to 10 day for coaches to review those players along with the
rookies and free agents already in the pool. We have used 8-keepers in the
Classic80 for 17-season now (just had a Keeper Deadline tonight), and while it
is true that we cannot always hold onto as many of our favorite players as we
would like, it does have some benefits that I believe will help with the
league. Since teams lower in the standings draft ahead of those higher in the
standings, the extra and deeper talent in the draft pool helps maintain parity
better. I understand the Classic80 is retro-style league, but the 8-keepers
makes it easier to turn a team around from a door mat to a contender in about 3
seasons. I understand it takes one and done rookies longer to develop in the
current NBA, but I believe in 3-4 seasons our teams will be able to turn their
team into a title contender with some luck in the draft and balanced trades.
Dispersal Draft – The former expansion draft is now the dispersal draft since I
feel we are not necessarily expanding the league’s number of teams but rather
re-dispersing the players from teams that leave the league to new teams. It is
a right a passage for every coach to participate in the dispersal draft. Even
if we have to find a new coach to manage a team for a coach that leaves the
league, that coach will still have to participate in the dispersal draft the
next season. This year is going to be a unique draft because normally a coach
would have to leave the league for a season to participate in the dispersal
draft. I have extended an offer to the returning coaches to participate in the
dispersal draft this season since we will also be selecting unprotected players
from their rosters, something we normally do not do.
This season alone, there will be three stages to each round. In Stage 1 the
returning teams (that do not throw in their entire roster) will have to make a
choice weather to protect one of their own players or pass and then select a
player in Stage 3 at the end of each round. Then in Stage 2 the new teams will
draft a player either from the pool or from an existing returning roster in the
order determined by a randomized process and then reversed in even rounds. Once
a player is taken from an existing roster, no players can be removed from that
roster for the reset of that round. In Stage 3 the returning teams that did not
protect a player in Stage 1 will select a player from either the pool or an
existing roster. After this the round is finished and we continue on through
each of 10 rounds. The only difference in rounds 9 and 10 is that returning
teams will select before the new teams if they do not protect one of their own
players. This complete the dispersal draft. The reason for each team having at
least 10 players is to allow some flexibility with trading as the returning
teams should have at least 10 and probably more after the draft.
Keeper Deadline – About 3-4 to a week before the rookie/free agent draft, we
will set a date for the Keeper Deadllie where each coach will turn in an
8-player list to the league before the deadline. The cuts will be thrown into
the rookie/free agent pool along with the rookies and other free agents.
Trades –Coaches are free to negotiate trades and then announce them when
appropriate, but keep in mind that trades announced to the league (and
confirmed by all other parties involved) will go into effect immediately, and
this is important when it comes to pre- or post-keeper trades. In the past
SOMIBA only allowed a team to trades draft picks from the current season, but
now moving forward once the season officially starts and the commissioners
opens trading, coaches can trade current season picks and picks for one season
ahead. This allows a little more flexibility when agreeing to trades. Each
trade must stand on its own as no trade and be conditional on a past trade. All
trades that acquire a first round pick from another team will at best draft
fourth overall in the draft. For this season I plan to manage trades on my own
without using an executive or trade committee. Of course I will seek input from
some of the veteran coaches to make sure my view is appropriate, I feel that
the weight of any decision should be on my shoulders. If someone gets upset I
would prefer taking that brunt of that instead of it dividing up the league. If
you are unsure if a trade is appropriate, reach out to a friend in the league
and get their input. You have my word that anyone you ask for input will not go
behind your back and negotiate their own trade without getting your permission
as I would not tolerate such an action. And I would be glad to offer my input.
I plan to bounce my own trades off of a couple coaches to make sure trades I am
involved in are above reproach, because it will be hard for me to lead the
league without setting a good example. If one of your trades is not allowed,
please do not take it personal. The reason for doing so is to protect the
league and its health and to help maintain the parity in the league. I don’t
want to participate and especially run a league where the only way to be
successful is by getting better value in all of your trades. Players will be
evaluated on their Strat value as we are playing in a Strat league. NBA value
will only be used to evaluate player in only that we use it to project a
player’s Strat value. I have not allowed only a few trades in the Classic80 in
17 seasons, and I do not expect one-sided trades will be a problem in SOMIBA
either.
Rookie/Free Agent Draft – Because returning coaches may have been in the
process of rebuilding their team, I have decided to separate the rookies and
free agents that were not on one of the 10 stock teams and the 3 teams that did
not return (RHR, SCO, TUL). All the rookies and free agents not on any of these
teams have been placed in the rookie/free agent pool and we will draft from
8-players after cut back up to 15 players through the rookie/free agent draft.
If a team is short of players after seven rounds, we will have a supplemental
round where teams can draft up to 15 players and other teams can change out a
player(s). Teams will need to have 19,680 minutes on their roster (82 games x
48 minutes x 5 players) to participate in the season. I do not anticipate it
being a problem with only 24 SOMIBA teams compared to a pool of 30 NBA teams.
