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

[sabonis]

I don't like that because it hampers the value of following the news, developments, etc. The person first to find out that Kyrie Irving is not out for the season but will play in a few games should be rewarded. It is only punishing the people who spend a lot of their time and paying close attention to what is going on.

I agree with that. (ha! surprised you!)

If we really want to limit streaming, let's just attack the issue directly and keep the moves total low, rather than something different like having waivers only process occasionally.

I see people proposing 3 moves per week. I just want to be clear: that's an increase. If the regular season is 20 weeks, that's 60 moves. We have 45 moves this season. If that's what most want, then that's what most want, but I'm surprised to see jazzfan suggesting it given his stance on streaming.

first of all, I came up with this idea last year and none of you wanted it. Secondly, I think 2 restrictions is a necessity.

and no, streaming is not a strategy and following news is not a skill to be rewarded. It just means you are lucky to come by that news article exactly at the right moment or you have more time in your hands compared to others.

[floppymoose]

Not sure which idea you mean. if you mean limiting moves by both week and season, I was completely onboard with that idea last year.

[writersblock]

first of all, I came up with this idea last year and none of you wanted it. Secondly, I think 2 restrictions is a necessity.

and no, streaming is not a strategy and following news is not a skill to be rewarded. It just means you are lucky to come by that news article exactly at the right moment or you have more time in your hands compared to others.

Actually, luck has NOTHING to do with it. With RSS feeds and subscription services, it's really easy to follow NBA news.

And what's more important is, what is wrong with following NBA news as part of the fantasy NBA game? I mean, are you REALLY arguing that following the NBA is NOT a strategy of winning Fantasy NBA?



I think we're all forgetting the original purpose of this league, which is odd because we still have a good number of original members. Sly's original reason for setting up the league WITH a reward for the winner was to ensure a super active and hyper involved league. The problem with people who are against add-drops in this league is that they're arguments go against Sly's original purpose. Sabonis' argument, above, is only the latest in a long line of cases in point. I don't know, maybe I'm totally off, but I play fantasy bball because I like following the NBA, figuring out who the dark horses are before anyone else, and guessing who's going to make it big. Maybe this is why my add-drops tend to be higher than everyone else's, I'm actually following the NBA because I'm more than the average fan.

Bottom line is this: Weekly lineups, 0 add-drops, etc. etc....all these do is limit the amount of involvement of members of this league. If you hate streaming, that's fine, but don't ruin this league because of a problem that 1) hasn't really been a problem, 2) shouldn't be because in a league this large with this many players per team, you stand to lose a good player, and 3) other leagues on this board with less players/teams have 3-4 moves per week with no problem whatsoever. The more rules we make, the more we hurt league involvement, and inhibit the original purpose of the league.

[jazzfan1971]

I dont really want to punish folks like WB who intensely follow the NBA to get an advantage. It's just rewarding hard work. I think that's fine, and a great use of adds. So, I wouldn't like to be so draconian as to stop that. Just a little tweak here and there to hurt streaming seems sensible to me.

3 adds/week in the regular season.
2 adds/week in the playoffs.
maybe 40 total on the season?

That seems sufficient to discourage streaming to me, and not so draconian as to bother folks like WB who just like being control freaks.

[writersblock]

I dont really want to punish folks like WB who intensely follow the NBA to get an advantage. It's just rewarding hard work. I think that's fine, and a great use of adds. So, I wouldn't like to be so draconian as to stop that. Just a little tweak here and there to hurt streaming seems sensible to me.

3 adds/week in the regular season.
2 adds/week in the playoffs.
maybe 40 total on the season?

That seems sufficient to discourage streaming to me, and not so draconian as to bother folks like WB who just like being control freaks.

I definitely support this, all except for the 40 season total. That's 5 less than last season, and we didn't have a problem with streaming at ALL during the regular season, so I don't see the point of reducing it or imposing a season limit. Year in and year out, we've seen that people don't make the playoffs by streaming. If anything, it's the playoffs where streaming is liable to do damage.

[floppymoose]

I definitely support this, all except for the 40 season total. That's 5 less than last season, and we didn't have a problem with streaming at ALL during the regular season, so I don't see the point of reducing it or imposing a season limit. Year in and year out, we've seen that people don't make the playoffs by streaming. If anything, it's the playoffs where streaming is liable to do damage.

