![[Account Deleted] Avatar](http://storage.proboards.com/5589790/avatar/ZhaFVHTxVPwmyuOiOKEd.png)
Post by [Account Deleted] on Aug 21, 2014 23:23:01 GMT -6
This is an RT idea that came from a really intense and heated shout discussion a couple of days ago. Basically, the idea is to gauge what different ideas some of our active GMs (both competing for best and worst records currently) have for improving the overall level of competition in the league.
1) What, if any, issues do you have with the level of competition in TMBSL as it currently exists?
Jazz
I don’t have any issues whatsoever with the level of competition. As far as I know, this league is as active and as competitive as it has ever been. With just a couple exceptions every GM is very attentive and I think sincerely wants to win.
Kings
First off, I want to get this out of the way because when we have had this discussion before people took me suggesting new ideas and ways to improve the league as a complaint about the current state of the league. I think the league is great right now, activity is high, the league is fun, articles are being written, we have had a GM on the waiting list for over a season and the commish is doing a good job. So please do not take my ideas as a sign that I don't like the league in it's current state.
My main issue with the league is how much incentive there is to tank. And that tanking in this league often means completely gutting your roster of anything of value. The reason I have a problem with this is it basically creates two separate leagues of competition each year: those competing to be the best team and those competing to be the worst. With two separate goals for these teams, they are not even competing with one another. When I play a tanking team, they are trying to lose and I am trying to win. There is no competition there. I think the competition with real human GMs is what makes this league so great. Therefore, I think a league where every team was pushing to win all their games would be much more enjoyable than one that provides incentive to lose by rewarding a higher draft pick.
Mavs
I really don't have any issues with the level of competition. Not every team should be in title contention every season, and that's not how it is in real life either. Granted the measures that some teams go to tank could use some tweaking, but there's no need for drastic changes that significantly alter the structure of the league. Some part of me actually enjoys the duality of the league in that it feels as if teams are always competing for something.
Thunder
My issue is that there are two halves of the league competing for separate goals, which causes the proliferation of super-elite teams and super-depleted teams. With this the case, playoffs are less exciting because there is less opportunity for upsets in the absence of major injury problems. Also, it encourages trades that are incredibly one-sided in value because not everyone is competing for the same goal. Also, with more teams trying to be competitive, the market for role players increases and it makes team building more tactical and challenging, which I think would make the league more interesting, at least for me.
2) Do you feel there are any issues with trading, FA, or buyout policies that negatively impact the health of the league? Do you have any suggestions to improve upon your areas of concern?
Jazz
I tend to favor rule changes that will lead to more flexibility for GMs, so I would like to see the once every 5 years rule removed from buyout. I think the sweet spot is dropping it to every other year. I don’t think the resulting inflation of salaries will be as catastrophic as some GMs believe, as finding the space to buyout a terrible contract is still a real pain in the ass, and can cost you some valuable assets if you have to outsource your buyout.
GMs buying up low level free agents just to immediately flip them kind of leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth, but I think it’s a necessary evil. It looks like 20s is going to get a pretty decent pick from rw for that Chones/Moore/Bradley deal. A raging FA market on low level but productive players isn’t a bad thing.
I would want to tweak the current contract rules in two ways.
1. Cap all contracts at 5 years. FA becomes marginally more volatile every single season this way. Sustained success becomes more difficult and it becomes easier to get out of the basement.
2. Remove all forms of maximum annual salary. If some insane GM (skrouse) wants to give Skywalker 30 million annually for 5 years, then by God, go and do it. I think this actually would increase the skill level required in FA. It’s no longer just which of 15 identical offers does Magic randomly decide to pick.
Kings
I don't have any major problems with the rules regarding trading, free agency or buyouts. The only thing I would recommend changing is lowering the salary on the FAs that you can't trade until Day 60 to anything above the MLE. This would not apply to guys with Bird Rights, obviously. However, my understanding is that the rule is in place to prevent tanking teams from signing players who they do not want simply to just trade them immediately for future assets. The current rule prevents teams from doing that for the highest level free agents such as guys who would earn a max, but not for mid level guys. Seems like it would make sense to just make it anything above an MLE cannot be traded until Day 60 (unless they were on your roster last year).
A lot of people have problems with the return that teams who are liquidating their roster in order to tank get on their players. However, if we are going to have our current structure, I am fine with it. They are going to get whatever the market determines. If you are trying to ship out your talented vets in order to rebuild, you are only going to have a certain number of interested teams. It is usually going to be teams who are trying to contend and that makes them unlikely to want to trade their current players and/or the tanking team often does not want players who will improve their team currently. Therefore, the deals often are centered around future draft picks which tend to be lower in the draft as they are coming from contending teams. I am fine with the market setting itself when it comes to trade value.
