#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

Pros and Cons of Each Ballot Measure and My Voting Stance

(We put parity on the ballot, and the league said, NO! Good luck down there!) I’m done with my savior complex. I was going to write an article on the rules that didn’t get selected for a vote, but after this round of ballots, there is no point.
(I’ll start with the least important rule changes and move to the most important rule changes. First, the few rules changes that I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have voted on if they weren’t worth a point.)

Increase Sixth Man of the Year and Most Improved Awards from 1 to 2 Points
Pros: Further rewards for having a good bench player and an improved player. A new GM might get it.
Cons: There are already far too many points in the game. (Print that money, feds.) Holding on to a mediocre player to get an extra point. (I had someone hold a player rather than trade them because they thought he was a good candidate for Sixth Man of the Year. Weird.)
Where I’m At: I don’t care; I don’t remember what I voted for, but looking back, I would vote against it.

Grant 1 Point to Players Who Earn a Bid into the All-Star Weekend Rookie-Sophomore Game
Pros: A bad team has a slightly better chance of getting it since they should have more top-tier young talent.
Cons: Again, it creates more inflation in the game. There are already far too many points in the game. (Print that money, feds.)
Where I’m At: I really don’t care. I voted for it mostly because we track it. Every time I’d check the All-Star list, I had a player on the rookie/sophomore list, and I got nothing for it. If we are going to the trouble of the game, making it and tracking it, might as well be worth something. Otherwise, it’s just an annoying disappointment.

Feeler - Reduce Training to 1 Time a Year Before the Season. Eliminate All-Star Weekend Training
Pros: Easier for the Commissioner.
Cons: You can only train players you have at the beginning of the season, and they might not be there at the end. You can’t use athleticism training to improve a team going to the playoffs.
Where I’m At: Not a big deal either way. I voted for it mostly to make the Commissioner’s life a little easier.

(Now we have some rule changes that might matter.)

Increase the Point Maximum on Trades from 10 to 15
Pros: More flexibility in trading. More trades for people who aren’t looking to move rookies but don’t mind picking up some older players.
Cons: By inflating points (league-wide) and allowing more points between trades, points have essentially lost more value. Taxes haven’t gone up, so taxes are effectively lower. Lower taxes mean it is easier to pay after being in the tax system for multiple years.
Where I’m At: I voted for it because I think the new flexibility will add another dynamic. I also appreciate not making it unlimited because I could see that leading to problems.

Expand Playoff Teams to 8, thus Reducing Lottery Teams to 10
Pros: More teams are part of the game for longer. More teams have more chances to make the playoffs, which is fun.
Cons: Inflation again. More points are available league-wide with the addition of two now-playoff teams. There also might not be a point if an 8 never beats a 1.
Where I’m At: I voted for it because I want more teams to try to be competitive and not tank. If I have a chance to make the playoffs, I will take it.

Combine UFA and RFA to the Same Period
(While this rule change wasn’t the most important rule change to me, I found it the most interesting.)
Pros: Makes the Commissioner’s life easier. (If you’ve ever tried to make those tables, you know what I’m talking about. Early 90’s software; if you can call it that.) It’s more realistic. Why don’t RFA bids count against the cap? It makes no sense. RFA free agents would be signed for cheaper, especially those who aren’t max players. More RFA trades.
Cons: Trying to sign an RFA player could really hurt you, especially if you don’t pick him up. The RFA rights GM might be pushed deep into the tax by signing a player out of UFA and having to sign their own RFA player. Teams that win RFA bids but don’t get rights for that player would probably be screwed for the season.
Where I’m At: I voted for it because I want the weaker teams to be able to re-sign their players for cheaper, hopefully making them more competitive and bringing some more parity into the league.

