hoops.ws rules suggestion

[elindholm]

Hello hoops.ws managers,

I was reading a message board on the site, and someone posted an idea that I think is pretty good.

The idea is to eliminate position disputes by agreeing always to follow ESPN.com. Whatever ESPN's player page says the guy's position is, that's his position. This way, there can't be any arguments. Also, no one has to worry about any conflict between voting the way they think is "right," even while it helps an opponent.

Enforcement would potentially be a problem, but presumably if we all agreed to this by majority vote before the draft started, that same majority could be counted on to keep their agreement during the season. I don't really think that anyone would agree to do it and then change their mind.

Obviously it wouldn't have to be ESPN that is used as the arbiter, although I would prefer it to CNNSI. NBA.com might be the best of all, since it comes the closest to being "official."

So, what do you all think? Is this a good idea to head off potential problems, or is it just too complicated?

 

[arthurracoon]

Good idea!

 

[elindholm]

Additional suggestion:

This rule would only apply to adding to the positions that a player can play. I think that if the site lists someone as a FC -- like, oh, say Amare Stoudemire for instance -- but the on-line sites have him listed as only a Forward, it would make a lot of people very angry for the rule to be that he had to get changed to a pure F.

So my suggestion would be that, if someone wants to have a player able to play more positions, he needs the backup of whatever the "site of record" is.

 

[slinslin]

No I don't think it is a good idea.
Because ESPN/NBA/CNNSI isn't always right when it comes to listing positions.

If you can give a good explanation why your player should be a G/F/C or whatever there is no reason he shouldn't.

 

[Joe Mama]

I'm with Slin. It would certainly make it easier to just go by ESPN or NBA.com, but if you can make a compelling argument for a position change I think you should at least get a shot at it.

I would vote "yes" for a position change if someone convinced me that it was legitimate even if one of those other sites did not have that player listed at the position requested. However I can tell you that you will have to be a very compelling argument.

Doesn't that seem fair? I say we go by NBA.com or ESPN.com automatically, but if somebody can make a good argument for a change we should still vote on it. I just don't want to hear any whining if the change isn't given.

Joe Mama

 

[elindholm]

Okay, well then maybe we should talk about a few key players in advance. The two I have in mind are Pau Gasol and Elton Brand. I don't know what the site will do this year, but last year they listed Gasol as a F and Brand as a CF. Gasol was then converted to CF on a vote.

Brand was on my team and I loved being able to use him at C, but in my opinion, neither of these players should be a CF. I don't think either of them saw significant time at center last season, except for some emergency time when Wright and Olowokandi were injured and their backups couldn't get it done.

Chances are, the site will list Brand as a CF again. But I think it's very important to know what we're going to do with Gasol. He is a first-round pick, and it seems too risky to force everyone to guess whether he will win a vote to play C.

Jermaine O'Neal and Rasheed Wallace are in similar situations. In my opinion O'Neal is a CF and Wallace only a F. But these are very good players and I think it would be best if we all knew what to expect about them.

 

[Chaplin]

I say ban position changes.

 

[elindholm]

I say ban position changes.

Well, that certainly would be one effective solution. I wouldn't have a problem with it.

 

[slinslin]

I would have a problem with that.

Why should Kobe not be allowed to be changed to G/F when Tracy McGrady is also listed as G/F?
Jamal Mashburn and Pierce are also listed as a G/F and so is Ricky Davis.

Why should Brand and Nowitzki be F/C and Gasol or Jermaine O'Neal shouldn't be allowed to?

 

[elindholm]

Why should Kobe not be allowed to be changed to G/F when Tracy McGrady is also listed as G/F?
Jamal Mashburn and Pierce are also listed as a G/F and so is Ricky Davis.

Why should Brand and Nowitzki be F/C and Gasol or Jermaine O'Neal shouldn't be allowed to?

At least then everyone would know going in. It's the guesswork that's scary to me.

 

[slinslin]

If there was nothing to guess why not use a bunch of computers put in the variables and simulate the whole fantasy league season in a minute?

In Nowitzki's case I would think that everyone who drafts them has to know that he really isn't a F/C so there is some risk he might be changed to F only.

As long as you draft carefully the position changes won't make much of a difference to your team anyway except for that injuries won't hurt you as much if your players suffer any.

 

[Chaplin]

Slin, why are you so adamant about this? This is the only league on the net that allows you to do position changes. They muck up the process, IMO.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by slinslin

As long as you draft carefully the position changes won't make much of a difference to your team anyway except for that injuries won't hurt you as much if your players suffer any.

And if you draft carefully, you won't HAVE to do any position changes.

 

[slinslin]

Your suggestion is simply unrealistic.

This league allows position changes because they are also allowing players to have mulit-positions.

What other fantasy leagues allow players to have more than one position?

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by slinslin

What other fantasy leagues allow players to have more than one position?

