Speaking of Yahoo¡

Not sure if this was related to our interest in their fantasy services, but last week Yahoo¡ managed to evaporate over $10 billion in market value...WOW.

Yahoo! update

Dear fantastic fantasy friends,
Thanks again for all the good natured debate regarding the proposed new rules and switch to Yahoo's website. Most of you have voted about next year's league setup, but some have not...so if you haven't voted your preference on the new rules please do so here.

As the discussions have been going on, I have been checking in with Yahoo's customer service on how their site will work with some of our pre-existing rules.

Unfortunately, I found out today that though Yahoo has some great features, it's missing one of the features we used most on TQStats -- the ability to adjust rosters retroactively. So if someone were to make a roster change that required commissioner intervention, and I was not able to log in and make that change until after the start of a player's game, then you will lose that player's stats for that game...with no way for me to adjust your score to get them back.

I know I've been harping about how I want to run the league with a minimum of commissioner intervention. With this news, it now seems imperative that the league be set up so that it does not rely on commissioner controls to run the league on a day-to-day basis. I will let you know how this will impact the 3 Yahoo options after people finish voting, and when Yahoo customer care gets back to me on a couple more things.

One other thing I found out -- with regards to the 82 game limit. The 82 game limit handles the problem with inactives this way...if a player doesn't set foot on the court, then that does not count towards one of the 82 games for that roster spot.

Peace - out.

Stephon Marbury May Just Have Lost His Mind

I don't think I have to convince any of you Wolves fans that Steph is trouble, but this article (Via True Hoop) on a confrontation he had with Walt Frazier really takes the cake. If Clyde really does lose his job over this I will surely miss his rhymes. There's not much "swishing and dishing" going on in NYC so maybe his poetic nature is just wasted on this team anyway.

Thoughts on the verge of a pennant race

• I vote for a salary cap and weekly approval rating polls for the comish.
• did you know that David Ortiz loves playin hoops and can dunk? With the new expanded moonball rosters he may be worth drafting.
• reading the choices for the new rules felt like reading Oregon ballot measures. I had so much trouble wrapping my head around the verbiage that I had no idea how I felt.
• I thoroughly enjoyed watching Italy scrap its way to world cup victory and with my recent demotion to basic cable I watched the entire tournament on univision. While my Spanish did not improve (I think cabeza means head), I was reminded that nba arena fans are in fact rather lame when compared to the wildly creative and zealous foootball fans.
• it seems to me that the simplest rules would be option 1. The 82 game limit makes sense. The idea that you could change your roster everyday only gives an advantage to the same people who always wind up on top and way. It also creates an added emphasis on drafting a deep team which is much more fun than trolling for scrubs during the season. Regardless of what amount of diligence is needed to compete the cream will rise and monkeyshoes will be just close enough to taste the sweetness.
• I'm trying not to drool too much as I think about the next five years of Becket, Lester and Papelbon. Go Sox
• If we can avoid any rules that include the language "officiallyInactive players" it would be such a pleasant season.
• ever since the Sox won the World Series every team in every sport is a "nation". The reason Sox Nation exists (besides the fact that we are self-obsessed, myopic morons) is because it encompases all of New England, parts of Florida and many other pockets all around the country. I hate to break it to Oregon State but there is no such thing as Beaver Nation.

Results from the last vote

We had 9 voters. Here's the deal:

10/28 beat 10/21 by 6 to 3.

If the draft were in the twin cities or the 'nati, 6 can attend, 3 cannot
If the draft were in Portland, 5 can attend, 4 cannot

The Twin Cities were the top vote getter: 6 1st place, 2 2nd place & 1 third; Portland was 3, 2 & 4 and Cincy was 2, 4 & 3.

So, unless anyone has any final objections, it looks like 10/28 in Minnesota!

The monkey takes on the Rat House

To make the vote tabulation easier, I busted another survey monkey move. Thanks, Nakima!:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=294202376836

Polls are Open

Vote your comment.

Comment on your vote.






Option #1* 10-man starting lineup + 4-man bench* no limits on transactions within rosters, allowed 24/7.* limit of 82 games per roster spot.