GMs Are No Longer Able to Train a Player into Purple (151 Future Rating)
(This was the hardest one for me to decide which side to vote for.)
Pros: Less training available. As I said before, the less you can train, the more trading is important. Luck will decide which of the top 10 actually get to be purple potential.
Cons: Top 3 picks will be limited in how much training they can get. Top 10 picks will easily be as good as top 3 picks with a little training. Not knowing who is purple. Everyone knows who’s really, really good, because they are purple. Without purple potential, knowing players' future scores becomes more critical when completing trades, and it’s an advantage for those with access to future scores.
Where I’m At: I voted for it because I want less training in the league. I am however worried that it will further hold down the weakest teams by making their top 3 picks less valuable.

Feeler - Eliminate Athleticism Training (QKN, JMP, STA, STR)
Pros: Quickly make blue pot players. Have more control over what you want your players to be good at.
Cons: Athletic training is far too cheap, and most of the league abuses it. We have unrealistic players at 7’0" with 81 quickness. It allows playoff teams to train their weak rookies into rookies that are basically as good as top 3 picks. This takes away all of the advantage of getting a top 3 pick and makes it harder for weaker teams to improve. (Especially now that they can train their top 3 to be purple potential.) The game has a 1-cap improvement to quickness a season, and we obliterate it with 5. (Jump and Strength are similar.)
Where I’m At: This was the most important ballot measure to me, and it is going to fail. Booo! I voted for it because I want teams to have to trade to improve their teams rather than hole up and train their guys. While I do a lot of trading, it tends to be at the edges (except for one major trade, Scoot). The reason I’m not in more big trades is that I currently get more value from training players than on the market. The less training we can do, the more we have to turn to the market. It’s sad, but until something shifts in the rules, training often makes more sense than trading. So I’ll probably be holed up for a while. Also, making fake blues and mid-level rookies as good as top 3 picks hurts teams that need those top 3 picks to be competitive. But the league has spoken. I’m not going to have a top 3 pick for a while, so I don’t care on a personal level. I just feel bad for those guys.

Until someone gives me a correlation to points being some negative thing. There's no reason to buy into you or @garbageman ghost claims. We have 1 team in tax jail and it's not from training, it's from not pulling the plug on their roster sooner. It truly feels like there's a hate for points for absolutely no reason. Points is something we created to be able to use, and when people use them we're upset? Makes absolutely no sense.

Second, until someone shows me proof that training players is bad; like what are we even talking about. I do think purple has crippled guys abilities to learn more. You included. You have 3 purple players playing the same position with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. And I'd dream of the day when you trade a purple player for a blue one to get variety/diversity in your roster. I say dream because I doubt it would happen. There are blue players more productive and better than purple players. We've seen it for years.

Not all top 3 picks are close to purple so training would still be possible. Also, even if they were. I lament the fact that you completely ignore the positives to not spending money on training. I'd rather have a top player who doesn't need training, over a mid round pick that I have to train to get to top 3 talent. Not sure if you've realized that is a benefit in itself for picking higher.

I disagree with you on most things and that's no different here. I think you get extremely tunnel vision on your ideologies, and then reject the learning of new data because you're so invested with "your way". It feels as though you haven't evolved your way of thinking at all. Which explains your 3 purple wings and last place defense.

Black Superman wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:00 am Until someone gives me a correlation to points being some negative thing. There's no reason to buy into you or @garbageman ghost claims. We have 1 team in tax jail and it's not from training, it's from not pulling the plug on their roster sooner. It truly feels like there's a hate for points for absolutely no reason. Points is something we created to be able to use, and when people use them we're upset? Makes absolutely no sense.

I don't think we WANT teams in tax jail necessarily, but I don't think the fact that there is only 1 team in tax jail is proof that we're not overtraining. Really, the only way you can get in tax jail is from the tax since it's the only way to spend points you don't already have. So that has nothing to do with the issue. The greater issue is that in a league where we're always further and further approaching the limit that no players matter unless they're purple, we're creating points out of nowhere to the end that they will continuously be used to train players towards purple. Thus, it's the training that becomes increasingly important toward the most important aspect of the game. And to achieve that ends, all the side quests of articles like this one, memes, town halls, and such become important too. Some people put a lot of thought into it, some people shit stuff out, and it doesn't matter, it's the same amount of points.

