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We are now in the full swing of our 50th season of SLOE/PBSL basketball, where I have been round for about 15 of those seasons. Being that I have only been around for less than a quarter of this iteration of the league’s existence, I have always been fascinated at what happened prior to me coming onboard as the Thunder’s GM. Whether it be who were people that have been around since the beginning, who was the GOAT of the non-created players, or just general buffoonery that happened when most of the people in this league were slightly more childish and WAY more competitive than they currently are.
After Ballsohard came out with his first part of articles on the tax, and seeing how a lot of the old heads were so excited about talking about various things of the past, I decided to get what they were saying down in an article and try to get everyone some points for it. So, for the first edition of this type of article, we are going to cover what has been dubbed “The Shadow Council”. This is something I remember people reminiscing about since I first started, where they would drop the term here and there in the chat as a joke, but all I could get as an understanding of what it was is that it was “a group that ran the league”.
I sat down with Ballsohard, DarthVegito, IamQuailman and NoLA, and TrayWithAnA (Inactive) to try to get a better understanding of what happened back then and how it helped shaped the league that we are in today.
Now, while the creation of PBSL might not be the main topic of the story, I think it’s important to lay some foundation for what is to come. This all started based off of some things Ball has already mentioned. Darth, who became commissioner, decided to start up his own fake basketball league when the one that Quail, Ball and NOLa were in on Pelicans Report (PR) was falling by the wayside. The commissioner was considered to be the complete opposite of our current Commissioner Garbageman, who does not even have the computer that the game is played on and still makes everything run amazingly smooth.
- “AD23for MVP was commish and it was kida sketch” NOLa
“The commish was sketch and very inconsistent” Quail
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He was inconsistent with sims (if they happened at all), he would complain and would say things like “I will end this league if another one is created.” This did not sit well with some people. So, Darth decided that he was going to purchase the newest version of the computer program, and then enlist the help of Ball, Quail, and Wig (another inactive GM from the league Darth was a part of) to help him create what would be his Mona Lisa, his Sistine Chapel, his as literally everyone who I talked to called it “baby”. From what I understood of the discussion, was that Darth enlisted Quail and Ball from the PR league for a variety of reasons, which all held good merit. They were very active in PR, they were passionate about wanting to keep going, and they were willing to help. Wig was also included, where he knew how to work the logistics of everything. So the four of them divvied up tasks in order to get everything up and running
- “Wig already had a system in place” NOLa
“They helped a lot with caring out the vision and the actual time it took to redo the forums from scratch and other things. But it was 100% my creation and I did what it took to see it to fruition. I was the commish. I purchased the new version of the game. I ran it all in the beginning. Wig came in later to help with all the technical which was a godsend” Darth
“I think Ball and I both had no bandwidth to run the sims and stuff at the time since we both were travelling” Quail
“That's true. And honestly Darth didn't want us to” Ball
This relationship of these GMs working together would not stop at the creation of PBSL. These GM’s created a private sub-forum, within the main forum website, (hence the name “The Shadow Council”) to continue to discuss important topics as they came up. The council was made up, varying at times, of Darth, NOLa, Quail, TrayWithAnA, and Ballsohard. The belief by the individuals was that a select group of GMs, who were very active, would put their own opinions aside and make choices for the best of the league. Whereas if you left every possible decision to a vote of the whole PBSL, it would lead to people making choices in their teams best interest instead of PBSL.
- “I always assumed Darth wanted a core group of guys who were 100% invested in the league and loved it like he did, and wanted that core to help advise. Because Quail, Ball, and tray were very active members of the other league and established.” NOLa
“The people's league referred to the transparency behind it. Darth’s spoke about it, and he's right you can't trust a democracy. People are too selfish and think … ‘me’” Ball
It seems to me like the routine of early PBSL problems went as something like the this. Something would come up, a problem that people would be noticed, and needed to be changed with the system, or needed to be integrated to make the game more authentic / even for all. Once the problem was noticed, there would be a discussion. This discussion might be in the form of a thread post where someone would propose how to fix the problem, and everyone would talk back and forth. If there was an idea brought forth worth voting on, this would then lead to a vote of everyone in what was called the “#SLOE Polling Place.” If this sounds familiar its because this is also how we currently tackle our problems in PBSL. This was also used majority of the time in the SLOE days, from what I understand. Some examples of this might be deciding whether or not to restrict unrelated trades during RFA period, setting legal roster sizes, and trading injured players.
- “Like here's the thing about the council We didn't just do shit We asked and polled around. We ironed out the details but we made sure the league was behind it mostly” Ball
However, there were some problems that instead of tackling with a vote among the whole league, the council felt they were better equipped to handle themselves. So this small group of GMs would talk within the sub forum, later skype, and discuss a solution to the problem. Once the solution was fully resolved and was considered the fairest among them, they would enact it. Some examples of this included things like implementing an RFA process, ban on training purple players, the initial point system, and the tax system.
