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MSNBC Community => Fantasy NBA League => Topic started by: Derek Bodner on February 12, 2004, 01:51:55 PM

Title: Draft order
Post by: Derek Bodner on February 12, 2004, 01:51:55 PM
here's my proposal.

The top 6 picks go to the worst 6 teams  (the teams that don't make the playoffs).  But I don't think the worst team should get the 1st pick, as that will promote teams to tanking the season.

Here's my proposal.

the bottom six teams play in a consolation bracket.  The winner of the consolation bracket gets the most ping pong balls, 2nd place gets second most, and so on.  Therefore, those who do best in the consolation bracket get the best chances of getting a good pick.  This would prevent people from tanking the season, but also ensure that the 6 worst teams get the 6 best draft choices.  There is a randomizer program that i've seen other leagues lose, I'll try to find that.

Picks 6-12 I think should be determined by the finish of the people in the championship round, with the 12th pick going to the 1st place finisher, 11th pick going to the 2nd place finisher, etc.

Thoughts?
Title: Draft order
Post by: Guest on February 12, 2004, 04:53:35 PM
I like the idea for the last 6 picks being based on the order of finish in the tournament.

I DON'T like the idea of the 6 cellar teams picks based off of their tournament.  I think the regular season is more appropriate.  And yes, tanking could be a problem.  So, therefore, let's do a lottery.  #12 gets 36 ping pong balls, #11 gets 25, #10 gets 16, #9 gets 9, #8 gets 4, #7 gets 1.  Draw for picks 1 and 2.  3 through 6 are in inverse order of finish in the regular season.

The reason I don't like the tournament for the bottom 6?  It encourages a marginal TOP team to drop games.  It also penalizes a bad team for being bad by keeping them bad.

Would we like to see a draft where the order goes like this:

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.  

I wouldn't.  The people who get hurt are 11, 12, 6, and 5.  Next year, they're likely to be 9, 10, 11, 12.

In my scenario, the likely order would be x, x, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, where the x's will be replaced by two of the 7 through 12 teams.  But the worst team (12) would end up with no worse than the 3rd pick of the available players overall.

Or - better yet, let the players decide on their positions.  For example, let's say 12 wins the lottery.  Is he better of with position 1 and 24, or is he better off with 12 and 13?  Make the player responsible for their own fate by giving them the CHOICE of where they draft.

(My take is that it's always best to go first - but I know that others might not share that opinion - especially if they have strong keepers.)

                                                 Joe

 
Title: Draft order
Post by: ziggy on February 13, 2004, 12:59:02 AM
My opinion on the draft is pretty straight forward.  I think we should have the bottom 6 get picks 1 through 6, but selected randomly.  No ping pong balls, everybody equal chances, and selected at random.  The top 6 get 7 through 12 also selected randomly.  This is quite different from the NBA.  We only get to protect 2 players, so what happens this year will have only a minimal impact on next year.  It is not like we are bringing back our top 10 players, we are bringing back 2 players.  
So if you don't make the playoffs you have an equal chance to get #1 through #6.  As a result tanking is totally a non-issue.  Everybody is trying to make the final 6, and if you don't but you end up 1 game short, you get the same chance at the #1 pick as everybody else who didn't make the playoffs.
It is not as if draft position has any relationship to the final standings anyway.  Gen Hexxed drafted #8, Drom #11, Genghis #3, I picked #10, Jihad #1.  Results from last year would be similar.
If not this, then I say just make it based upon final playoff standings, or the regular season, don't think it makes much difference.  Obviously you can tank the rest of the way, but to what end?  To get the first pick in the third round, as opposed to the 2nd or 3rd.  This is a for fun league, with all the players good people, so I am willing to trust all the players to do their best.  Everybody has played hard all season long, why should we believe that will stop come playoff time?  It is not as if there is money on the line or anything.
Title: Draft order
Post by: gaither on February 13, 2004, 05:58:48 AM
Nix on the idea of a consolation game to decide which of the "losers" picks 1st to 12. As one of the losers, I'm will just be glad when the regular season; the last thing I feel like doing is playing in a losers playoffs. :blink:

I agree with ziggy's idea, just use random selection to decided the order for the draft order of 1-6 for those who don't make the playoffs, and then repeat the process to decide the order of 7-12 for those who do make the playoffs.
Title: Draft order
Post by: bbf78253 on February 13, 2004, 09:43:36 AM
I disagree with ziggy some...those people who are in the top 6 have 2 keepers that make a big difference in the standings.  So draft order this year is important.

