League basics

DRAFT TIME

Changed the draft time to Sunday night at 8pm. This gives us this week to get situated. The season starts next Tuesday night. This will also give us a day to trade before the games get started. Please try to make this time work. However, if Monday night was better for the vast majority of the league, I could change it to that time. The only thing is we would not have time to make any trades before the first games. Generally, if you are a newbie and you miss the draft, odds are you will not remain in the league.

CONTRACTION

This is a league that has contraction. What that means is, if we have a manager that a) just isn't competitive b) seriously disrupts the league c) misses or completely screws up the draft d) is not making trades e) is not participating on the message boards f) is not actively working to make their team better we can and will remove them from the league. As a newbie your goal should be to survive and return as a veteran next season. The first year is tough, no question. Typically about 2 newbies survive from the 8 or so we start with each year. Veterans generally will not be contracted unless they come out and say they can't devote the time to the league or do something way out of line. Feel free to ask any questions. If you are very thin skinned or this process is something you just can't handle, you are better off finding another league. We will start with a max of 16 teams this year. I think it will end up starting with 12-14 though. We will have a somewhat defined process for contraction. However, I am waiting to see what mix we end up with of managers. I will roll that out during this week. For the vets, it will be pretty similar to what we used last year.

STAT CATEGORIES

The stat categories will remain from last year. They are: GP FGM FG% FTA FT% 3PA 3P% PTS OREB REB AST STL BLK Turnovers TWO SEASONS Per the requests of everyone last year, we are going to have 2 seasons this year. This will foster competition throughout the year and eliminate a scenario where half the league is mailing it in during the last 20 games. The first season will run from October 28th to December February 7th. That covers 50 games. The second season will run from January 1st to the end of the year. Each season will run 50 games. I will adjust position games used limits accordingly to 65 (the minimum Yahoo allows.) The 65 game limit is why we are doing 50 game seasons. January will be busy, but we will get more bang for our buck. I will set up the second league in early December and set the scoring to start on January 1st. We will hold a draft either in mid or late December offline in the league chat for the second season. We will determine the date once I have a good idea of everyone's availability with the holidays. If you are contracted from the first season, you are gone for the second season as well. I reserve the right to recruit more newbies if needed for the second season.

CONTRACTION BIDDING

Like last year, bids for contracted players will be done using DRAFT PICK POSITION. This should work really well this year with the two seasons format. During season 2, the draft position for season 2 will be used. I will log the draft and post it in the Commissioner's Note for reference. This means that when a pool of players is available, we will hold two rounds a day of contraction bidding on those players. There will be an early day bidding round (say 8am-3pm) and an evening bidding round (say 3pm-10pm). All times are CST. You get one opportunity to make your round of bids on the players (on the message board) during that time. That means you need to prioritize who you want and and take your best shot. Sniping (bidding near the deadline) is allowed. Verbally harassing habitual snipers is also encouraged : ).

It will look like this.

Here is a sample pool of contracted players:
Kobe Bryant
Andrew Bynum
Danny Granger
Drew Gooden
Michael Beasley
Maurice Williams
Nick Collison
Samuel Dalembert
Wally Sczcerbiak
Juan Carlos Navarro
Mario Chalmers

I would then make my bids, and the list will look like this (Draft position):

Kobe Bryant - Amare Stoudemire (3)
Andrew Bynum - Zydrunas Ilgauskas (32)
Danny Granger - Ron Artest (51)
Drew Gooden - Lamar Odom (78)
Michael Beasley - Yi Jianlian (92)
Maurice Williams - Andrew Bogut (51)
Nick Collison - Darrel Arthur (112)
Samuel Dalembert - Luke Walton (132)
Wally Sczcerbiak
Juan Carlos Navarro
Mario Chalmers

Assuming those were the winning bids, the next round would look like this:
Amare Stoudemire
Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Ron Artest
Lamar Odom
Yi Jianlian
Andrew Bogut
Darrel Arthur
Luke Walton

This cycle continues until there are no players left that anyone wants to bid on. Any player that filters through the process without being bid on will be put into the free agent pool.