Expansion/Re-alignment Rules 2015

[WigNosy]

In the interest of setting expectations with enough time for teams to react in time to make any trades they might need to make prior to the trade deadline, I am going to set out the basic expansion/realignment rules by commissioner fiat; these will not be subject to a vote.

(Reference: NBA expansion rules with the Charlotte Bobcats http://www.nba.com/hornets/news/draft_c ... mmary.html )

1. Nick Malone's New Orleans Hornets will become the New Orleans Pelicans per his stated preference. All current Hornets points will become Pelicans points.

2. A new expansion team will be placed in Charlotte. Chad, please post here whether you would like to use the Hornets or the Bobcats nickname.

3. Make It Rain, please post here whether you would like to retain the Seattle Sonics branding or change to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

4. Divisions will be set to mimic present NBA divisions, thus:

EASTERN CONFERENCE
ATLANTIC - Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets
CENTRAL - Cleveland Cavaliers, Milwaukee Bucks, Indiana Pacers, Chicago Bulls, Detroit Pistons
SOUTHEAST - Washington Wizards, Atlanta Hawks, Miami Heat, Orlando Magic, Charlotte Bobcats

WESTERN CONFERENCE
NORTHWEST - Utah Jazz, Portland Trailblazers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets, Oklahoma City Thunder
PACIFIC - Golden State Warriors, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns
SOUTHWEST - Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans

5. There will be an expansion draft. The expansion draft has two purposes: 1. Seed the expansion team with some starting players and 2. Force the expansion team to start with some salary on the books so they don't have unlimited cap flexibility (yes, this second reason is designed to hobble the expansion franchise a bit, just like real life). I ran a test and the game does expansion as follows:

The expansion draft takes place prior to the rookie draft.
Teams with 4 or fewer players under contract at that time are not required to expose a player to the expansion draft.
Teams with 5 to 9 (inclusive) players under contract at that time must expose at least one player to the expansion draft.
Teams with 9 or more players must expose at least one player and can only "protect" up to 8 players (so a team with 11 players under contract must expose 3 players).
The expansion team must select 12 players from the expansion pool.

Additional Rules to mimic the NBA:

No more than one player may be selected from any one team.

Players selected in the expansion draft cannot be traded to the team that exposed them for a full season. If cut, they may be claimed off waivers by the original team if no team signs them for one full sim past the Cheeks waiver deadline.

ITEMS TO BE VOTED UPON IN THE OFFSEASON:

1. Pre-Expansion Draft Trades
Teams will be permitted to enter into pre-Expansion Draft trades involving players or draft picks in which Charlotte agrees to select or not select certain unprotected players in return.

2. Allow the expansion team to win a top-3 spot in the lotto (the game supports this, real life usually has not allowed a lotto team to win a top-3 spot its inaugural season).

3. Give the expansion team an "artificial" cap hold (by way of adding cut salary) in their first season to restrict them to using 66% of the salary cap and 75% of the cap in their second season (this is consistent with real-life expansion team rules, see link).

[logpmess]

How will the playoffs be determined with seeding and division winners now that we are expanding to more than 2 divisions per conference?

[garbageman]

How will the playoffs be determined with seeding and division winners now that we are expanding to more than 2 divisions per conference?

I think we should do this like the real NBA if possible. Solely by record. Nice and simple like.

[make it rain]

Elect to change to OKC Thunder branding

[WigNosy]

Elect to change to OKC Thunder branding

Noted. Thank you.

[WigNosy]

How will the playoffs be determined with seeding and division winners now that we are expanding to more than 2 divisions per conference?

Good question. It's been long enough since we last voted on that that we can vote on the two options FBB gives us:
A. "Division Winners First" presumably means the division winners get the top 3 seeds, the remaining 5 seeds go in order of record. (Note: Our Current Setting)
B. "Top 2 records" presumably means that if the top 2 records in a conference come from the same division, those teams get the top 2 seeds; the remaining division winners get seeds 3 and 4, and the remaining 4 seeds go in order of record.

[LoCo89]

SOUTHWEST - Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans

Declined. I don't want to cut ties to the great people of Vancouver. Especially after seeing the reaction to the Sim people of Simeattle losing their sim team.

[Eazy P]

How will the playoffs be determined with seeding and division winners now that we are expanding to more than 2 divisions per conference?

Good question. It's been long enough since we last voted on that that we can vote on the two options FBB gives us:
A. "Division Winners First" presumably means the division winners get the top 3 seeds, the remaining 5 seeds go in order of record. (Note: Our Current Setting)
B. "Top 2 records" presumably means that if the top 2 records in a conference come from the same division, those teams get the top 2 seeds; the remaining division winners get seeds 3 and 4, and the remaining 4 seeds go in order of record.

Let's just keep it like the real NBA and not vote.

I don't have a problem with the original NBA setup which would be option A

[Darth Vegito]

I'll be going with the Bobcats.

Sent from my VS988 using Tapatalk

[LoCo89]

SOUTHWEST - Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans

Declined. I don't want to cut ties to the great people of Vancouver. Especially after seeing the reaction to the Sim people of Simeattle losing their sim team.

Bump

[LoCo89]

I need to know the ruling for the good people of Vancouver before I vote

[LoCo89]

[LoCo89]