Option #2* 10-man starting lineup + 4-man bench.* set starting-10 lineup once a week.* injury replacements allowed from bench at any time (for officially Inactive players).* no limit on number of games played.

Option #3* 10-man starting lineup + 4-man bench.* set starting-10 lineup once a week.* NO bench transactions (including injury replacements) allowed after weekly starting lineups are set.* no limit on number of games played.All the above options allow 4 Supermoves & 4 Trade Supermoves in each half, which can be used any time, any day.

Option #4* Same rules as 2005-06 (12-man rosters, no bench, unlimited injury replacements for legit Inactive players, 2 Supermoves & 2 Trade Supermoves per half).

CONGRATULATIONS!

Fantastic news from the Family Anderson allows me to post one of my favorite NBA images.


Mike and Lori - may you grab marital bliss like Rodman on the offensive boards.

Time for a vote

I feel like we should get the draft date & site wrapped up, so it's time for a vote. I'll post the results as soon as we've got 'em; vote early but no ballot box stuffing...(that's how we roll in the red states).

Off Topic - Anti-McHale rant

I don't want to push Dave's MB post too far down the page - but can I just rant about this for a second? Every Timberwolves message board in the Internets knew the deal w/Banks' salary when the deal with the C's went down. The fact that an actual NBA team is run by a bunch of clowns that know less than a bunch of people on message boards is ridiculous...

I do think Kevin McHale is taking years off of my life...

Offseason Moonball Adjustments

Since it’s the moonball off-season, it’s a good time to look forward to next year and address some issues that came up during last year’s play. Plus I'd like to propose some changes for the coming year. Please read through this post, and then reply with your comments.

Why make changes?
I've noticed a general discontent with TQStats over the past couple years. The site has been quirky, the waiver wire is broken, some position listings were wack. By the end of last season, it seemed like there was a league-wide interest in leaving TQStats for greener pastures.

On top of that, we had the NBA rule changes -- with the league’s new inactive rules and 2nd day box score verification to see who was actually played on any given night, there were some legitimate concerns about moonball injury replacements being too high-maintenance.

I will be the first to say that I have enjoyed playing Moonball at TQStats, and that last year was as fun and exciting as ever. But I also feel that the moonball league could be improved with the website doing more of the heavy lifting. By moving to a new website and implementing a few rule changes, we could simultaneously take more advantage of the tools that fantasy websites have to offer and change the way we deal with player replacements by using a bench.

Therefore for the advancement of moonball, I propose a new moon order:

Hosting: Change from Total Quality Stats to Yahoo

Rather than have the commish manage all the player movement behind the scenes, like the great and powerful Oz, why not have a website that manages it for us?

Yahoo features automated trades and player replacement, so each team does its own transactions in real time. It also still has a message board and personal messages similar to TQ Stats.

According to esteemed co-commissioner Sneep, who played in a Yahoo league last year, Yahoo is smoother, it has a number of better tools, and it can even e-mail you when new messages and transactions are posted. (That would be nice for me, since I can no longer monitor fantasy league sites from work, because of corporate censorship.) There are also better player metric reports, so we won’t have to be poindexters to figure out player averages and other key stats. Yes my friends, slack is back.

Yahoo’s league registration opens in September. I have reviewed Yahoo's custom league rules, and they should be able to accommodate most of our scoring and style of play. The biggest changes that would happen by moving to Yahoo – they set their own positions (so, no more exciting discussions about what position Rasheed plays).

My biggest concern is more cultural – that the message board would be less integral to the functioning of the league, since you don’t technically have to “post” your transactions.

When HP posted last year’s message board a few weeks back, it reminded me how much I liked it when everybody stuck their head up to say their peace, as they were making a move. Therefore, I would propose that each team post their trades and acquisitions on the board as they happen, so we can still nickname players, create excitement and make fools of ourselves (for all to enjoy).


Rule Changes
To take advantage of Yahoo’s automated transactions, and to try something new in our moonball league to change how injury replacement works, I am suggesting the addition of bench players. Here’s how I see it working:

Teams:
All teams will have 14 players. Each team will be composed of 10 active players and 4 bench players. The 10 will be 4 guards, 4 forwards and 2 centers. The bench can be any combination of the 3 types.