My suggestion is to keep the draft order in reverse of regular season standings.  However as a twist let the "lottery" teams pick their keepers in rounds 11 & 12 while the playoff teams use round 1 and 2.  What this does is allow the lottery teams the top 18 free agents before the playoff teams can select any....this will redistribute the wealth more than any other plan.

So the 7th place finisher in effect will have the #6 & 7 pick which gives the lottery people some incentive to keep playing.  Last place will have the #1 & #12 picks.

#1 seed - 12th pick (keeper), 13th (keeper), 36th, 37th, etc
#7 seed - 6th pick (#6 FA), 19th (#7 FA), 30th (#18 FA), 43rd, etc - round 11 & 12 keepers.
#12 seed - 1st pick (#1 FA), 24th (#12 FA), 25th (#13 FA), 48th, etc - round 11 & 12 keepers.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Derek Bodner on February 13, 2004, 04:39:33 PM
giving the bottom dwellars 2 free rounds is far too much of an overadjustment.

look at some of the keepers on the bottom 6 teams.

LeBron and Shawn Marion.

Kobe and Stephon Marbury.

Jermaine O'neal and Vince Carter

bbf...erm...well nm, you're the one who traded away the 2nd ranked center in the game.

peja and elton brand.

4 of the bottom 6 teams have STUD keepers, and the other 2 traded away their studs.

peja and elton or kobe and stephon or marion and lebron.  stud fantasy players.  now look at my 2nd keepers (terry at 33rd ranked player <-- late 3rd round and randolph at 68th ranked player, or 6th round).  May not have a top 5 keeper, but all those 2nd keepers are MUCH better than my 2nd.   And overall, close to comparable.

As I said in the other thread, depth is more important, IMO.  and this is a far drastic overreaction.

I do kinda like Ziggy's idea, in fact I think I'm leaning towards that.
Title: Draft order
Post by: bbf78253 on February 17, 2004, 10:03:39 AM
dabods - I'm not arguing about my moves (somebody has to be the Sterling of the FNBA) or whether the bottom six have decent keepers.  And I agree that depth is very important in success in this league.  However as it stands the top 6 teams will end up with 12 of the top 18 free agents thereby insuring that they have the depth again.

And I could argue that if the bottom 6 have such great keepers then why are they in the bottom 6?  Most likely you would say because of lack of depth.  So the issue that needs to be addressed is how to rebalance the depth so that we don't create a two-tiered league.

Just randomly assigning draft order doesn't change the fact that the playoff teams end up with free agents #7-18.  In this scenario the only chance bottom feeders have of moving up is by hoping that one of the top teams get burned by injuries or some similar catastrophe.

Maybe the bottom 6 should be allowed to save their second keeper until a later round.  This would then allow the lottery teams to pick the first 12 free agents thus moving some of the depth from the top teams to the bottom teams.  
Title: Draft order
Post by: WayOutWest on February 19, 2004, 01:40:39 PM
"Maybe the bottom 6 should be allowed to save their second keeper until a later round. This would then allow the lottery teams to pick the first 12 free agents thus moving some of the depth from the top teams to the bottom teams." - BBF

I like this idea better.  The non-playoff teams should assign their keepers in round 1 and 12, the playoff teams should assign thier keeprs in round 1 & 2.

I also agree with dabods explaination that our non-keepers should not be allowed to help our teams after the end of the season since technically they're not on our team anymore.

I also like the idea of limiting the years a player can remain on one team, that would rebalance the league alot better and not make the first draft the most important for the durration of the leagues existance.  IMO, it would be a good idea if you can keep one player a year past the year he was drafted and another player two years after the year he was drafted.  You would have one draft pick for two years and the other for three years total.  I'm not sure how that would work out with trades, I guess the same rules could be applied to your keepers, so it would make sense to only be allowed to keep one of your keepers for one more year and the other for two more.  Same difference I guess.

The trade deadline is comming up fast so...

IDEAS?
Title: Draft order
Post by: Derek Bodner on February 19, 2004, 05:47:48 PM
It seems everyone has a different draft strategy.

do you want a stud 3rd player and lesser 4th, or a very good 3rd and very good 4th.

So, how about this.  bottom 6 teams get entered into the lottery, like before.  Bottom 6 teams get entered into the other lottery.

Rather than assigning the bottom 6 teams the first 6 picks and the top 6 teams picks 6-12, how about, rather than giving them  picks 1-12, we give them the ability to decide where they want to pick?

