The NBA Contraction Lotto Game

[St.Nick]

The NBA Contraction Lotto Game

The Premise: The Clippers, Kings, Grizzlies, and Bobcats are contracted from the NBA and their players made available in a lotto style draft.

The Competition: The participants will be ranked from best performance to worst based on who improves their team the most with what they've got. This will include your picks, your trades, and how it impacts the roster of your current team in place.

Judging: Official judging will be done by me and/or a willing moderator (or more than one mod). But everyone can give their opinions before the official judgments are made.

Players Needed: Ideally 28, but can be done with less. Hopefully a couple of moderators could help, too.

Length of the game: Likely three to four weeks. Players must agree to commit to participating the entire time. Shouldn't be more than a few minutes per day though, but each person agrees to check the game regularly for trade proposals and be there when its their day to pick.

The Rules

I. Getting Started

1) Up to 28 Participants will express their desire to join. Five day maximum sign-up period, or as long as it takes to get 28 people. If after 5 days there are less than 28 people then others can request to take on more than one team.

2) Each player will be assigned a number according to the order they join.
**(For example as the first person playing I would be given the #1. The second player signing up would be given #2. This number does not indicate draft order).

II.Choosing the teams

3) After sign-up has closed the numbers will be put in a random generator from 1-28. Based on this draw, a player will have his choice of teams to play with. (Hint: the team with the most 2011 cap space/strong roster is probably the best to play with due to flexibility).

3b) After the team lotto pick selection order has been posted, the pick must be made within 18 hours!! If you miss your deadline then you will be put after the person due to pick next.

IIb. Lotto Order

4) Once the teams are chosen, a second lotto by random generator will determine the order of the picks. Each person's number stays the same as was given to them at sign up.

III. Which teams can participate at draft time: IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND

5) Any team that is under the 2011 salary cap (set at $60M) before the contraction lotto can participate immediately. But that team can only pick players that fit under the $60M salary cap. EDIT **(Example, the Nuggets have $58M due, therefore can't absorb Chris Kaman's contract without going over the cap. They would have to pick someone making $2M or less or make a trade to free up more room).

6) Any team that is over the cap has up until their draft pick trade to put themselves under the cap and make a selection.
**(As a hypothetical example, the Heat are $7M over the cap. The player in control of their team would have to do a deal of say Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony, and the #4 pick to the Raptors for Amir Johnson and the #6 pick. This puts Miami under the cap and able to pick a good player on a rookie contract like Eric Gordon with the small amount of cap room they've got).

7) Any team that is not under the cap at the time of their pick cannot make a pick in the draft. Although the owner of that team can still get a score for either lack of ability to make any trades or for making a move that traded away their cap space or draft pick but netted them some talented veterans.

For the official site used to determine 2011/12 salaries, go to this site and look at the EDIT "total salaries" section.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... 3SXc&gid=2


IV. The Draft
8) Each player will have 24 hours to make their pick, although it is encouraged to make the pick sooner.

9) Any player that misses the 24 hr deadline goes to the back of the picking order.
**(For example, board member X picking at #10 misses his 24 hr deadline, so he goes to pick #29, or whatever user is slated to pick last.)

V. Trades

10) Trades should be a big part of the game. Any player would be able to make a trade all the way up until it is their time to pick. But it should be kept in mind that agreed upon trades have to be approved by a mod or by myself. A trade can only be rejected if it is clearly lopsided. The other mod would have the right to appeal any accepted or rejected trade, but only in extreme examples.

11) On draft day any trade agreement between players not answered by a mod one hour before the pick is due should be assumed to be unapproved. Time Extensions can be granted on a pick in certain cases, for example if a trade decision is appealed.

12) Trades cannot be made between teams controlled by the same user.

VI. Deciding the Winner

12) Will be scored by myself and mods on a 1-10 point system based upon the skill used in improving a team's roster through draft and trade. The person picking Blake Griffin #1 will not be knocked for making the easy/wise choice, but the team that trades up from a bad slot to get to Eric Gordon without giving up too much would get extra points.

The scoring categories will be:
a) Value of Pick
b) Trades
c) Impact on the roster

13) The Average score will be tabulated and a winner chosen based on highest score.


So, any suggestions to improve the rules would be appreciated. Let me know if you have any questions or want any clarifications. Entries will close five days from now or until we have 28 people wanting to play.

But otherwise lets get this started! Who wants to play? Do any Mods want to help as commissioner?

