FFL - 2012-13 - Voting on Rule Change - draft order posted

[jazzfan1971]

Battle of the Sports Forums is 4 per week, and it does work great.

Streaming during the regular season doesn't bother me much. It's only in the playoffs where I find it an issue.

I'd be fine with unlimited moves in the regular season and 1 per week during the playoffs.

[Woody Allen]

Unless we eliminate the add-drops altogether, people won't stop complaining every year. That's my only proposal and I vote no to everything else.

[jazzfan1971]

Unless we eliminate the add-drops altogether, people won't stop complaining every year. That's my only proposal and I vote no to everything else.

Mature.

[writersblock]

Unless we eliminate the add-drops altogether, people won't stop complaining every year. That's my only proposal and I vote no to everything else.

Ha!
I actually had thought about that. But it would hurt anyone with an injured player, and kill the competition in the league, which is the point of this league anyway. Perhaps an alternative would be that you can drop players who get any type of DNP, but even that seems tricky.

Bottom line, it doesn't matter what is done, there will be complaining about it. For some reason, there's little to no complaints in the Battle of the Sports Forum league, and they do 4 add/drops per week limits.

[jazzfan1971]

I'm sure part of it is me. I consider streaming to be cheating. Plain and simple. I think I'm in the minority in that opinion. If nobody in BSFL thinks streaming is cheating then there is probably going to be less complaining.

[Woody Allen]

Well then, you should vote in favor of doing away with add-drops. By your logic even if we allow a single move for the whole season, you can label it streaming (and hence cheating). Why not think forward and prevent it before it happens?

[jazzfan1971]

Because I see add/drops as a valid mechanism to improve your team. I see streaming as a way to cheat to simply get more games than your opponent.

Any time you are dropping a more valuable player to add a less valuable one simply due to the schedule that goes beyond the spirit of add/drops into streaming to me. I hate it. I think most of you accept it as part of the game. I don't. I think it's cheating like I all ready said. I don't care to play a fantasy basketball game where evaluating talent takes a back seat to who can most aggressively exploit the rules.

[Woody Allen]

I don't care to play a fantasy basketball game where evaluating talent takes a back seat to who can most aggressively exploit the rules.

I am not trying to nor interested in challenging the way you think, but name one year where the champion won because they streamed. In fact, every single season, people make it to the finals because they drafted well, not because they dropped Louis Amundson and added Keith Bogans. So it seems to me like you just want to protest.

[writersblock]

Because I see add/drops as a valid mechanism to improve your team. I see streaming as a way to cheat to simply get more games than your opponent.

Any time you are dropping a more valuable player to add a less valuable one simply due to the schedule that goes beyond the spirit of add/drops into streaming to me. I hate it. I think most of you accept it as part of the game. I don't. I think it's cheating like I all ready said. I don't care to play a fantasy basketball game where evaluating talent takes a back seat to who can most aggressively exploit the rules.

Thank you. Because by your definition, I have never streamed (which is what I have maintained all along). So add/drop numbers are irrelevant. If a manager drops a player who has stopped producing for any reason (less minutes, dnps, injury, slump, etc.) then it's well within the fairness of the game, because they're not trying to pad stats, they're trying to replace a player who's not performing.

INFACT, by your definition, streaming may be annoying, but it is not a problem in our league. As Craig has constantly maintained, in a league like this (with over 250 active players), if you drop someone of value, you will lose him. Period. That's incentive enough to block pure streaming, because you could add/drop every player on your roster daily, but eventually, all you'll have is waiver fodder, and having a guy who'll put up 25 points, 10 boards, etc. in one day, is a lot more valuable than putting in guys who do 2-5 points and negligible other stats for 3-4x in a week.

Bottom line, no one has ever won this league streaming. Ever. The real problem is the complaining about streaming. No other leagues I've played in on this board ever complain about it.

[jazzfan1971]

Like i said, streaming in the regular season doesnt bother me. I dont think it does you much good. In the playoffs it is a different story though. If you are about to lose in the playoffs there is no reason to not drop lebron for keith bogans (assuming lebron has no more games this week). That type of situatikn simply favors streaming and punishes the team who was legitimately defeatjng you, giving them little recourse other than losing or weakenng their team by matching the streaming on their side.

I hate that.

I dont care about the number of adds in the regular season, streaming has natural cknsequences there. But for the playoffs id like to see the rules prevent streamkng so that a scorched earth strategy is averted.

[bww78]

Any of you guys play Clash of Clans?

[writersblock]

Like i said, streaming in the regular season doesnt bother me. I dont think it does you much good. In the playoffs it is a different story though. If you are about to lose in the playoffs there is no reason to not drop lebron for keith bogans (assuming lebron has no more games this week). That type of situatikn simply favors streaming and punishes the team who was legitimately defeatjng you, giving them little recourse other than losing or weakenng their team by matching the streaming on their side.

I hate that.

I dont care about the number of adds in the regular season, streaming has natural cknsequences there. But for the playoffs id like to see the rules prevent streamkng so that a scorched earth strategy is averted.

But has anyone EVER done that in our league? No, because they can't. Lebron is undroppable. The problem is that people who want to complain about streaming base their arguments on hypotheticals that either don't happen or can't.

[jazzfan1971]

Didnt we just have the outcome of a playoff game affected by streaming???