But training or not, it's kind of a simple economics to me. If we're increasing the supply of currency without increasing the cost of things, the tax loses its effect as an equalizer or a reason to reset. I'm in year 4 with a top 4 or 5 payroll, and I'll be able to pay my tax at the end of the season and still have more points than pretty much everyone in the league except for the Magic. I've sent points in trades, and I've done some training in the last couple of seasons.

I'm not against points being spent if the system is balanced, I'm more against printing points so we can afford to do more training, more salary cap neglect, more insurance, and more of pretty much anything good without having to risk negative consequence or make choices on how we spend when everyone can just afford everything.

LazyTitanSmash wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 2:31 am GMs Are No Longer Able to Train a Player into Purple (151 Future Rating)
(This was the hardest one for me to decide which side to vote for.)
Pros: Less training available. As I said before, the less you can train, the more trading is important. Luck will decide which of the top 10 actually get to be purple potential.
Cons: Top 3 picks will be limited in how much training they can get. Top 10 picks will easily be as good as top 3 picks with a little training. Not knowing who is purple. Everyone knows who’s really, really good, because they are purple. Without purple potential, knowing players' future scores becomes more critical when completing trades, and it’s an advantage for those with access to future scores.
Where I’m At: I voted for it because I want less training in the league. I am however worried that it will further hold down the weakest teams by making their top 3 picks less valuable.

I think if we end the purple obsession, it won't stifle training too much if it shifts focus. I think that training rookie currents will become more important because they'll become productive players faster and can be important as low salary, usable players on current teams.

Another thing we might be able to do that just came back to me? Get rid of purple players completely. Just make them blue no matter how good they get. I'm not sure how to do it, but Wig mentioned there's a way to set the color bands at whatever we want. There were even old suggestions to get rid of the color bands completely. I don't know how to do that and it might be something that needs to be modified in the code rather than in the admin interface, but I think it got shot down because people liked guidelines. As a veteran player, it's appealing to me to have to use our own metrics and scouting abilities to determine player value, but the fact that overall ratings do have to exist somewhere does complicate this

~1270 words, +5pts
Never at a loss for some seething hot takes, thanks for the contributions to our nightmares, @LazyTitanSmash . u

garbageman wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 11:40 am

Black Superman wrote: Fri Jul 05, 2024 9:00 am Until someone gives me a correlation to points being some negative thing. There's no reason to buy into you or @garbageman ghost claims. We have 1 team in tax jail and it's not from training, it's from not pulling the plug on their roster sooner. It truly feels like there's a hate for points for absolutely no reason. Points is something we created to be able to use, and when people use them we're upset? Makes absolutely no sense.

I don't think we WANT teams in tax jail necessarily, but I don't think the fact that there is only 1 team in tax jail is proof that we're not overtraining. Really, the only way you can get in tax jail is from the tax since it's the only way to spend points you don't already have. So that has nothing to do with the issue. The greater issue is that in a league where we're always further and further approaching the limit that no players matter unless they're purple, we're creating points out of nowhere to the end that they will continuously be used to train players towards purple. Thus, it's the training that becomes increasingly important toward the most important aspect of the game. And to achieve that ends, all the side quests of articles like this one, memes, town halls, and such become important too. Some people put a lot of thought into it, some people shit stuff out, and it doesn't matter, it's the same amount of points.

But training or not, it's kind of a simple economics to me. If we're increasing the supply of currency without increasing the cost of things, the tax loses its effect as an equalizer or a reason to reset. I'm in year 4 with a top 4 or 5 payroll, and I'll be able to pay my tax at the end of the season and still have more points than pretty much everyone in the league except for the Magic. I've sent points in trades, and I've done some training in the last couple of seasons.