Mavs
I enjoy the level of activity in this league as far as trading goes. That being said, I wish more trades would be veto'd for the betterment of the league. This could be accomplished by either the commish doing so himself, or by having a trade committee of 4-5 veteran gm's. Between the two, I'd rather go with the trade committee with Odin being the final say so in the case of a split decision. Free agency rules have been tweaked over the years from 2.0 to 4.0 and I feel as there has been some real improvement with these new rules. One thing I would like to see is either lower the dollar about of newly signed free agents that can be traded right away, or lengthen the amount of time that a 8+ newly signed free agent has to be on a team before they are eligible for trade. I would push for a season, however I think that day 90 is reasonable. Free agents being signed just to trade for assets is probably my least favorite thing in this league.
Thunder
I think that Odin should be more aggressive in vetoing obviously terrible trades. Scat trading away two of his most talented players for pennies on the dollar and then declaring a lack of interest was embarrassing. Ank’s trade for Ernie Grunfeld should have never happened. Limiting some of these awfully one-sided deals would be good for the health of the league IMO. If not allowing the commish to make these decisions, at least have some type of review committee with 2 GM’s from each division who vote on trades that people question. Again, issues with that include allowing certain GM’s to control the ability for trades to happen and creating more league bureaucracy.
I’d also like to see a provision in FA to disallow more than minimum salaries for players who are obviously terrible and have no grade above a B-. It is nutty that players like Jimmy Jones, Igno Coty, and Teodor Ethan are getting paid so much.
3) User JHB proposed a salary floor and regulations on salary offers to "tanking" players as a way to create a more competitively balanced league. What are the potential benefits or disadvantages of a system like this in your opinion?
Jazz
I am not in favor of a salary floor, or of putting restrictions on absolute shitass players, and I don’t think anyone should have an issue with these. As long as we have a system in place where the goal for 8 teams every season is to be as bad as humanly possible, we shouldn’t do anything to restrict the abilities of these teams to get godawful.
Implementing both a salary floor and a max salary for bad players would be the worst thing this league has ever done. It would make it basically impossible to tank at the levels this league requires, since tanking teams would have to throw money at productive players. And what’s the penalty for violating salary floor anyway? Cutting 10 mil off cap would be pointless. Losing picks would just make tank jobs take longer and diminish interest from those tanking GMs.
Kings
Potential benefits: It could force tanking teams to have slightly better rosters which would make them slightly more competitive with the playoff level teams.
Disadvantages: I don't like putting additional limits or rules in place within the current structure. If the current structure is going to provide incentive to tank, teams should be able to use strategy to tank as well as they can (to an extent). I also feel like enforcing those free agent rules would create a little bit of additional work and for a solution I am not completely on board with in the first place, that is a deterrent.
Mavs
I wouldn't have a problem with a salary floor except for it my remove some teams from being able to buy out a contract if they desire to do so. Salary restrictions on "tanking" players seems good in theory, however it's almost near impossible to establish what players fit into these categories. Sure some are pretty cut and dry, but there would be a huge gray area in my opinion, and would only cause more headache/drama. Also, I don't know if I like the idea of making teams spend a certain amount on a year then limiting how much they can offer to certain players.
Thunder
This isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but I think it could be a start to encouraging every team in the league to not completely tear apart their roster during a tank. If every team has to reach a minimum salary and they can’t give funny money to obviously terrible players, there may be some incentive for teams that are tanking to hold onto a star or two while trying to rebuild. It also increases the market for young prospects and role players because teams are incapable of completely depleting their roster of all talent.
4) Do you feel there are any issues with our current lottery system that negatively impact the league?
Jazz
Absolutely. The way the current lottery system rewards retaining no talent on your roster whatsoever when tanking does bad things to the structure of this league. It shouldn’t be possible to assemble a superteam for free every season just because there are 5 teams trying desperately to shed talent.
Let’s take Rick Barry for example. I blew it up 2 seasons ago, and never found a decent offer for Barry. As a result, I had to sell him for 3 picks that will likely all fall in the mid to late 20s. He’s still one of the greatest players in the league, and Barry+Wall means I could have tried competing again this season. But in our current system, it would have been an objectively bad decision for me to keep an all-star level player on my roster, since it would damage my lotto odds. This is a ridiculous system that should be tweaked.
Kings
Only what I mentioned earlier, that it provides incentive to lose as many games as possible in order to get the highest draft pick. And then it divides the league into two disparate competitions each year.
Mavs
Is there a problem with the system? No. Is there a problem with GM's trying to exploit the system? Yes. I mean almost all gm's have been guilty of doing it at one point during their careers. I don't like that aspect of the league, but I don't think it's bad enough to where we need to take drastic measures. In the past I have been vocal about doing an unweighted lottery, however I think that point you are just moving the problem from the bottom 5 teams to the teams situated 9-11 in the standings.
Thunder
It creates a terrible incentive structure where it rewards half the league for actively trying to be non-competitive. Just because tanking is the best way to build a team in the real NBA doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explore better alternatives in the sim league. I think creating a more competitively balanced league would make it more fun and make the playoffs more interesting. That starts with creating incentives in the lottery system that encourages all teams to compete.
