Ohhhh... I think I know what Daily - Tomorrow means. Duhhhh.

"Daily-Tomorrow" means that if you pick up a free agent on Wednesday, that player won't be in your lineup until Thursday (i.e. you can't use him for Wednesday games).

It has nothing to do with lock-times. Lock times is how I described it before - 5 minutes before the games start.

At least that's how my Yahoo baseball team works.

Makes sense.

I was just thinking....We could combat the maximum games played problem by just drafting 12 players and having no bench.

That way, everyone would get their full 82 games at each position, no more and no less (barring injuries) and you wouldn't have to worry about changing your lineup every day.

All you'd have to do is watch for injuries, and the game would come down to who drafted the best and made the best trades and free agent moves.

It would require practically no time or attention, and you would have time to play salary cap as well. :p

With a 12 man team, 2 guys at each position, 2 "swing-men" (utility) and no bench, it would be just like a real BB team.

If one of your 12 guys wasn't producing, you could drop him and pickup a free agent. If we only have 6-8 people in the league, there will be plenty of good available FAs around at all times.

The only other thing is, I've heard that the NBA increased the roster size to 14 this year. If that's the case (I'll double check that), maybe we could go with a 15 man team -- 3 guys at each position, or 2 at each position and 5 utility guys (positions of your choice) and that's it. Again, no bench.

Clean and simple.

Is it just me but I don't really see this as a problem.

It's only a problem if you want to make this a daily game (as in having a full line-up everyday).

I think having a maximum number of games adds more realism (which I think you want) not less.

With that said, I have no problems with your new suggestion.

Doing it the way I just suggested makes it like real BB, in that you can only control 12 (or 14 if that turns out to be the case) players at a time.

And since I plan to play the salary cap game as well (as I hope you will), one daily game is enough.

Also, I want to keep it simple for JG . He's already panicking a bit.

Finally, the daily aspect will still be there. Checking other players moves, watching for injuries, proposing trades, etc.

One thing, though.....How do you prevent someone from using the injury list to "hide" a player who isn't injured but isn't playing within the next few days and replacing him with a FA who is, and then taking him off the injured list when he's gonna play again?

Or will that problem take care of itself if I go back to limiting the max # of games at each position to 82?

That way, if you put Garnett on the IL for a few days because he's off, and replace him for two games, you lose 2 games of Garnett when he comes back.

Or is my reasoning off somewhere?

DB, (or anyone else that cares to) when you have a chance, would you take a look at the Settings again?

I have Points, Rebounds, Assists, Steals, and Blocks as +1 point each, and turnovers as -1.

I assume that means that those are the values for the player stats.

The only reason I question it is because they called it "Stat Modifiers", and since there was no default setting, it didn't look like I was modifying anything.

I assume it's if you want to set up a league where, say, asists were worth 2 points, rebounds 3, etc. or something like that, but I want to make sure since this is one of those things you can't change after the season starts.

Maybe if you have the time, you could pretend to be starting a league, so you could look at all the settings options and everything and make sure that I didn't miss anything.

Yes, being my Ass Commissioner will involve a lot of work at the beginning, and I thank you in advance, but I want to make sure this gets done the right way (You know me ).

That's not a real problem. Classifying a player as "Disabled List" is only available for players that are actually on the injury list. Check your Yahoo football team - the only available positions for Julius Jones is "RB" or "BN", right? Same goes for basketball.

Yeah, but we don't have an injured list option in football.

The guy either plays or is benched. If someone is injured and expected to miss a week or two, we can't put him on an injured list and replace him with a free agent.

What happens in basketball if, say, I have Jason Kidd on my team and he turns his ankle or something and is supposed to miss only one game?

I can't put him on the injured list unless the team does?

I believe that in the NBA if a player is put on the injured list it's for a minimum of five games. Very often, therefore, if a guy is expected to only miss a game or two the team does not bother to put him on the IL.

Are you saying that if a player is officially on his team's injured list then Yahoo will give you the option of putting him on yours, but if his team doesn't put him on the IL, then you can't either?

If that's the case, then maybe we'd be better off with a 2 or 3 man bench, and no injured list.

You mentioned that you've played Yahoo baseball. I'd think they would do it the same way.

Thanking you in advance, I remain

Yours truly

plawrence
Commissioner
Gangster BB Yahoo Fantasy League

Oops, I didn't realize that. Bad example.

I know for sure that Yahoo baseball has a "DL" option when a player is officially on the disabled list.

That's right.

Having bench players is probably the best solution. I think having one or two DL spots isn't a bad idea either. Almost every NBA team is made up of 12 to 14 viable game-ready players. When one of those players gets injured, he is put on the DL, which frees up a roster spot. The team then goes onto sign someone else for a 10-day contract.