For example, if gaither wins the "lottery", she decides she wants to pick 6th (which would then also give her pick 18, and so on).  Because she doesn't want that big dropoff in talent.

then randy comes up as 2nd in the lottery, decides he wants the first pick (and subsequently 24th pick).  and so on until the 12 picks are arranged.  That gives way to even more strategy.

I really don't like the idea of moving the keepers all the way down until the 12th round.  I think it's an overreaction and I think it would force teams on the bubble (for example me.  not me technically, but someone in my position) to tank the season.  And that's some thing we obviously don't want.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Randy on February 19, 2004, 06:33:58 PM
I'd like to see us do this as a REAL draft with 2 keepers.  

How does the NBA determine it's draft order in the second round?  Let's face it, the teams who got the first rights to TD, KG, Dirk, etc. have the BEST shot year after year after year.  Is there any way of determining the draft based on keepers status?  I feel pretty confident in JO and VC so maybe that moves me to 4 or 5 in the bottom dwellers but IMO, the people who have the players listed above should be 10, 11, 12 and 23, 24, and 25, etc.  I think the reversing of the draft in the second round was fine this year but with keepers, I think it needs to go.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Guest on February 19, 2004, 08:49:12 PM
Quote
I think the reversing of the draft in the second round was fine this year but with keepers, I think it needs to go.

this is a limitation of yahoo's software.  must be reversed order in even rounds.
Title: Draft order
Post by: ziggy on February 19, 2004, 08:55:02 PM
First of all I think everybody is overtstating the value Dirk, KG, and Duncan.  Yes I am glad I have Dirk, but I didn't have any of those last year and finished second, and I have been in the top 4 all year here, and have had Dirk for only a couple of weeks.  Yes I think it is a good idea to not allow those player to remain with the same teams year after year, but look at #1 and #2 in this years league.
Gen Hex and Drom are there because they have the most depth.   If we are only keeping 2 then you have a tremendous opportunity to build a team through the draft, and still finish high.


I actually think that Bod's latest idea is "Brilliant", just like Guiness in a bottle.  Do 2 lotteries, one for the top 6 one for the bottom 6.  That will determine the order of selecting your draft slot.  If someone feels drafting #1 and #24 is best then they can do so.  If they feel #12 and #13 is better then they can do that.  That adds strategy, to an otherwise random process.  I am serious it is "Brilliant".
Title: Draft order
Post by: bbf78253 on February 20, 2004, 09:29:36 AM
So maybe the 1st 7 12th round aren't the best.  But just giving the lottery people the choice between 1 & 6 doesn't change the fact that the playoff teams get 12 of the top 18 free agents.  Picks number 6 & 19 aren't as good as say picks 12 & 13 or 10 & 15.  The playoff teams get the best chance at rebuilding their depth....something that basically everyone agrees is the key to winning.

Let the lottery teamss pick their keepers in rounds 1 & 4.  Then use the random picking order to give the lottery teams the choice of picks 1 & 12 or picks 6 & 7.  Let the lottery teams try to build depth.  If the GMs of the playoff teams are so astute at drafting & trading then they should be able to get back to the playoffs again using picks 13-24.

Free agents:
picks 1-12 to lottery (2nd & 3rd round)
picks 13-24 to playoff (3rd & 4th round)
picks 25-30 to lottery (5th round)
picks 31-42 to playoff (5th & 6th round)
picks 43-54 to lottery (6th & 7th round)
and so on.

As far as expiring contracts go...I have a question.  Let's say KG's contract expires at the end of next year.  If I trade for him can I give him a 2 year extension...so that I have his services for 2 years?    And who is going to track the contract expiration dates of all the various players?
Title: Draft order
Post by: Guest on February 20, 2004, 03:00:46 PM
Quote
So maybe the 1st 7 12th round aren't the best. But just giving the lottery people the choice between 1 & 6 doesn't change the fact that the playoff teams get 12 of the top 18 free agents

The proposed was that you could chose any position to draft, not just 1-6.
Title: Draft order
Post by: WayOutWest on February 20, 2004, 04:43:52 PM
Quote
So maybe the 1st 7 12th round aren't the best.  But just giving the lottery people the choice between 1 & 6 doesn't change the fact that the playoff teams get 12 of the top 18 free agents.  Picks number 6 & 19 aren't as good as say picks 12 & 13 or 10 & 15.  The playoff teams get the best chance at rebuilding their depth....something that basically everyone agrees is the key to winning.

Let the lottery teamss pick their keepers in rounds 1 & 4.  Then use the random picking order to give the lottery teams the choice of picks 1 & 12 or picks 6 & 7.  Let the lottery teams try to build depth.  If the GMs of the playoff teams are so astute at drafting & trading then they should be able to get back to the playoffs again using picks 13-24.