5) Several overhauls to the lottery system have been discussed. Discuss what you think the pros and cons of each proposition would be. *acknowledge issues other than workload for commish
A. The Wheel
Jazz
Well the largest pro is that the wheel means every team never stops trying to win, because they can’t rely on getting restocked by a bullshit lottery. I think it would lead to a really exciting new dynamic in the league. The best teams would be worse, the worst teams would be better, and it would be a much more competitive league overall. I don’t believe for a second that it would kill the trade market. Some picks become more valuable, others become less valuable. There is no net change. I think it’s really easy to picture someone like Soup being one piece away from a championship contender, but he also has a top 3 pick in 2 seasons. That pick is extremely valuable. Does he open his current window wider to move that pick and bring in a current star from a team that isn’t going anywhere?
I think the largest negative in a wheel scenario is that if you bust on a high pick, you aren’t going to see any real clear path to improving your team for several years, barring an FA miracle. However, people have been finding great talent deep into the drafts (Charlie Ward, Stanley Robinson, etc.), so druce and Odin’s great skills at assembling draft classes might overcome even the one downside to a wheel scenario.
Kings
I am Team Wheel. The reason that I support the wheel is because it removes any connection between a team's W-L record and their spot in the draft. This removes the incentive for teams to lose on purpose which in turn removes the incentive to trade off all players who would help you win for less than you would otherwise. To me, the wheel is the best way to accomplish this. It also guarantees that every team has a top 6 selection every 5 seasons so you have a continuous chance to add elite young talent to your roster. I think it would be extremely fun to have much more competitively balanced rosters which I believe would occur as a result of the wheel. I think sims would be very exciting if there was a real good chance of winning or losing each game on your schedule.
The issue with implementing the wheel after we have been using the lottery based system for 6 seasons is that it is a complete shift in the structure and dynamic of the league and teams have already built strategy and made moves based upon our current structure. You would have to announce a move to the wheel well before it was scheduled to occur to let everyone adjust and build their teams accordingly. I would recommend 10 sim seasons in advance.
Mavs
I don't understand the fascination with having the next 30 years of sims planned as far as draft orders. A big majority of my enjoyment in this league comes from uncertainty and mystery when dealing with future draft picks. I honestly think it would cause me to trade less in this league. If I knew that the pick I was trading would be a lottery pick, I would probably be less likely to make over 50% of the moves I make in this league. Part of being a good gm is being able to "sell" yourself to other gm's, and with draft picks set in stone it takes away from some of the gamesmanship. I think the league could potentially become bland if every gm has a way better understanding of what they are trading for in the future. The only pro to the wheel is it would make the league more balance, but the cost of what it would take isn't worth it.
Thunder
I’m not particularly fond of The Wheel. I think it would be fun to see in action, but the idea terrifies me as a GM because what happens when you bust the high draft pick in your cycle? I think the potential of that happening could discourage some GM’s and ruin league-wide activity. The big benefit though is that it encourages every team to be highly competitive and it removes any incentive for trading away a star for anything less than a guaranteed top pick.
One thing I don’t like though is that it distorts the cycle of team-building that we have in the league. Part of the excitement of this league for most people is building a team that can compete, competing for division titles and championships, tearing that team down, and starting anew. There is something exciting about potential that I think is lost when you know what you get every year. I think this kind of destroys that cycle and could potentially cause some GM’s to lose interest.
B. 29-Team Unweighted Lottery
Jazz
I think this is a proposal that would literally kill the league. As fun as it is to conceptualize, the first time a stacked team wins the lottery, I could see like 4 tankers just scream bullshit and quit. It would definitely level the playing field as far as trading draft picks go. Those Indiana picks everyone’s passing around like they are made of gold would be worth just as much as Dallas’ worthless picks.
It might completely kill the trade market though, since most GMs seem to value high draft picks more than anything else in the league, and no one is going to want to give up on their 3.4% chance that they are landing the [HASH]1 pick.
Kings
This was brought up as another solution that completely removes the connection between W-L record and draft spot. It was brought up as an alternative because some GMs had an issue with knowing exactly where a draft pick would fall and the impact that would have on trading picks. I would support this idea because it would remove the incentive to tank, but I feel it adds unnecessary luck and variance into the draft pick situation. With the wheel, everyone is guaranteed to get a top 6 pick every 5 seasons, with a lottery for the entire league, a team could repeatedly get placed in the low 20s for 3-4 years in a row which would be tough to overcome. I also don't think that knowing exactly where a pick is going to be would hurt trading of picks. I think it would help. Instead of trading a star player for 3 unknown picks, maybe you can trade him for one guaranteed 8th overall selection. I also think it would ensure that teams who are trying to improve their current roster by adding talent are giving up appropriate value to the teams selling talent.
This solution has the same issue as the wheel above, a change would need to be announced many seasons in advance so the teams who have decided to rebuild in order to get high draft picks are not punished.
Mavs
This is pretty much the 1 year version of the wheel, except you wouldn't find out until the season ended. I'm not going to lie, part of this idea intrigues me. I don't think the thought of possibly getting a lottery pick would keep the elite teams from trading away their future firsts since there is low percentages of it turning into a top 5 pick. With my pick mostly being slotted in the mid to late 20's range, this lottery would make my picks way more valuable when trying to trade for pieces to better my team. This is all a pipe dream though as I think this would be the least likely of the scenarios the league decided on if we decided to change.
