#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

We are looking way better in the long run, but in the short run, we look like the worst in the league.

Last season, we put some pieces together and had a chance of making the playoffs. Getting Kyle Kuric from the Magic made it feel like it would be a successful season. We started the season getting beat by some of the best talent on the road, so our weak record early didn't trouble us. Then around sim 5, all three of the current blue players on the team, Tarence Weeks, Clearance Martin, and Kyle Kuric, got hurt simultaneously. I forget how hurt they were, but I know at least one would be out for a few months. So it was decision time. Try to continue to make the push or throw in the towel. Ultimately my record was toward the bottom of the pack, so without any blue players, we decided to tank and play the bench players. The bench was impressive, winning more games than I expected, but without any star power, they were not going to make the playoffs. The bench had impressed me enough to want to bring them all back for next year on short-term deals.

Off-season started, and we got the first pick of one of the best drafts I have seen.

The plan was to build a two-timeline team. One building for the future and one trying to win now. The plan was simple.

Pick the purple player in the draft.
Keep a hold of the rookies.
Buy older players on expiring contracts before UFA.
Resign the team's core to short-term but overpriced contracts and go deep into the tax.

The plan fell flat on its face.

The draft was perfect.

RFA went as expected, we signed Scoot to a 5-year deal, so overall, we have an excellent young team in the long term.

The problem is the short-term win-now timeline fell apart.

Things looked promising at first. Knowing I needed to improve at Power Forward, I picked Josiah Blair in the off-season.

The rest of the plan was to buy up some older high-level talent and then sign my peeking free agents with expensive but short-term contracts pushing me deep into the tax and hopefully deep into the playoffs. It almost happened, but it didn't happen.

UFA was a bust. I got cheap in UFA, and it burnt me.

UFA went even worse than trying to buy expiring talent. Instead of offering expensive short-term deals to Martin and Weeks, I offered long-term, inexpensive deals hoping that would make them tradable. I also tried to pick up some max contracts.

Weeks and Martin got short-term expensive contracts from other teams, and Kuric signed before anyone of the max contracts. So UFA 1 netted me a total of one 31-year-old player. UFA 2 was almost as bad; when I tried to resign my bench from last year, they all got better offers from around the league.

TC rolled around, and no one improved all that much—instead, Kuric took a 40-point hit. The only good news was I was glad I didn't sign Weeks to a long-term deal since he also took a sizable hit in TC.

We went 0-6 in the preseason, so we will be looking to again next year.

Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Dominitrix Johnson looked like a bright spot in the preseason, and the obvious plan is to build the future around him. What do you expect from him this season, and do you think he can steal rookie of the year from Antonio Gates?

GWR: Where do you see your playmaking coming from this year?

garbageman wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2023 1:22 am Sham Smith, Bulls.com: Dominitrix Johnson looked like a bright spot in the preseason, and the obvious plan is to build the future around him. What do you expect from him this season, and do you think he can steal rookie of the year from Antonio Gates?

Dominitrix would see the court until I have some real pieces around him, so I expect nothing from him this season.

JNR wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2023 6:05 am GWR: Where do you see your playmaking coming from this year?

We are pushing for Scoot to be an all-star this year, everything goes through Scoot.

This offseason you had plans that, if executed, had you believing you were a title threat. Thinking back, if it had worked and you got everyone you wanted, would it have worked? Would some of the planned players’ training camps hindered that?

greepleairport wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2023 11:05 am This offseason you had plans that, if executed, had you believing you were a title threat. Thinking back, if it had worked and you got everyone you wanted, would it have worked? Would some of the planned players’ training camps hindered that?

I think it really could have worked, there were just to many puzzle pieces that had to be timed out perfectly. Once a few fell through the cracks the puzzle was never going to be complete, so it was time to move on. It would have been pretty epic if I had been able to pull it off.

Do you feel like this experience in UFA gives you a better idea of what you should be offering in the future?
Considering Kuric pushed you out of contention for the big swings you took, do you have a change of perspective on how to strategize your bids?

Mike Lowry wrote: Fri Aug 04, 2023 2:53 pm Do you feel like this experience in UFA gives you a better idea of what you should be offering in the future?
Considering Kuric pushed you out of contention for the big swings you took, do you have a change of perspective on how to strategize your bids?

Absolutely! The problem is I think this is the second time I made this mistake! I think its burned in my brain now.