- “We made all the real rulings, let people vote on nonessential things to make them think they had a say” Quail
“It was more in response to curbing OP players and teams that got lucky really killing the league… Yeah I think what we would do is listen to what the GMs complained about, we’d discuss to ourselves and come up with an idea, then implement” NOLa
“It was closer to an oligarchy. A few in charge, not elected…It was much faster moving as 5 people, and we could make changes not at the end of the year” Ball
When asked to go into detail of their RFA talks, here is what the GMs had to say:
- “You know how long it would have taken to get RFA implemented if we did votes. [We did] the whole Fryeing thing, how to make it work with the game” NOLa
“How to operationalize everything, and you have to understand the game doesn't support it. Even the free agency bids and all were created” Ball
“Yeah the game doesn't have RFA AB, it doesn't exist. We created that from scratch” Darth
- “[Darth] used to record every inputting session. And upload videos to youtube.” Quail
“The videos of the sims.. looking back was a bit much. But I wanted the league to know "hey this guy Darth is ethical and would never cheat us. So I went above and beyond” Darth
“People th[a]t didn’t agree with the decision left but we never did anything solely for our benefit. We tried to keep the game balanced” Tray
Ultimately, all good things (matter of opinion I guess) must come to an end. While the council was made up of five people, it appeared to me that over time there were two individuals who would butt heads more and more. I think most of anyone who has had the chance to talk with Darth will agree that he is very confident and holds himself in high regard when it comes to SLOE/PBSL. I think you would also agree that trade negotiations with Ballsohard can be difficult at times. Ball has firm opinions, and it can be very hard to change them for your benefit. When the council would discuss topics, it would turn into an argument between Darth and Ball. There were times where Ball thought Darth was making a decision for the betterment of his team, and Darth felt like his voice was not heard, having to compete with the IRL friendship between Ball, Quail, and TrayWithAnA.
- “you [referring to Darth] had so much bias. Like the whole penny being third team. It was good for the league and bad for Darth you were against it” Ball
“See, this is what we’d get accused of AB. Darth thought we were all out numbering his [v]otes.” Quail
“It was pretty bad AB. Ball and Darth were fighting a lot. Not like competitive fighting but it was toxic… There was a few times that yeah it felt even though voting for the good of the league that Darth took it personally” NOLa
“But I had three best friends aimed at me” Darth
“I'd go behind the scenes and get support for an idea. Make sure I had majority and bring it up” Ball
- “I always felt that i always would have the league best interest and that I was right and my thoughts and opinions would get overruled A LOT… we had this vote thing and I felt that I wasn't heard much or at least just never agreed with so the end result a lot would be out voted. Which was very very frustrating… So I pulled JNR, NOLa into a Skype chat and explained everything to them and asked for their help. I was pissed and while explain everything I said some things, called Ball some names. Some funny ones though. Oh yeah wig too maybe… My intention was Ball being gone” Darth
“I copied and pasted the whole conversation AB. Not the smartest thing I ever did but hey, 23 and in college. Already not the smartest guy… And I had something personal come up So copy paste Done” NOLa
“The interesting part is that I knew Darth and I went at it, but I never ever had a clue it was that bad , and I never ever wanted him gone from the league. So when I read that it was not only disgusting w all the sweat equity I put in, but it was like such a huge gap from where I thought we were.” Ball
“I know it started with guys I need help. I don't know what to do. This is a problem and it's gotta be fixed. My intent was for those guys to help me. I trusted those 3 guys… I'm [not] justifying what I said in that chat. I never would. But intention matters. I was horribly stressed. I felt like it was a constant fight and that you constantly and purposely disagree and argue with everything I would say.” Darth
“At that point, I didn't want to leave. I was really at the height of my passion for winning in the league, which is a far cry from where I am today. I wanted to win more and to be the best. If I recall correctly, I really wasn't gone that long, but when I left I'm pretty sure I exposed reason why. I'm really unclear if I did that in public or PMs , but there were a lot of people unhappy with what took place… Before everything went down, I never viewed it as a him or me type of situation line Darth did. However after everything went down, I was definitely of that mindset.” Ball
After discussing with the group the full life cycle of the Shadow Council, I decided to pick their ideas on if the council would still work today, and if there were any things that they would have changed about the game as it is currently constructed, here is some of what the had to say
On if they still would want the council around today:
- “A better form of it. For a council you had to have a very raw league that needs a lot done. This league is shaped. So a council is kinda meh now” Ball
- “I will say the league vote bullshit has changed the league for the worse and all the points and insurance and trainings took etc. But that was the fall out of this drama… Like [GMs] competing and training and the whole dichotomy behind points was you shouldn't be able to do both… Problem with how points are being distributed, too many being handed out…But these are really big issues and they really need evaluation. So how I would do it is pin down the actual issue and come up w a solution. But honestly we'd probably have a chat like this for months. And someone would come up w a good idea” Ball
“Fryeing ironic huh. The thing we said we cared about most is what ended up happening” Darth
jesus 