Thunder
I don’t understand why anyone would be a proponent of this idea. It still encourages teams to suck, it just gives every team in the league the opportunity to jump into the top 3 (unless you were going to do a lottery for every pick in the draft or at least every non-playoff team). I also think it depresses the trade market because then every team has the opportunity for their pick to jump into the top of the draft.
C. 13-Team Unweighted Lottery
Jazz
This is the solution that would solve virtually every problem I have with the current iteration of the league. Complete scorched earth tanks would become a thing of the past. Tankers would be able to retain players that could fit into their long term plans. Winning teams couldn’t assemble unbeatable superteams. The championship contenders would actually have flaws, like real life championship contenders. I don’t believe this scenario would have any appreciable effect on the trade market, we just wouldn’t see 20 different “nice bench piece for free” trades every season. Keeping someone like Angel Profit on my team, who is a very nice role player on a winning team, and I had signed to a pretty good contract, is something that I actually could do, instead of giving him away for nothing. Tankers could also remain active in the trade market during the season, if I wanted to trade for Alvan Adams, I could actually do that without it being seen as an idiotic move. As it is now, I just check the league and make snippy comments at Heat fans while not doing any actual sim league team management.
Having a back to back 60 win season in this scenario would actually be a really impressive accomplishment, instead of something you just do every time you are in a winning cycle.
The main critique I see coming to this scenario is that while we will no longer have people tanking frantically to get the worst overall record, we will have people start frantically tanking at about day 80 to get out of the 8th playoff spot and into the lottery. I don’t think that’s a real problem though, as moving from 8th to 9th seems much more difficult than going from 3rd worst to 2nd worst, and it still keeps us away from the current problem of having rosters completely devoid of talent.
I’ve seen Ian say in Shout that he likes watching the luck portion of the software kick in; well this leads to a more exciting league and even more luck factor than the current system, so basically if Ian doesn’t like the unweighted 13 team lottery he’s full of shit.
Kings
I am not the biggest fan of this idea. I understand the theory behind it as it would hopefully keep teams from tearing down to the 1-81 or 3-79 type records we have seen in the past. With a 13 team unweighted lotto, all teams who don't make the playoffs would have the same odds of landing the [HASH]1 pick. However, the issue I have with this idea is that I believe it would place even more teams into the group that is trying to lose. If you are a 6-8 seed as we come down the stretch run of the season, you recognize that if you can just lose a few more games and miss out on the playoffs, you have just as good of a chance as the worst teams in the league of landing a top pick. I think we would end up with over half the league trying to lose to fall outside of the playoffs and that is not something I want to see.
Mavs
If we were going to change to anything, this would be ideal IMO. You wouldn't have tankers completely dismantling their team and selling off all star players, and good role players for pennies on the dollar. It would create more balance in the league by limiting the elite super teams. The con would be instead of teams competing for a bottom 3 record, you would non contending teams trying to compete for the 9th-10th spot in the conference. Same problem, however less drastic.
Thunder
This is the best solution in my opinion (as long as you use the lottery to determine the position of all the picks or at least top 6 or 7 and not just the top 3). It still maintains the cycle of team-building we have in the league now but removes the incentive to sell away your stars unless they have prohibitive contracts or are near the end of their careers (which are logical reasons to move a star player). Teams don’t completely remove all of the talent on their roster. I think what you end up seeing is conferences that look like the Eastern Conference does in 3005, where any of 12 teams could make the playoffs and make some noise. Then, the ones that don’t make the playoffs all have an equal opportunity to win the lottery. It could create some late-season tanking scenarios, but we already get that some with the current system.
6) In an ideal world, how would you run the lottery/draft system?
Jazz
Unweighted 13 team lottery
Kings
The Wheel.
Mavs
Ideally we keep it how is if the ideas above are our only options. I know the gm's that are in favor of changing how it runs want to discount the amount of extra work it would take for the commish, but that really is a good enough reason for me to keep it the same since I don't believe the system is broken. Odin already spends dozens of hours per sim season on the league so adding to that for such a small reason just isn't something I can get behind.
Thunder
Unweighted 13-team lotto
7) Do you have any other suggestions to potentially improve the level of competition in the league?
Jazz
I got to grind my ax against the lottery system, and espouse my anarchistic FA and contract desires. I guess the only other thing I can think of would be to ban all GMs who root for the Miami Heat from the league in perpetuity.
Kings
I would be in support of anything that provides more incentive for teams to make the playoffs and win more games. Also, anything that provides less incentive for teams to lose. I don't have any hard set ideas, but I would be open to discussion from others on any ideas they have. Maybe something that impacts your soft or hard cap number based on how many games you have won (I don't know, just throwing something out there).
Or letting Ian GM every single team would probably be pretty good.
Mavs
No, not other than what I have already mentioned. For the most part we are a smart group. No matter the system in play, someone will always find a way to exploit it, and then others will follow suit. That's the way of the sim.