The draft will be setup using timeslots for 24 picks in one day. If you are not
able to make your timeslot a coach can simply request someone to pick from a
small list that you create, request a text message with the most recent picks
while you send your pick back asking the other coach to post for you,
requesting a phone call, through an instant messenger, or any other means. Once
the coache before you selects a player you can immediately select, not having
to wait until your time slot. If you miss your time slot then the next coach
can select during his or her time slot and you are free to a pick anytime. You
have until the end of the night to get missed pick into me before it gets
autoplayed and new files go out to start the next round.
Free Agent System – Since we use a Games Missed List, there may be games where
you do not have enough players at a position and for that we have a free agent
system. Coaches can request players before the start of a new monthly block of
games. These players should be used in gameplans and home games when the team’s
regular players (at the same position) have been exhausted. Keep in mind that
ringers will be removed from the Free Agent Pool (players with all dazzlers,
players with F(2) on their entire columns, ect).
All-NBA/All-Star Players – Another big rule is that coaches can only have one
player from the three All-NBA teams and two players from the All-Star teams
(that were not on the All-NBA teams). If you a second All-NBA or a third
All-Star player on your roster you have one of two choices. Either trade the
player or you can list one of them as inactive (Inactive All-NBA or Inactive
All-Star) and pay the penalties for doing so. Designating such a player as
inactive will cost a playoff team a second round pick and a lottery team’s
first round pick will be moved out of the lottery to the end of the first
round. If there are two or more lottery teams in this situation, then their
order will be determined randomly.
Lottery – Formerly the lottery took the three teams with the worst records.
Instead, we will use percentages similar to the NBA but weighted more towards
the teams with the worst records. With 9 teams (30, 24, 17, 13, 6, 5, 3, 1, 1)
I went ahead and setup the lottery for this season. Since 8 teams will make the
playoffs in each conference, the 8 teams that do not make the playoffs each
season will participate in an 8 team lottery and we will continue to use the
percentages for 8 teams (34, 26, 19, 12, 5, 2, 1, 1). We will hold the lottery
using the decimals from the decimals at the closing of the Dow Jones
Industrical as explained in the email I will send out separately on the
subject. Again as mentioned above, if a team acquires a first round pick
through a trade, that pick will be no earlier than the fourth overall pick.
Player Usage – For simplicity sake we will just go with NBA games and 110%
minutes. It will be more difficult to draft very low minute ringers with roster
sizes of 15 players compared to 18 players, and I think that is good. I would
rather see stars affect and dominate our games instead of ringers. For anyone
game, players will only be limited by fatigue which I feel does a really good
job of lowering the ability of players and why I normally don’t go over the MGP
of players by more than a couple of minutes. I had one coach play his top 5 for
48 minutes in gameplans and I don’t feel that was a very effective strategy in
the series.
Schedule – In the past the league played an even schedule against all teams….82
/ 23 = 3.56 games or randomly eliminating a fourth game against 13 teams. Since
we are aligning the league graphically and maintain the conferences from season
to season to follow the NBA, we will a different number of games against
different opponents: non-confernce = 2, same division = 6, and
conference/non-division = 5 (82 games). We will use the 6 divisions that the
NBA uses.
Position Eligiblity – From here going forward you’ll need to know these as I
use the abbreviations all the time…..RG = Right Guard (Point Guard), LG = Left
Guard (Shooting Guard), RF = Right Forward (Small Forward), LF = Left Forward
(Power Forwrard), and C = Center (Center). Players can play any position on
offense rated at least one minute by Strat. Players can defend any positions
rated by Strat. While playing one of the guard positions, he can defend the
other guard. While playing LF or C, either player may defend the other position
even if they are not rated to play the other position. If all your players at a
particular positon foul out of a game, you need use a player with the closest
fit to fill that position and then report to the commissioner. If you mess up
on defensive assignment eligibility just simply change it after you notice it
and then report it to me. The important thing is to learn from mistakes and we
all make them from time to time.
League Administration – I know a couple of you run your own league. And there
may be others that would like to help out in certain areas and I am certainly
open to you helping to run the league. Personally, I prefer playing in few
leagues and being more active in those that I am in and that includes helping
to run a league even if I am not the commissioner of it. If you feel similar
let me know and we will find areas where you can help. While I understand I
will be doing most of the work to run the league and I have been strong on
changes to the league, I still believe that each of you has ownership in the
league and after a season or two if there are changes that need to be made to
the league we will make those changes as a group. I am grateful for each of you
and thank that you decide to participate in the league this season and give me
a chance to run the league!
That is probably enough for tonight. If I think of anything I will mention it
to the league as I don’t want to surprise anyone with the direction I want to
take the league. If anyone has any questions on anything, please don’t hesitate
to bring it to my attention.
Thanks,
Jason