"Having a problem" is a matter of taste. Please don't tell the other managers we aren't having a problem. That's saying "my way is right and your way is wrong".

Let's keep it more objective: the managers who are using lots of moves are consistently getting more games played season to season. Typically 50+ games more than the average, and sometimes a lot more than that. You can find an example here and there of someone having lots of games played with few moves (like Ham this season) but overall the trend is clear, and those exceptions don't hide the overall trend.

It's definitely enough to have a large impact on the final standings going into the playoffs, including of course who makes the playoffs.

[writersblock]

I definitely support this, all except for the 40 season total. That's 5 less than last season, and we didn't have a problem with streaming at ALL during the regular season, so I don't see the point of reducing it or imposing a season limit. Year in and year out, we've seen that people don't make the playoffs by streaming. If anything, it's the playoffs where streaming is liable to do damage.

"Having a problem" is a matter of taste. Please don't tell the other managers we aren't having a problem. That's saying "my way is right and your way is wrong".

Let's keep it more objective: the managers who are using lots of moves are consistently getting more games played season to season. Typically 50+ games more than the average, and sometimes a lot more than that. You can find an example here and there of someone having lots of games played with few moves (like Ham this season) but overall the trend is clear, and those exceptions don't hide the overall trend.

It's definitely enough to have a large impact on the final standings going into the playoffs, including of course who makes the playoffs.

Whether they have 50 more games played or not means absolutely nothing if you can't prove that they're winning more weeks/making the playoffs. Look at the teams that made the playoffs this year and those that didn't. By your logic, those with the most moves should have all made the playoffs. They didn't. In fact, by my memory, less than half of the people with 40 moves or more made the playoffs, and what's more, the teams with more than 40 moves this season only accounted for 25% (2/8 at least by my memory) of the teams that made the playoffs.

So, where exactly is the problem? I'm sorry, you just don't have much of a leg to stand on here.

[jazzfan1971]

I don't know, seems like you are arguing that a cow hasn't gotten out of the barn so far, why bother shutting the door?

[writersblock]

I don't know, seems like you are arguing that a cow hasn't gotten out of the barn so far, why bother shutting the door?

Pick any metaphor you want, it still doesn't change the fact that we have had 0 problems with streaming during the regular season in over a decade in this league, even WITH people streaming.

Bottom line is this: If you don't want to be active in Fantasy NBA (i.e. following player news, grabbing the guy who could tear it up with a change of situation), that's fine. But please, don't make rules to hurt those of us who are active.

[floppymoose]

I don't know, seems like you are arguing that a cow hasn't gotten out of the barn so far, why bother shutting the door?

Pick any metaphor you want, it still doesn't change the fact that we have had 0 problems with streaming during the regular season in over a decade in this league

We just disagree on the facts. It has affected games played, standings, and who made the playoffs over the years.

[hamncheese]

Pick any metaphor you want, it still doesn't change the fact that we have had 0 problems with streaming during the regular season in over a decade in this league, even WITH people streaming.

I have only been in the league 4 (?) seasons, but something had to have happened to bring about the move limits we've implemented so far or else we wouldn't have implemented them, no? I get the impression the league has operated without move limits in the past.

[writersblock]

Pick any metaphor you want, it still doesn't change the fact that we have had 0 problems with streaming during the regular season in over a decade in this league, even WITH people streaming.

I have only been in the league 4 (?) seasons, but something had to have happened to bring about the move limits we've implemented so far or else we wouldn't have implemented them, no? I get the impression the league has operated without move limits in the past.

That's the thing. Nothing has ever happened. Sure, there have been 1 or 2 people who have tried to stream to win, but it has never worked, and Sly has always written it off with the argument I have kept reiterating, that in a 20 team 13-14 player league, there's little room for dropping a guy who could have value.

Move limits were only implemented because of some managers' fears that something bad could happen, even though it never has (at least in the regular season). When I challenge proponents of move limits to bring up examples, I get metaphors instead of evidence.

Now, I AM in favor of move limits during the playoffs. And Jazzfan's suggestion of 2 is fine by me. Even during Sly's tenure as commish, we had move limits during the playoffs, and rightfully so.