Thunder
Mainly what I have already mentioned. I don’t have any issue with the league today, I just think it would be nice to do something to align everyone’s incentives so that the goal is always to win as many games as you possibly can.
1) What, if any, issues do you have with the level of competition in TMBSL as it currently exists?
Jazz
I don’t have any issues whatsoever with the level of competition. As far as I know, this league is as active and as competitive as it has ever been. With just a couple exceptions every GM is very attentive and I think sincerely wants to win.
Kings
First off, I want to get this out of the way because when we have had this discussion before people took me suggesting new ideas and ways to improve the league as a complaint about the current state of the league. I think the league is great right now, activity is high, the league is fun, articles are being written, we have had a GM on the waiting list for over a season and the commish is doing a good job. So please do not take my ideas as a sign that I don't like the league in it's current state.
My main issue with the league is how much incentive there is to tank. And that tanking in this league often means completely gutting your roster of anything of value. The reason I have a problem with this is it basically creates two separate leagues of competition each year: those competing to be the best team and those competing to be the worst. With two separate goals for these teams, they are not even competing with one another. When I play a tanking team, they are trying to lose and I am trying to win. There is no competition there. I think the competition with real human GMs is what makes this league so great. Therefore, I think a league where every team was pushing to win all their games would be much more enjoyable than one that provides incentive to lose by rewarding a higher draft pick.
Mavs
I really don't have any issues with the level of competition. Not every team should be in title contention every season, and that's not how it is in real life either. Granted the measures that some teams go to tank could use some tweaking, but there's no need for drastic changes that significantly alter the structure of the league. Some part of me actually enjoys the duality of the league in that it feels as if teams are always competing for something.
Thunder
My issue is that there are two halves of the league competing for separate goals, which causes the proliferation of super-elite teams and super-depleted teams. With this the case, playoffs are less exciting because there is less opportunity for upsets in the absence of major injury problems. Also, it encourages trades that are incredibly one-sided in value because not everyone is competing for the same goal. Also, with more teams trying to be competitive, the market for role players increases and it makes team building more tactical and challenging, which I think would make the league more interesting, at least for me.
2) Do you feel there are any issues with trading, FA, or buyout policies that negatively impact the health of the league? Do you have any suggestions to improve upon your areas of concern?
Jazz
I tend to favor rule changes that will lead to more flexibility for GMs, so I would like to see the once every 5 years rule removed from buyout. I think the sweet spot is dropping it to every other year. I don’t think the resulting inflation of salaries will be as catastrophic as some GMs believe, as finding the space to buyout a terrible contract is still a real pain in the ass, and can cost you some valuable assets if you have to outsource your buyout.
GMs buying up low level free agents just to immediately flip them kind of leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth, but I think it’s a necessary evil. It looks like 20s is going to get a pretty decent pick from rw for that Chones/Moore/Bradley deal. A raging FA market on low level but productive players isn’t a bad thing.
I would want to tweak the current contract rules in two ways.
1. Cap all contracts at 5 years. FA becomes marginally more volatile every single season this way. Sustained success becomes more difficult and it becomes easier to get out of the basement.
2. Remove all forms of maximum annual salary. If some insane GM (skrouse) wants to give Skywalker 30 million annually for 5 years, then by God, go and do it. I think this actually would increase the skill level required in FA. It’s no longer just which of 15 identical offers does Magic randomly decide to pick.
Kings
I don't have any major problems with the rules regarding trading, free agency or buyouts. The only thing I would recommend changing is lowering the salary on the FAs that you can't trade until Day 60 to anything above the MLE. This would not apply to guys with Bird Rights, obviously. However, my understanding is that the rule is in place to prevent tanking teams from signing players who they do not want simply to just trade them immediately for future assets. The current rule prevents teams from doing that for the highest level free agents such as guys who would earn a max, but not for mid level guys. Seems like it would make sense to just make it anything above an MLE cannot be traded until Day 60 (unless they were on your roster last year).
A lot of people have problems with the return that teams who are liquidating their roster in order to tank get on their players. However, if we are going to have our current structure, I am fine with it. They are going to get whatever the market determines. If you are trying to ship out your talented vets in order to rebuild, you are only going to have a certain number of interested teams. It is usually going to be teams who are trying to contend and that makes them unlikely to want to trade their current players and/or the tanking team often does not want players who will improve their team currently. Therefore, the deals often are centered around future draft picks which tend to be lower in the draft as they are coming from contending teams. I am fine with the market setting itself when it comes to trade value.
Mavs
I enjoy the level of activity in this league as far as trading goes. That being said, I wish more trades would be veto'd for the betterment of the league. This could be accomplished by either the commish doing so himself, or by having a trade committee of 4-5 veteran gm's. Between the two, I'd rather go with the trade committee with Odin being the final say so in the case of a split decision. Free agency rules have been tweaked over the years from 2.0 to 4.0 and I feel as there has been some real improvement with these new rules. One thing I would like to see is either lower the dollar about of newly signed free agents that can be traded right away, or lengthen the amount of time that a 8+ newly signed free agent has to be on a team before they are eligible for trade. I would push for a season, however I think that day 90 is reasonable. Free agents being signed just to trade for assets is probably my least favorite thing in this league.