[writersblock]

Didnt we just have the outcome of a playoff game affected by streaming???

Not by your definition, no. I lost because 1) 4 of my top guys missed multiple games and 2) I dropped Kyrie Irving because I couldn't have 5 injured guys on my roster. Plus, I don't think that INSFO has any interest in picking the likes of Anthony Randolph, Chris Kaman, or Earl Clark back up again.

Even in the gut-wrenching loss, I was pretty proud of my team. If Kyrie hadn't come back last minute like that, I would be in the final. And that's WITH David West, LaMarcus Aldridge, and others missing multiple games. Frankly, I think I could have won it all (And yes, I'll be comparing my numbers this week to the CY/INSFO match-up). And to think, I also lost super-value guys like Lou Williams and Brandon Rush for the year and I still made it pretty far. I can't be too down about it.

I do have a couple of people to thank for my fairly successful season though:
1st: You. Letting me unload Royce White and eventual underperformer Marcus Thornton for Omer Asik and someone else I can't remember really anchored my big man stats.
2nd: Gokce: Two words. Larry Sanders. And to think I nearly didn't make that trade. Wow. Thanks Gokce, I totally owe you!

[writersblock]

Oh, and by the way, I'm totally using this quote for my campaign to get rid of add/drop limits during the regular season next season.

Streaming in the regular season doesnt bother me. I dont think it does you much good.

I do think we should limit add-drops during the playoffs though. Only a hand full of teams play, so it makes dropping a guy easier to do.

[Breakdown777]

I think both sides here are presenting valid arguments.

In a league this deep it rarely mattered to add/drop anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure I made 0 add/drops (definitely under 5). It's not that my team was not terrible...I just didn't like any other options out there, and when I did, someone always beat me to the punch. Needless to say my team finished terribly, but adding some sub-280 players would not have helped me in the long run. I hope nobody felt I was phoning it in and not competing enough by not making any moves, It's just hard to see justifying dropping a solid injured guy for a weakling when you start out as poorly as I did.

I do hate this streaming garbage in other leagues, however. I was owning a league I had money on, I was the #1 seed by 13 games once playoffs started. The guy in 4th who I played after my bye week streamed and picked up guys with lots of games (He also had Moe Harkless and Jeff Green (among others). When it was all said and done my team got DNPs left and right, he snaked the coveted Chicago players who played SAT and SUN a day early (preventing me from getting one)...he probably finished the week with at least 10 more games played than me....so I lose even though by all standards I had a superior team for the majority of the season. To add to this, only 4 of us out of 10 were extremely active, leaving plenty of decent options on the Wire (while the likes of Rashard Lewis and Antawn Jamison are rotting on the lower seed teams).

So I'm going to potentially go from making lots of money to potentially breaking even with 3rd place because of some well placed streaming moves and a lot of luck. Next year in that league I'm going to push for weekly line-ups if everyone can't stay active OR the #1 overall seed gets a cut of the pot before playoffs start. I hate having all that hard work go down the tubes because LeBron sat on Sunday and John Wall turned into John Wall this week.

I could have played better, but my add/drops fell flat while his add/drops and borderline wavier guys blossomed and that made the difference.

Every year there's a Kevin Seraphin or a Tobias Harris who rises up during playoffs, while the Ginobilis and Garnetts take a break and ruin it for a top seed.

I had to vent that and I felt someone here would understand.

[writersblock]

For all those who think streaming ruins the integrity of the game, I thought I'd throw out this quote endorsed by Yahoo! Fantasy BBall regarding Brandon Knight's slump (bold added for emphasis):

Knight has averaged just 6.2 points over his past five games. The second-year guard still has a bright future but is going through a rough stretch right now. Owners may want to consider streaming in other options during the playoffs, if leagues boast solid available free agents.

When the game company itself endorses streaming as a strategy, it's probably time to stop complaining.

[bww78]

If steaming doesn't help, why do so many managers do it, and defend vigorously their right to do so?

[Breakdown777]

If steaming doesn't help, why do so many managers do it, and defend vigorously their right to do so?

Because they are control freaks, and they like the ability to utilize add/drops to give themselves as much control towards a positive outcome as possible.

I'd argue that weekly lineups require just as much strategy, especially in a league this deep. I could see myself spending just as much time on deciding between Bellinelli for 4 games or Gerald Henderson for 3 against good teams as I would deciding on an add/drop. I'd also say don't knock it until you try it. I used to be primarily H2H, but now I prefer the low-maintenance style because of a hectic schedule and multiple leagues. There really isn't a difference as far as competition level as far as I'm concerned. The only difference is that It's easier to stay afloat if I don't check my teams as often.
A downside is a guy you started getting injured on a Monday, and then you can't adjust until the following week. It'd be really nice if in the future there was some sort of Hybrid league setting where you can set weekly lineups yet make immediate add/drops that take precedent over the weekly rules if a player gets the INJ status during the week. (Get on that Floppy ).


I don't think this league needs to change. If enough of us want weekly lineups, a roto format, or a league where we don't allow any add/drops and have no bench...I'm sure we can find enough people to start a league like that next season. Sure it's yet another league to be involved in, but it's much easier to be in multiple low-maintenance leagues.

[floppymoose]

Had Irving not gotten hurt the last week, streaming would have secured me 8th place and caused Fran ( I think ) to miss the playoffs. It definitely does make a difference in the regular season.