I'm not against points being spent if the system is balanced, I'm more against printing points so we can afford to do more training, more salary cap neglect, more insurance, and more of pretty much anything good without having to risk negative consequence or make choices on how we spend when everyone can just afford everything.

You're giving a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Again where's the correlation that points is a problem? You can't complain about points and training if it's not being abused. Not having a high point bank isn't an abuse, nor is it a crime. If or when, we're at a point where the league has teams not being able to afford a tax then sure. But the idea of having points and not being able to spend them is extremely silly(imo). It's like those terrible online stores where you can get credit to a marketplace. But there's no good items to buy. Points are used for training, insurance, tax. If I'm not training, and I'm not in tax, then what do I need points for. Having 100 points is worse than having 0 in my eyes. I've done the math and the research already, and also provided the article. Teams in our current league don't win titles unless they're deep in the luxury tax. 96% of our teams are making sure they have the points to pay their bill.

Now the purple argument is a completely separate argument. It's one I don't agree with but am more inclined to understand the stint in growth of the GMs. But let's not pretend like experienced GMS aren't also winning and collecting purple players for championships.

And I'll do you one even better @garbageman go look at the older years. Training as a whole on the league is about the same.

Stop trying to fix a problem that isn't a problem

Eliminate or increase the costs of athletic training.

Create a tiered cost system for training skill potentials based on what we know impact future ratings most.

Count Town Hall earnings into the 25-point media cap.

Adjust the tax system. Keep year 1 the same as it is now, then add bonus taxes each season after that to what the % bump is already. +10 year 2, +20 year 3, +30 year 4+. Then after 4 seasons you HAVE to get under the apron. Also, I actually do like Lazy's hard cap idea at a certain point.

Add the 150 future rating training cap.


All/some of these ideas would: Continue to allow for training (which I like), make tax situations more challenging to get under, up the value of points (as some want).


These things mostly just came to mind. Granted, while Josh himself is piling up points while paying big tax bills, I do believe he's the exception, not the rule. Doug will probably be close to 0 after his upcoming bill, Carlos is still struggling to navigate this, and we just had teams like the Grizzlies and Heat spend numerous seasons in the tax and unable to really participate in all the aspects of the game.

So, while I'm dropping ideas here, I'd also say that we gotta also look at things league-wide and not just at some outliers. Hell, the league continues to vote down most things that tie into the kinds of changes we're even talking about. Personally, I am for making things more challenging. However, as Nate has pointed out to me, we're talking about making it more challenging for a select few people who stick at the top. The people who haven't gotten to the top yet are still struggling with the rules as-is, so would these changes actually help? Or bury them further?

I genuinely don't know the answer to that, I just think those are things worth considering in these situations.



Sent from my SM-F711U using Tapatalk

MexicanMamba wrote: Sat Jul 06, 2024 10:45 am ...
, and we just had teams like the Grizzlies and Heat spend numerous seasons in the tax and unable to really participate in all the aspects of the game.

So, while I'm dropping ideas here, I'd also say that we gotta also look at things league-wide and not just at some outliers. Hell, the league continues to vote down most things that tie into the kinds of changes we're even talking about. Personally, I am for making things more challenging. However, as Nate has pointed out to me, we're talking about making it more challenging for a select few people who stick at the top. The people who haven't gotten to the top yet are still struggling with the rules as-is, so would these changes actually help? Or bury them further?

That Part!
Going to the tax, and climbing out was actually a very important experience to my development and understanding.
As long as people are ahead on the learning curve they will have advantages because they understand all aspects of the game better.
But the current design allows for fluctuations in winning and dominance.
Though only a hand full of GM's understand it to the level of becoming champions, the rest of us need to gain understanding of the critical aspects of the formula.
Changing the code before we crack it doesn't put us in a better place.
Doug is on top now, defending his first championship in the 20 seasons I been here.
Why are we up in arms like he's Godzilla?
He put in the work to build a beast, and I'll add that he started with an amazing war chest that the BallSoHard guy couldn't pay for.
I agree that the shit ain't broke!