Thunder
I think that Odin should be more aggressive in vetoing obviously terrible trades. Scat trading away two of his most talented players for pennies on the dollar and then declaring a lack of interest was embarrassing. Ank’s trade for Ernie Grunfeld should have never happened. Limiting some of these awfully one-sided deals would be good for the health of the league IMO. If not allowing the commish to make these decisions, at least have some type of review committee with 2 GM’s from each division who vote on trades that people question. Again, issues with that include allowing certain GM’s to control the ability for trades to happen and creating more league bureaucracy.
I’d also like to see a provision in FA to disallow more than minimum salaries for players who are obviously terrible and have no grade above a B-. It is nutty that players like Jimmy Jones, Igno Coty, and Teodor Ethan are getting paid so much.
3) User JHB proposed a salary floor and regulations on salary offers to "tanking" players as a way to create a more competitively balanced league. What are the potential benefits or disadvantages of a system like this in your opinion?
Jazz
I am not in favor of a salary floor, or of putting restrictions on absolute shitass players, and I don’t think anyone should have an issue with these. As long as we have a system in place where the goal for 8 teams every season is to be as bad as humanly possible, we shouldn’t do anything to restrict the abilities of these teams to get godawful.
Implementing both a salary floor and a max salary for bad players would be the worst thing this league has ever done. It would make it basically impossible to tank at the levels this league requires, since tanking teams would have to throw money at productive players. And what’s the penalty for violating salary floor anyway? Cutting 10 mil off cap would be pointless. Losing picks would just make tank jobs take longer and diminish interest from those tanking GMs.
Kings
Potential benefits: It could force tanking teams to have slightly better rosters which would make them slightly more competitive with the playoff level teams.
Disadvantages: I don't like putting additional limits or rules in place within the current structure. If the current structure is going to provide incentive to tank, teams should be able to use strategy to tank as well as they can (to an extent). I also feel like enforcing those free agent rules would create a little bit of additional work and for a solution I am not completely on board with in the first place, that is a deterrent.
Mavs
I wouldn't have a problem with a salary floor except for it my remove some teams from being able to buy out a contract if they desire to do so. Salary restrictions on "tanking" players seems good in theory, however it's almost near impossible to establish what players fit into these categories. Sure some are pretty cut and dry, but there would be a huge gray area in my opinion, and would only cause more headache/drama. Also, I don't know if I like the idea of making teams spend a certain amount on a year then limiting how much they can offer to certain players.
Thunder
This isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but I think it could be a start to encouraging every team in the league to not completely tear apart their roster during a tank. If every team has to reach a minimum salary and they can’t give funny money to obviously terrible players, there may be some incentive for teams that are tanking to hold onto a star or two while trying to rebuild. It also increases the market for young prospects and role players because teams are incapable of completely depleting their roster of all talent.
4) Do you feel there are any issues with our current lottery system that negatively impact the league?
Jazz
Absolutely. The way the current lottery system rewards retaining no talent on your roster whatsoever when tanking does bad things to the structure of this league. It shouldn’t be possible to assemble a superteam for free every season just because there are 5 teams trying desperately to shed talent.
Let’s take Rick Barry for example. I blew it up 2 seasons ago, and never found a decent offer for Barry. As a result, I had to sell him for 3 picks that will likely all fall in the mid to late 20s. He’s still one of the greatest players in the league, and Barry+Wall means I could have tried competing again this season. But in our current system, it would have been an objectively bad decision for me to keep an all-star level player on my roster, since it would damage my lotto odds. This is a ridiculous system that should be tweaked.
Kings
Only what I mentioned earlier, that it provides incentive to lose as many games as possible in order to get the highest draft pick. And then it divides the league into two disparate competitions each year.
Mavs
Is there a problem with the system? No. Is there a problem with GM's trying to exploit the system? Yes. I mean almost all gm's have been guilty of doing it at one point during their careers. I don't like that aspect of the league, but I don't think it's bad enough to where we need to take drastic measures. In the past I have been vocal about doing an unweighted lottery, however I think that point you are just moving the problem from the bottom 5 teams to the teams situated 9-11 in the standings.
Thunder
It creates a terrible incentive structure where it rewards half the league for actively trying to be non-competitive. Just because tanking is the best way to build a team in the real NBA doesn’t mean we shouldn’t explore better alternatives in the sim league. I think creating a more competitively balanced league would make it more fun and make the playoffs more interesting. That starts with creating incentives in the lottery system that encourages all teams to compete.
5) Several overhauls to the lottery system have been discussed. Discuss what you think the pros and cons of each proposition would be. *acknowledge issues other than workload for commish
A. The Wheel
Jazz
Well the largest pro is that the wheel means every team never stops trying to win, because they can’t rely on getting restocked by a bullshit lottery. I think it would lead to a really exciting new dynamic in the league. The best teams would be worse, the worst teams would be better, and it would be a much more competitive league overall. I don’t believe for a second that it would kill the trade market. Some picks become more valuable, others become less valuable. There is no net change. I think it’s really easy to picture someone like Soup being one piece away from a championship contender, but he also has a top 3 pick in 2 seasons. That pick is extremely valuable. Does he open his current window wider to move that pick and bring in a current star from a team that isn’t going anywhere?