I'll be the first person, submitting my entry for participation below.

Thanks!

[St.Nick]

#1

[MadNESS]

i would be interest, especially if we get enough people do it.

Also, do we pick our own teams?

I would like the Knicks / Bucks / or Magic, since in these games i've already had Philly, Lakers x 2, Rockets, OKC, and Boston.

[RevisIsland]

I'll give it a try. I'm itching for anything basketball now that the Yankees got knocked out early.

[St.Nick]

i would be interest, especially if we get enough people do it.

Also, do we pick our own teams?

I would like the Knicks / Bucks / or Magic, since in these games i've already had Philly, Lakers x 2, Rockets, OKC, and Boston.

How it will work (assuming we get enough people-- I'd say at least 7) then we get to pick our team according to where we fall in the lotto generator.

So if you get picked 1st then you will get first choice of teams. I'd probably avoid the magic since their hands will be tied due to not having enough cap space to pick anyone. If you pick a team with plenty of space then you can add high salaried guys like Gerald Wallace, Rudy Gay, or Chris Kaman.

[willbsn13]

I'm in

[St.Nick]

Alright, so after about 24 hours we've got four guys. Still looking for at least three more, but ideally we can get to 14. We'll give it four more days to sign up.

So far here are the numbers for each person that will represent you in the lottos.

St.Nick- 1
Bness888- 2
Revisiland- 3
willbsn13- 4

This game is going to be fun! Should involve lots of strategy. Think about which teams you'd like to choose. They should have cap room to absorb a max contract and possibly more, but they should also have assets that can be dealt to possibly get extra picks.

[lukekarts]

I'm in.

My only concern - is there enough cap space to absorb 4 team's contracts?

Also, for players with options etc. - how are we determining whether they opt in/out?

[St.Nick]

I'm in.

My only concern - is there enough cap space to absorb 4 team's contracts?

Also, for players with options etc. - how are we determining whether they opt in/out?

Cool! Glad to have you.

There will be enough cap room since each team will only get one pick unless they trade with another team for their pick. (Remember that we are using the 2011-12 salary structure).

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... 3SXc&gid=2

Regarding the figuring in of team options, "total salaries" is the number to go by (not "salary committed", as previously stated, please note the updated change in the rules), and team options should expect to be picked up. Using the "total salaries" number makes it more interesting since it should encourage more trades, as not as many teams will have huge amounts of cap room this way and will have to deal to get the guys they want.

Also a message for everyone:

Since we are not likely to get 26 participants, each user will control more than one team. If we get eight people playing then each user will get 3 teams to use and two users will get four teams. Or I may just eliminate teams way over the cap (Lakers, Magic, Celtics) since they are incredibly unlikely to get under the cap and I doubt anyone will want to play with them.

Hope thats all copacetic

[Big_Mac79]

I would like to join

[St.Nick]

Welcome aboard, BigMac.

We've got 6 now. If we get up to 12 I'm going to lock it so that each person has two teams to play with, then just lop off the Lakers and Magic, two teams that have basically no chance of getting under the cap.

Lets hope we get six more soon so we can get started. To everyone already signed in, check once a day to see where we are at. Once we get 12 we'll do a roll call and get the first lotto done.

[RevisIsland]

I really don't see this being very fun to play with six people.

[St.Nick]

I really don't see this being very fun to play with six people.

I know. That's why I said lets wait to get up to 12.

[Big_Mac79]

I'm surprised more people aren't interested

[St.Nick]

Yeah, I'm surprised too. I thought it would be a bigger draw.

Maybe the rules are too long. Was hoping that the more thorough it is, the better it would be!

Do these games usually attract a lot of people?

[skflives]

I am interested in joining this.

[Big_Mac79]

So 7 is all that is interested?
Doesn't look like this is gonna happen

[MadNESS]

St. NICK / REVIS ISLAND / BIG MAC 79

i do not know your email adress but you guys are more then welcome to join the new GM - A - TEAM as long as you remain active through out the whole game, any other questions email me

cantmesswithness8@yahoo.com

[St.Nick]

So 7 is all that is interested?
Doesn't look like this is gonna happen

Yeah, not looking good at this point.

I'll extend the deadline to join and keep the game open and maybe six stragglers find their way over. But timing wise its going to be tough to get everyone on the same page now.

If you guys want to check back every three days or so we'll see if we can get six more people in the next week or so. Otherwise...bummer.