The bench can be used for reserves and injury replacements. Each team is responsible for adjusting its lineup each week, to determine who is an active player and who is reserved on the bench.

You can make as many adjustments as you’d like to your upcoming lineups during the week. Then, the week's lineup is set each Sunday at midnight.

Injury replacement
Injury replacement will now be accomplished by using players from your bench. If one of your players is hurt during a given week, you may replace that player the following week with a reserve from the bench. There will be no injury replacements from the free-agent pool. Free agents can only be picked up by supermove or trade supermove.

Supermoves
There will be 4 supermoves and 4 trade-supermoves per half-season. More supermoves have been added to account for injury replacements. Supermoves would work as before…allowing teams to replace their players with players from the free agent pool. Waived players would go to the waiver wire, and could be claimed the same way as in the past.

There is no Rabinowitz exception. (Just like any player replacement, season-ending injury replacements can only be made by supermove or waiver pickup.)


The addition of a bench is a big change, but one that I think will be fun and strategic. Having a bench will allow teams to think ahead about replacements, and keep a few interesting fill-in players around. And we’ll be able to hang on to injured (or suspended) starters without having to wait for them to be deemed “inactive”, putting them back into our lineups when we feel they're ready...not just after they've been active for a week. You can also demote players to the bench without giving up on them entirely. In other words, you're more in control of your own destiny.

Another big benefit of a bench is that it encourages trades. There would be a lot more combinations where bench players could be swapped for active players, and vice-versa.

Lastly, this arrangement will require less hands-on work from the commissioner. It’s not just that I’m lazy...but it’s nearly impossible to find a fantasy site that is not blocked by the filtering software used at my workplace. Therefore, the more transactions that can happen automagically, the better for all.

That's what I've got so far. Please use “Comments” to discuss this proposal, or post any questions or ideas you wish to offer. Happy offseason!

Wackiness In Atlanta

The Hawks situation is so screwed up right now... It can never be good for the league to have a judge rule that a team can't sign players to long-term contracts. Now if someone creative can come up with a way for a judge to handcuff Isiah similarly then I'm all for it.

How do you know you are worse than awful?

When you get waived without ever being signed.

I actually was on the phone with a Blazers official answering questions about how I felt as a fan about the Blazers recent moves (for real, they called me), and I asked if Portland had ever signed Skita. The Blazer staff said not that she was aware.

Sorry ass sucka.

Spazzy McFrankenstein --- as graceful in the front office as he was on the hardwood.

Ainge to Dog McHale One More?

Though Boston is apparently not planning to make any free agent moves, Ainge has brought in McHale gem Ndudi Ebi to Boston for some summer league run.

Ebi sucks and has, how you say, 'nothing to get together.'

But were he to get it together, I imagine Ainge might remind McDale for the rest of his frankesteiny days.

And a Championship Era Ends...

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2508742

No hatred for Ben, but no more love, either. I don't wish him well, but I do appreciate what he's done for the Pistons. This is very hard to take on the day Stevie Y hung 'em up, too.

Bulls fans--you'll love rooting for Ben, even if you overpaid for him.

Tough Day for Detroit Fans

If I had a list of my favorite athletes of all time, the top tier would be, in no particular order, Joe Dumars, Wayne Gretzky, Brett Favre, and Steve Yzerman. The next tier would include Kirk Gibson, Zeke, Nick Lidstrom, and Ben Wallace, among maybe a couple of others. Some will note the absence of Chris Webber and Dennis Rodman, whose exploits went from truly transgressive to absolutely abominable, once he stopped rebounding for a living.

Anyway, the point is that one top guys retired today and it looks like a second tier guy may be taking his afros, great defense, extreme rebounding, clanking free throws, and true heart elsewhere next season. The funny thing is that as much as I want Ben to retire a Piston, I can't blame Joe for not offering him anything more than he has. Ben may be worth 11 million for one or two seasons, but he's not the player he was even a year or two ago. He hasn't slipped much, but I sense a trend, and I think he'll be very overpaid at the end of even a four year deal.

Still, how depressing for me (not for HP or his bro) to think about Ben in a Bulls jersey next year, particularly since we traded Darko away in what now looks like as bad a move as drafting him in the first place.

Sigh