I think the largest negative in a wheel scenario is that if you bust on a high pick, you aren’t going to see any real clear path to improving your team for several years, barring an FA miracle. However, people have been finding great talent deep into the drafts (Charlie Ward, Stanley Robinson, etc.), so druce and Odin’s great skills at assembling draft classes might overcome even the one downside to a wheel scenario.
Kings
I am Team Wheel. The reason that I support the wheel is because it removes any connection between a team's W-L record and their spot in the draft. This removes the incentive for teams to lose on purpose which in turn removes the incentive to trade off all players who would help you win for less than you would otherwise. To me, the wheel is the best way to accomplish this. It also guarantees that every team has a top 6 selection every 5 seasons so you have a continuous chance to add elite young talent to your roster. I think it would be extremely fun to have much more competitively balanced rosters which I believe would occur as a result of the wheel. I think sims would be very exciting if there was a real good chance of winning or losing each game on your schedule.
The issue with implementing the wheel after we have been using the lottery based system for 6 seasons is that it is a complete shift in the structure and dynamic of the league and teams have already built strategy and made moves based upon our current structure. You would have to announce a move to the wheel well before it was scheduled to occur to let everyone adjust and build their teams accordingly. I would recommend 10 sim seasons in advance.
Mavs
I don't understand the fascination with having the next 30 years of sims planned as far as draft orders. A big majority of my enjoyment in this league comes from uncertainty and mystery when dealing with future draft picks. I honestly think it would cause me to trade less in this league. If I knew that the pick I was trading would be a lottery pick, I would probably be less likely to make over 50% of the moves I make in this league. Part of being a good gm is being able to "sell" yourself to other gm's, and with draft picks set in stone it takes away from some of the gamesmanship. I think the league could potentially become bland if every gm has a way better understanding of what they are trading for in the future. The only pro to the wheel is it would make the league more balance, but the cost of what it would take isn't worth it.
Thunder
I’m not particularly fond of The Wheel. I think it would be fun to see in action, but the idea terrifies me as a GM because what happens when you bust the high draft pick in your cycle? I think the potential of that happening could discourage some GM’s and ruin league-wide activity. The big benefit though is that it encourages every team to be highly competitive and it removes any incentive for trading away a star for anything less than a guaranteed top pick.
One thing I don’t like though is that it distorts the cycle of team-building that we have in the league. Part of the excitement of this league for most people is building a team that can compete, competing for division titles and championships, tearing that team down, and starting anew. There is something exciting about potential that I think is lost when you know what you get every year. I think this kind of destroys that cycle and could potentially cause some GM’s to lose interest.
B. 29-Team Unweighted Lottery
Jazz
I think this is a proposal that would literally kill the league. As fun as it is to conceptualize, the first time a stacked team wins the lottery, I could see like 4 tankers just scream bullshit and quit. It would definitely level the playing field as far as trading draft picks go. Those Indiana picks everyone’s passing around like they are made of gold would be worth just as much as Dallas’ worthless picks.
It might completely kill the trade market though, since most GMs seem to value high draft picks more than anything else in the league, and no one is going to want to give up on their 3.4% chance that they are landing the [HASH]1 pick.
Kings
This was brought up as another solution that completely removes the connection between W-L record and draft spot. It was brought up as an alternative because some GMs had an issue with knowing exactly where a draft pick would fall and the impact that would have on trading picks. I would support this idea because it would remove the incentive to tank, but I feel it adds unnecessary luck and variance into the draft pick situation. With the wheel, everyone is guaranteed to get a top 6 pick every 5 seasons, with a lottery for the entire league, a team could repeatedly get placed in the low 20s for 3-4 years in a row which would be tough to overcome. I also don't think that knowing exactly where a pick is going to be would hurt trading of picks. I think it would help. Instead of trading a star player for 3 unknown picks, maybe you can trade him for one guaranteed 8th overall selection. I also think it would ensure that teams who are trying to improve their current roster by adding talent are giving up appropriate value to the teams selling talent.
This solution has the same issue as the wheel above, a change would need to be announced many seasons in advance so the teams who have decided to rebuild in order to get high draft picks are not punished.
Mavs
This is pretty much the 1 year version of the wheel, except you wouldn't find out until the season ended. I'm not going to lie, part of this idea intrigues me. I don't think the thought of possibly getting a lottery pick would keep the elite teams from trading away their future firsts since there is low percentages of it turning into a top 5 pick. With my pick mostly being slotted in the mid to late 20's range, this lottery would make my picks way more valuable when trying to trade for pieces to better my team. This is all a pipe dream though as I think this would be the least likely of the scenarios the league decided on if we decided to change.
