Congratulations to melo and the Cavaliers for winning their first BaF championship. A dominant regular season capped off with an impressive sweep in the Finals versus a deep, balanced and excellent Portland team. Cleveland's overall balance in their starting lineup made them a nearly impossible cover. No one on their roster finished in the top 30 in postseason scoring but the combination of excellent interior defense and rebounding from Ayton and Adebayo plus the perimeter skill of Murray and LaVine with the overall excellence of Tatum was too difficult to matchup with. Add contributions from a solid bench of Schroder, Randle, Brown, Hart and Dunn throughout the postseason, and this championship roster was truly worthy.
Congrats also to smash and Portland. One of my favorite parts of running BaF is seeing the behind the scenes work that certain GM's put in, from the offseason, through the trade deadline as well as the day to day adjustments in season. The interactions I had with Smash showed an inspiring passion for the game and his team as well as a knowledge of how to put together a winner. Getting through the West this year may have been the toughest road any team has had to face to get to a Finals. Beating San Antonio and especially Dallas and New Orleans in back to back series is about as impressive a postseason performance as we've had. Unfortunately, the Cavs were too much. But another fantastic year from Portland.
As we now move forward into our offseason, we have a short break before things will amp up again. Next week we will announce all of our league awards. We will also have an announcement for the dates of certain business aspects of our offseason (player option deadlines, exempt list deadlines, draft, free agency, etc).
When I began Build a Franchise four years ago it was with the idea to run this league for five seasons. To give people a different way to play rather than our single season build a teams where teams stuck with a low pick could never win a title. I am very happy with the success that this league has had over its first four seasons. However, this year was obviously a down year as far as participation goes. We lost three key OG GM's in King of Canada, Mecca and Slicin n' Dicin. They are clearly tough losses and will be nearly impossible to replace. It seems to me that we have an extremely dedicated group of about 10 GM's who are incredibly active both with their teams day to day and in the discussion thread. We also have another group of about 10 more GM's who will pop in from time to time and do enough to stay involved but not add a ton to the game. We also then have another group of about 10 GM's who rarely if ever add anything. I never asked for anyone to spend more time on here then they could but when the game is quiet, the league suffers. To many inactive GM's hurts the game overall. I've thought about extending the league beyond the initial five year window that I committed to originally but this is a ton of work and takes up a lot of time. With that said, if the majority of people in the league are not committed or active, then I am leaning towards making the 2021-22 season the final year of BaF. Nothing is set in stone obviously, but I'd rather end on a high then watch the league continue to fizzle out if people are not interested in it moving forward.
With all of that said, I want to get a yes/no for next season. With three spots already needing to be filled, I want to get a firm commitment from the other 27 for next season so I have time to find suitable replacements. At least three new GM's will be walking into outstanding talented rosters inheriting Luka, Dame, Mitchell, Embiid, Butler, Towns, Zion, etc. Before we break up for a few weeks I need to know who is back for next year and if other teams need to be filled. Please quote with a yes/no by next Monday 6/7.
Spoiler:
). Would have little value in trades.