Yahoo. And NO Position Changes.

 

[slinslin]

Yahoo has a much much different scoring system.

And they allow utility slots which basically makes every player a multi position player.

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by slinslin
Yahoo has a much much different scoring system.

And they allow utility slots which basically makes every player a multi position player.

I still think your arguement is a little weak. The problems far outweigh the advantages. But, I'm sure Eric will make the right decision.

 

[elindholm]

If there was nothing to guess why not use a bunch of computers put in the variables and simulate the whole fantasy league season in a minute?

Slinslin, I respect your intellect, but you're making some very irrational statments today. Guessing which players are going to do well is a lot different from guessing whether your opposing managers are going to give you a position change. In the latter case, you're counting on the gullibility and/or good will of the people you're supposed to be competing with.

As long as you draft carefully the position changes won't make much of a difference to your team

Really? So being able to use Gasol as your starting Center last season didn't help you? That is absurd. If that vote had failed, would you have been able to take Jordan at #41, instead of a Center?

This league allows position changes because they are also allowing players to have mulit-positions.

I don't know where this "because" relationship comes from. There would be no logical inconsistency in banning position changes. Having multi-position players in no way implies that the participants in the league should be able to change the site's settings.

It makes a huge difference to know which of your players can play where. If we knew that Nowitzki or Gasol would be only a Forward, there's no way that either of them would be drafted as high as if they were a FC.

Pau Gasol, listed as a Forward, was the #23 pick in last year's draft. Would he have fallen that low if people thought he could play center? I don't think so.

But, I'm sure Eric will make the right decision.

It looks like the right decision is to leave things as they are, because I'm not detecting any consensus. So, barring an influx of new opinion, we'll stick with last year's system.

 

[Joe Mama]

I know this would be a pain in the ass, but it actually might give us something to do over the next week. Why don't we take this to the fantasy board and vote on key players positions?

Dirk Nowitzki and Rasheed Wallace are not centers. If they play center it will not be for more than a few minutes per game. Even that's unlikely. In fact they are more likely to play small forward and power forward than power forward and center.

With the Clippers depleted center rotation I wouldn't say it's out of the question that Elton Brand will play significant minutes at center this season.

Jermaine O'Neal is definitely a/center. There should be no debate about that. Same goes for Amare Stoudemire. I would have to read more about Gasol. However I thought I read somewhere that because the grizzlies were unable to secure a true center in the off-season that he was going to see some minutes at center. How many? It's impossible to tell. Perhaps we should wait until the season begins to allow him to play center. Traffic him at your own risk.

I like my suggestion (go figure). Count on NBA.com or ESPN.com while you are drafting. Anybody who does not have their position changed by one of those web sites you can try your own risk by a vote on the fantasy site.

Joe Mama

 

[Chaplin]

I vote for either eliminating the possibility of position changes (and trust the site), or make the position reference be limited to a single site.

 

[Chris_Sanders]

I am in favor of eliminating position changes.

Should that fail my second vote is to thin out all the forward they have that are listed incorrectly as centers.

 

[elindholm]

I really like Joe Mama's idea of voting on the players in advance, except ... we can't. The site won't let you vote on a position change until the player is on someone's roster.

Certainly we could agree to vote "informally," here, on key players, and then all trust one another to transfer the informal vote result to the site when the time comes. But even then, I doubt it would work, because we'd have to have all of the fantasy league managers checking this message board regularly and caring enough about the issue to vote on each player.

It seems like this issue is volatile, so I'm starting to become skeptical about agreeing to any "rule" which we would then all have to trust each other to enforce. In fact, I'm definitely sorry that I brought it up.

 

[slinslin]

Can the comissioner not force the result of a vote?

Anyway the comissioner has enough tools to make everyone responsible for voting the way he is supposed to.

Slinslin, I respect your intellect, but you're making some very irrational statments today. Guessing which players are going to do well is a lot different from guessing whether your opposing managers are going to give you a position change. In the latter case, you're counting on the gullibility and/or good will of the people you're supposed to be competing with.

If you believe into personal vendettas against yourself that might be true.
But if people will vote no on every vote proposal because it is better for them that would be just like not allowing position changes.

Why are we even discussing this? We didn't really have any dramatic problems with that during the last 2 years.

 

[elindholm]

Can the comissioner not force the result of a vote?

Not anymore. The commissioner no longer has the power to log in as any manager. If all managers want, they can vote to give the commissioner this power, but that seems weird -- basically, I'd have to ask people to give me a power that I would hope never to have to use.

Why are we even discussing this? We didn't really have any dramatic problems with that during the last 2 years.

One manager has expressed concern about this issue in an e-mail to me, and I think he has some good points.

However, I agree that we are unlikely to have "dramatic problems" if we leave things the way they are, so that's probably the best idea.