Free agents:
picks 1-12 to lottery (2nd & 3rd round)
picks 13-24 to playoff (3rd & 4th round)
picks 25-30 to lottery (5th round)
picks 31-42 to playoff (5th & 6th round)
picks 43-54 to lottery (6th & 7th round)
and so on.

As far as expiring contracts go...I have a question.  Let's say KG's contract expires at the end of next year.  If I trade for him can I give him a 2 year extension...so that I have his services for 2 years?    And who is going to track the contract expiration dates of all the various players?
The clock starts ticking the day you declare your keeper.  So if you trade for KG next year and at the end of next year you declare him your keeper you get to keep him for a max of two years from that point.  You would then most likely trade him for another keeper before his time is up rather than let him walk for nothing.  Just like the NBA and expiring contracts.

I like the idea of having the non-playoff teams decide thier draft position and possibly declaring thier keepers in round 1 and 4 or 2 and 3.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Guest_Dromedarius on February 20, 2004, 05:55:37 PM
My two cents:

If everyone is worried about where to draft, why not go 1-12, 1-12, 1-12, etc., instead of 1-12, 12-1, 1-12, 12-1, etc. That way the weakest teams get the best picks, and the strongest teams get the worst picks. You CAN do this in Yahoo! You don't HAVE to go up and then down. Personally, this is more like the NBA, and I like it for the sake of competition.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Guest_Dromedarius on February 20, 2004, 06:02:58 PM
Also,

I HATE the idea of a lottery for the Top 6 teams. Why not go reverse by record? The bye week is incentive to many teams, so the only teams that could tank are already there at the bottom of the Top 6 anyway. I absolutely detest the idea of having drafted late this year, doing poorly in the playoffs, and then having to draft late again (which WILL happen, if you know anything about my luck). I believe we all should EARN our draft spot. If I finish high and do poorly in the playoffs, I deserve a bad draft spot. The penalty of a gaudy record, just like in the real NBA, is drafting last.

On the other hand, if I finish poorly, I shouldn't have to draft late, too.
However, I DO like the idea of the lottery for teams 7-12, as their is no real incentive to play your best if you are guaranteed a good spot for tanking it.
Title: Draft order
Post by: Skandery on March 15, 2004, 05:17:03 PM
Personally I agree with Bods and Ziggy's idea of letting the teams choose where to draft and splitting the lottery teams from the playoff teams.  I also really love the strategy that would go into something like that.  Because I think that depending on who you're two keepers are and the kind of players that would round your team out, those ideal (perfect) positions *really* do change.

Now it seems that the BBF contigency seems not to like the fact that, in essence, of the top 24 players, the playoff teams get the 7-18 best free agents while the lottery teams get 1-6 and 19-24.  I say that the difference between FA 1 and FA 12 is a WHOLE lot greater than the difference between FA 13 and FA 24.  If you looked at the top 24 players as one homogenous group than BBF's argument would be valid.  But in reality there are only 3 maybe 4 really, really, really studly players and the rest of the 20 are the next tier down.  Because of this reality, there is no guarantee FA 13 (a guy who'll go to a playoff team) will be so much better than FA 23 (a guy who'll go to a lottery team).  

Michael Redd was the 39th player chosen and has outplayed earlier picks such as the 18th pick Steve Francis, the 21st pick Jason Terry, the 31st pick Brent Barry, and the 36th pick Jason Richardson.  In picking Michael Redd where he did, Ziggy showed great basketball acumen and foresight.  And was rewarded with having a great shooting guard to play when disaster struck and his 1st round pick (Allen) was out for half the season.  

The GMs with the lottery teams can and will be rewarded for drafting that FA 23 that far outplayes the FA 13 that the lottery team drafted.  There are too many variables, and too little difference between pick 12 and 24 where true basketball knowledge (and a little luck :)) won't balance everything out.  

Let's say you don't agree with me that things are balanced.  Let's not forget that the lottery team that picked 23rd also has just picked the 2nd best FA out there.  If you compare that #2 FA with the #12 FA that the playoff team has chosen, you more than make up for the difference between 13 and 23.  

I don't think a huge advantage (such as choosing your keepers in the 12th round) needs to be given to the lottery teams because 1) I don't think any of the GMs in our league are so clueless as to need the advantage and 2) Plenty opportunity still exists for that saavy lottery team GM to outwit and outdraft the playoff team GM.

Sorry guys, that got way longer than I expected.