They do it the same way.

The only peoblem that I see in having a bench is that you start running into the problem of making sure you don't go over the maximum in games played.

Since the season is 180+ days long, and you can't set the max games played for more than 100, it sound like a pain in the ass to start having to keep track of it.

On one hand, if it's a Garnett or Lebron you may not want to give up the "game played" for your third string player off the bench, but if you're weak at, say, PG, saving your "game played" for you second stringer may not be worth sacrificng the points you'd get by playing your third stringer.

In real-life NBA, if a guy is expected to only miss a game or two, they just play w/o the guy and lose his production. Maybe that's the way to do it here, and have a two or three man injured list, but only for players who are on the team's IL.

And no bench. That eliminates the need to keep track of your GPs at each position.

Hmmm....Now I'm thinking though. Maybe we should have a bench. If I have Kidd, and I know he's gonna miss a game because of injury, replacing him with a bench player won't hurt, because now I know that the max # of games I can get out of him will only be 81 anyway, not 82.

But if someone wants to replace a player simply because his team is off that day, they run the risk of not being able to use him at the end of the game because they will exceed the max # of GPs (assuming that I reset it at 82).

And on the third hand, if it's near the end of the season, you have nothing to lose by replacing him.

And if a guy misses a game because of a list minute injury that you didn't catch, that, in effect, gives you a "free" game to use a replacemet for him later in the season on a day when he isn't playing.

A lot to this commissioner-ing, isn't there?

You following all of this, JG? :p

Guys... trust me, this is really simple. Don't let the words above scare you.

Lemme see if I can simplify the above discussion that DB and I had, and add a few points from the ensuing 45 minute IM chat that we had yesterday afternoon.

And DB, please lemme konow if I stated everything pretty much correctly and understandably.

-- It is my desire that this game replicate, to the extent that it is possible, the actual NBA.

-- Therefore, we will each have an active roster of 12 players, and, like almost all NBA teams, have two players for each position, and two "utility " guys (any position - your choice).

-- An NBA team plays an 82 game schedule, spread out over approxomately 180+ days.

-- It is impossible for any one NBA player to play more than 82 regular season games.

-- The question we were discussing was whether or not to have a bench, i.e. additional player under our control who could be substituted for one of the 12.

-- Here's the thing:

- Suppose we have a "bench" of, say, 5 players.

- Suppose you have, say, Jason Kidd as one of your PGs

- If we set the "Maximum Number of Games at Each Position" at 82 (which I am inclined to do), if you substitute a PG from your bench on a day when the Nets are off, you can now get only 81 games from Jason Kidd for the whole season.

- So, in effect, you are trading one game of Kidd for one game of, say, the 15th best PG in the NBA (assuming we each draft two PGs, and 2 or 3 wind up being "utility" players).

- Clearly, not a good move.

- On the other hand, if it is announced one day that Kidd will be out tomorrow because of a hang nail, or if he misses a game that you didn't know he was gonna miss, the you can only get 81 games out of Kidd for the season anyway, so the next time the Nets have an off-day, you might as well put in one of your "bench" PGs (if you have one), to make sure that you use up your maximum allotment of 82 games at each position.

Got that?

-- Since I want this to replicate the real NBA as much as possible, when Kidd misses an odd game here and there the Nets don't put him on the injured list (5 game minimum, I think), they just do without his production for that odd game now and then.

-- The Nets don't have a "bench", from which they can use a player to replace Kidd for that one game.

-- So I'm leaning towards not having a "bench", either.

-- If one of your 12 players misses an odd game here or there, too bad, just like the real NBA.

-- If a player is officially put on the injured list, then Yahoo allows you to put that player on your injured list as well, and you can replace him with a free agent for the time that he is injured.

-- This should, however, affect your draft strategy. It might be wise, for example, to stay away from guys like Marcus Camby, who seems to always miss 10-15 games a year without notice, or Shaq (unless you think that 70 games of Shaq is better than 82 games of someone else), or Chris Webber.

Now, all of that said, as DB pointed out to me when we were IMing, going with an 82 game max at each position and no bench will have the following effect at the end of the season, and here's where it gets a little bit complicated:

-- Suppose you have Kidd on your team

-- Suppose he missed 5 odd games during the year, and since we have no "bench", you couldn't substitute for him on any of the subsequent days when the Nets didn't play,

-- So now, the maximum number of games you can get from Kidd is 77, 5 short of the maximum.

-- Now, with say, two weeks to go in the season, the Nets are scheduled for four more games, and Kidd has been in 73 of the 78 the Nets have already played.

-- If you keep Kidd for the last two weeks, you wind up with 77 games at that PG position, 5 short of the max.