Thunder
I don’t understand why anyone would be a proponent of this idea. It still encourages teams to suck, it just gives every team in the league the opportunity to jump into the top 3 (unless you were going to do a lottery for every pick in the draft or at least every non-playoff team). I also think it depresses the trade market because then every team has the opportunity for their pick to jump into the top of the draft.
C. 13-Team Unweighted Lottery
Jazz
This is the solution that would solve virtually every problem I have with the current iteration of the league. Complete scorched earth tanks would become a thing of the past. Tankers would be able to retain players that could fit into their long term plans. Winning teams couldn’t assemble unbeatable superteams. The championship contenders would actually have flaws, like real life championship contenders. I don’t believe this scenario would have any appreciable effect on the trade market, we just wouldn’t see 20 different “nice bench piece for free” trades every season. Keeping someone like Angel Profit on my team, who is a very nice role player on a winning team, and I had signed to a pretty good contract, is something that I actually could do, instead of giving him away for nothing. Tankers could also remain active in the trade market during the season, if I wanted to trade for Alvan Adams, I could actually do that without it being seen as an idiotic move. As it is now, I just check the league and make snippy comments at Heat fans while not doing any actual sim league team management.
Having a back to back 60 win season in this scenario would actually be a really impressive accomplishment, instead of something you just do every time you are in a winning cycle.
The main critique I see coming to this scenario is that while we will no longer have people tanking frantically to get the worst overall record, we will have people start frantically tanking at about day 80 to get out of the 8th playoff spot and into the lottery. I don’t think that’s a real problem though, as moving from 8th to 9th seems much more difficult than going from 3rd worst to 2nd worst, and it still keeps us away from the current problem of having rosters completely devoid of talent.
I’ve seen Ian say in Shout that he likes watching the luck portion of the software kick in; well this leads to a more exciting league and even more luck factor than the current system, so basically if Ian doesn’t like the unweighted 13 team lottery he’s full of shit.
Kings
I am not the biggest fan of this idea. I understand the theory behind it as it would hopefully keep teams from tearing down to the 1-81 or 3-79 type records we have seen in the past. With a 13 team unweighted lotto, all teams who don't make the playoffs would have the same odds of landing the [HASH]1 pick. However, the issue I have with this idea is that I believe it would place even more teams into the group that is trying to lose. If you are a 6-8 seed as we come down the stretch run of the season, you recognize that if you can just lose a few more games and miss out on the playoffs, you have just as good of a chance as the worst teams in the league of landing a top pick. I think we would end up with over half the league trying to lose to fall outside of the playoffs and that is not something I want to see.
Mavs
If we were going to change to anything, this would be ideal IMO. You wouldn't have tankers completely dismantling their team and selling off all star players, and good role players for pennies on the dollar. It would create more balance in the league by limiting the elite super teams. The con would be instead of teams competing for a bottom 3 record, you would non contending teams trying to compete for the 9th-10th spot in the conference. Same problem, however less drastic.
Thunder
This is the best solution in my opinion (as long as you use the lottery to determine the position of all the picks or at least top 6 or 7 and not just the top 3). It still maintains the cycle of team-building we have in the league now but removes the incentive to sell away your stars unless they have prohibitive contracts or are near the end of their careers (which are logical reasons to move a star player). Teams don’t completely remove all of the talent on their roster. I think what you end up seeing is conferences that look like the Eastern Conference does in 3005, where any of 12 teams could make the playoffs and make some noise. Then, the ones that don’t make the playoffs all have an equal opportunity to win the lottery. It could create some late-season tanking scenarios, but we already get that some with the current system.
6) In an ideal world, how would you run the lottery/draft system?
Jazz
Unweighted 13 team lottery
Kings
The Wheel.
Mavs
Ideally we keep it how is if the ideas above are our only options. I know the gm's that are in favor of changing how it runs want to discount the amount of extra work it would take for the commish, but that really is a good enough reason for me to keep it the same since I don't believe the system is broken. Odin already spends dozens of hours per sim season on the league so adding to that for such a small reason just isn't something I can get behind.
Thunder
Unweighted 13-team lotto
7) Do you have any other suggestions to potentially improve the level of competition in the league?
Jazz
I got to grind my ax against the lottery system, and espouse my anarchistic FA and contract desires. I guess the only other thing I can think of would be to ban all GMs who root for the Miami Heat from the league in perpetuity.
Kings
I would be in support of anything that provides more incentive for teams to make the playoffs and win more games. Also, anything that provides less incentive for teams to lose. I don't have any hard set ideas, but I would be open to discussion from others on any ideas they have. Maybe something that impacts your soft or hard cap number based on how many games you have won (I don't know, just throwing something out there).
Or letting Ian GM every single team would probably be pretty good.
Mavs
No, not other than what I have already mentioned. For the most part we are a smart group. No matter the system in play, someone will always find a way to exploit it, and then others will follow suit. That's the way of the sim.
Thunder
Mainly what I have already mentioned. I don’t have any issue with the league today, I just think it would be nice to do something to align everyone’s incentives so that the goal is always to win as many games as you possibly can.