[sly]

Oh; the yearly debate once again. I was always a 'stream if you actually think it helps you' commish so the rules were pretty loose during my reign. We simply voted with the majority deciding where we stand. I don't ever recall an instance where streaming actually made much of an impact. I know there have been a few times when people bitched about it when they lost. But when you consider the streaming going on and look at the stats, it seemed to always be negligible. My thought was always, in a league as deep as this, that there is a possibility for a temporary gain with streaming but if you get into the habit of it, you're going to drop talent in the process that will be gobbled up and regretted. Some managers had/have a flex spot or two that they utilize, and we added caps in the playoffs as activity tapers off a bit and injuries and bench talent comes into play more.

Personally, I don't care what the rules are for 'streaming'. I'll adjust my strategy accordingly if I feel that a streaming Manager is having success against me.

[bww78]

I don't know, seems like you are arguing that a cow hasn't gotten out of the barn so far, why bother shutting the door?

Pick any metaphor you want, it still doesn't change the fact that we have had 0 problems with streaming during the regular season in over a decade in this league

We just disagree on the facts. It has affected games played, standings, and who made the playoffs over the years.

I tend to agree with this view. I'm not sure it's fair to say that streaming hasn't had any effect on our league over the years.

[writersblock]

I tend to agree with this view. I'm not sure it's fair to say that streaming hasn't had any effect on our league over the years.

Sure it has had an effect, but the effect has been negligible during the regular season. I think it's funny that proponents of limiting add-drops have yet to come up with evidence to support the idea that streaming affects the league during the regular season. All they have is the "facts" that it affects games played. Sure it does, but the correlation between games played and wins, or record among teams that make the playoffs is most likely negligible. I think one year Fran streamed his way to the playoffs, but outside of that one instance, statistics would validate my claim that a high level of add-drops do NOT correlate with a higher position than the teams that don't stream and make the playoffs.

As I have argued, the effect is much greater during the playoffs.

[floppymoose]

I have come up with evidence. I just haven't shared it. It's hard to dig out, because we (yahoo) kind of hide the games played data in head to head leagues; and also because the games played data includes fantasy playoff numbers (where the playoff teams pick up more games played but the non-playoff teams don't), so you have to know to subtract those out to compare apples to apples for the regular season. And then we (yahoo) don't make it very easy to see how many moves were used in prior seasons of the leagues, but I can dig that out with enough effort.

Last year when I first brought this up, I built a spreadsheet that had all this, and normalized everyone's stats by the number of games played to see how far the extra moves affected results. It was substantial. Easily enough to change the playoff squads.

Now, that doesn't mean the managers who use a lot of moves wouldn't win anyway. (Brian almost won FFRL this season and that league is immune to streaming by it's very nature, having game caps at each position since it's roto.) Presumably the managers using a lot of moves would adjust their strategy if moves weren't available. So I'm *not* trying to say anything about manager quality here.

But I *am* saying that if the rules allow a lot of moves, using those moves to the fullest extent helps. And the main way it helps by taking the (let's say) two worst players on your squad, and making them play 120 games in a season instead of 82 (for the seasons where we had a 60 move limit). That changes the value of those two guys, who would normally be ranked about 250 or so in our league, into the equivalent of players ranked significantly higher. In the end it's just simple math. It doesn't matter what our motivations are for the moves. Brian doesn't think of his moves as streaming. That's fine but it doesn't matter. He consistently uses the moves available, and consistently ends up with more games played than managers who use fewer moves. In the end it's just math, and it doesn't matter what the motives of the manager are, be they intentionally streaming (like I did in the last week of the regular season) or not. Extra games are extra games, and if you use 60 moves well you are going to get at least 60 and probably more like 75 extra games played in a season.

[floppymoose]

In other news, ranking Camby and AR on the year according to bballmonster, per FFL league settings, cumulative values (not averages, although going by averages doesn't change results of the bet):

Camby rank 386
AR rank 337

So next season I'll have the option to swap draft order with jazzfan.

If we make a similar bet next season, let's try to pick a contest that doesn't end up being as pointless as this one was!

[jazzfan1971]

Congrats on winning the bet! I look forward to transferring you the opportunity to draft LeBron next year while I get stuck with Al Jefferson.

[Cyrus]

I think the champ should be the only vote on the league rules, he sets the rules, the rest of league has to dethrone him!

[bww78]

Sounds good to me.