-- But, Suppose there's a free agent available whose team has five or six games left on their schedule.

-- You can then drop Kidd, and add the other guy, if you think that 5-6 games of him is worth more than four games from Kidd.

-- The problem with that, though, is that Kidd now becomes a free agent, and with four games left, someone who has a lesser PG that has played in 78 games can drop their guy, and pick up Kidd from the free agent pool, so you have to be careful if you make that move.

So, I'm leaning strongly towards a 12 man team with no bench. If one of your guys misses an odd game now and then, then just like in real life you just have to suffer that day w/o that player's production.

As I said, don't draft Camby or Webber.

This seems to be the easiest format, because you don't have to check and change your team every day. All you have to watch out for is players going on the injured list.

And everyone should also have time to play the salary cap game also.

A new emoticon? What is it? Whatever it is it goes for me too.

It means "I can't wait for the game to start."

It is my understanding that the NBA's CBA with the player's union calls for each team to have 14 players under contract for this season.

I assume, however, that they will only be permitted to dress 12 for each game.

I don't know if that means that it's gonna work "NHL Style", meaning that they can decide right before the game which 12 to dress, or if they have to put someone on an injured list or something before using dressing one of the additional two.

I'm thinking that it's gonna be the former rather than the latter, so based on that I changed the league settings to a maximum of 82 games at each of the 12 postions (2 players each at C, PF, SF, PG, and SG, and two "utility" players -- positions of your choice), and a two man bench (also positions of your choice).

Nothing is engraved in stone yet, though.

The other possible option, as I see it, is to have an unlimited number of games at each position and a huge bench, which would pretty much assure everyone of having a full roster every day.

The drawbacks are that

-- It becomes even more of a "daily" game.
-- Some of the "realism factor" is eliminated.
-- The live draft will take forever, since we'll be dipping into the "unheard of" players.

This can all be changed up until the start of the season, so comments are still welcome and encouraged.

Just a few comments...

- The less this is a daily game, the better.
- Plaw, I think having a couple of bench spots is probably for the best. One aspect of this game is trading, something that is enhanced with more players to choose from. It also helps in case there is a lag between when a player gets injured and getting put on the injury list itself.
- I looked at the Stat Modifiers for you. There are a number to choose from. I'm fine where you have things now although one sign of a good team is field goal percentage. Who would you rather have (I'm looking at just the points aspect) - Lebron who scores 27 points per game shooting 50% or AI scoring 28 points per game shooting 40%? In your scoring system, AI is "better" at least points-wise. Maybe have some sort of equation similar to the ESPN one (e.g. Points + Rebounds + Assists - Turnovers - (FMA - FGM) - (FTM - FTA)). Anyway, it's just a suggestion. It's been said many times, since we're all working under the same points system, we'll adjust our draft strategy accordingly.

Amen.

Um, strategy? Mine will be to get through it w/o whining or crying.

DB, I didn't see an option for missed field goals or free throws.

They had options for field goal and free throw attempts, but if I assigned a negative value to those, it would count all attempts as a negative, including successful ones.

Unless I'm interpreting it incorrectly. I'll have another look later.

I'm in. This year, not only am I gona kick Geoff's ass in the salery cap game, but I'm gona do it in the draft game also.

Bring it on - I can't wait to kick your ass again this year. :p

JG, that's funny-- DB and PL beat you by about as many points as you beat Spike by... But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night. :p

So, the one that's like the Baseball Challenge we're playing now is called the salary cap, right?

The scores you posted, JG, were from 2003-04, not last season.

Here's last year:
There was no game for the playoffs

(BB was DB's "Big Brother"
PP was Patrick
DN was DeNiro)

does BB only play basketball?

Oh yeah, I forgot that I played a few days towards the end there. Now I remember, I was "practicing" and getting the hang of it for the playoffs game, which never happened.

My bro is in the Yahoo game, but not the salary cap game.

DMC - My bro plays Yahoo fantasy football, baseball and basketball with his work friends. It is hard for him to play in our daily leagues because he doesn't have internet access at home.

Is BB gonna be able to make the draft?

FYI, btw.....I got this explanation from someone on the NBA Message Board I belong to:

The maximum roster limits are the same as before: 12 active plus 3 inactive (the Inactive List replaces Injured Reserve, and does not have an injury requirement).

Teams are required to carry at least one player on their Inactive List, although they can have zero for short periods of time.

I think we'll go with a three man bench and a three man injured list.

He should make it. I told him the draft time and he still signed up, which would lead me to believe that he could make it.

Now we just have to figure out how to get TMOAFS in the game.

Oh, and tell BB that I'm the commish, and I insist that he post at least once.

DB, if he's anywhere near as cool as you, he should post way more than once!