#SLOE: People's Basketball Sim League

NEW RULE FOR THREADS: You are allowed to make one post about yourself (edits of your original post will be allowed) or another GM. There will NOT be any goading or attacking other candidates to create nonsense drama like previous years. Any additional BS posted in threads will be deleted. The campaigning period officially ends when the sim occurs.


Campaigning ends Sunday 2/19
Voting Begins tomorrow
Voting Ends Wednesday

I don't really think I'm a great candidate for this season, but just to get some discussion going for this award since it's due by the end of tonight:

I nominate myself for GMOY. After selling off my talent after the 2008 season, the Sacramento Kings will finally host a playoffs series with home court advantage. I've steadily improved each season after the first rebuild season with the following win totals: 11, 33, 43, and finally 52 wins this season. We finished tied for 3rd in the Western Conference with the San Antonio Spurs after a very very slow start to the season.

Sitting at a 16-13 record at the end of December and out of the playoff race at the time, I was able to finally get a solid lineup and gameplan with my team and we finished the rest of the season with a 36-17 record. All of this even with losing my rising PG Darren Collison and starting SG Randy Foye for a month around the same time. These injuries happened while being listed as the 9th seed in the playoff standings! With luck, reliance on Cousins, and an excellent home record, I was able to catapult myself into the 4th seed in the West with a very young and inexperienced team. I can easily say I exceeded my expectations this season. I was not certain 50+ wins would happen, but we finished very strong down the stretch when my lineup got healthy.

The biggest achivement has to be my home record, finishing the highest at 38-3, possibly the best home record I've ever had with the likes of Karl Malone, Tracy McGrady and Tyson Chandler on the court.

My team doesn't have a superstar as evident by not having an All Star or All Leaguer on my team. Instead, I've built this team with a build and purpose in mind and really balanced out all positions. We don't have a Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, or Chris Bosh, but I did put together a team of 10 or more players strong that could play with the best of them.

I'd like to nominate Louie for GM of the year. The Grizzlies were the worst team in the league in 2011, and they finished the 2012 season with a winning record. They landed 9th in the stacked West, so they didn't quite make the playoffs, but they more than doubled their wins.

The Grizzlies were able to make some solid trades and pre-season signings to bolster a couple young, future superstars in Jimmy Butler and Kawhi. Signing Devin Harris, Courtney Lee and Omer Asik give them a much more complete team, and with the Carl Landry trade and the draft of Andre Drummond, the Grizzlies are on a path to keep the momentum going and should be even more competitive next year.

I'm going to nominate aburns of the Clippers for GMOY. I know a lot of you are thinking, "how hard a job can he have? He just rolls out Kevin Durant, sits back, and watches KD destroy." Look closer. The Clippers didn't finish with the best record in the West for nothing.

The Clippers lead the league in Offensive Efficiency this season. Let you think that's entirely due to Durant, let's look at what they did in the offseason that led them to this point. Starting with Roy Hibbert in RFA, the Clippers assembled their team piece by piece and did it on a reasonable budget. Hibbert came out of RFA with about 1/2 to 2/3 of a max deal... not bad for a guy who hasn't yet grown into his potential but still averaged a couple of blocks per game and logged heavy minutes while avoiding foul trouble and shooting an efficient 52% from the field. Then they brought back a much-maligned Delonte West, but he's started most of the season, been their second leading scorer (on 48% shooting from the point guard spot), and disrupted opposing guards with a couple of steals per game and chipping in 4.5 boards and 5.6 assists. If that wasn't enough, he grabbed underrated D.J. White to start at PF on a steal of a deal and got 12.5 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 1.3 bpg on while shooting a nice 54% from the field.

Not bad at all for his "big money" free agent signings - three starters, all of whom play quite efficiently. All the more impressive when you realize the Clippers didn't have draft picks and HAD to hit on their free agent signings to have success.

The other thing to consider is that the Clippers' defense is a bit underrated. All the guys I mentioned before are good at slowing people down on defense, and Larry Hughes is not longer the stud he was in Boston but he's still a quality two-way player. The Clippers' defense was disciplined enough to commit the third-fewest fouls in the league and still rank above average in blocks, steals, and opponents' turnovers. The combination of high offensive efficiency and an unwillingness to yield easy possessions to your opponents meant even when KD got hurt at the end of the season, the Clippers still went 4-3 in a stretch with 6 of 7 games on the road.

Lest you think this is fluke, let me remind you of the following numbers: 56, 64, 56, 58, 59. That's the number of wins the Clippers have had each of the last 5 seasons. They've been consistently good and even this season, when 60% of the starting lineup had to be secured in Free Agency, the Clippers have remained threats.

It's time to give the Clippers some respect.

I'm gonna nominate myself for GMOY. It was just two seasons ago where I started the offseason with just Danny Granger, a declining Brandon Roy, Carl Landry, and other expirings. Now I have an up-and-coming playoff team filled with talent that's all in, or coming into, their prime. And unlike most successful rebuilds, I didn't - couldn't use the draft. I was a true definition of a treadmill team - not good enough to win, not bad enough to tank (and without the picks to do that anyway). But look at where I'm at now:

JaVale McGee (25) - acquired via trade
Anthony Randolph (23) - acquired via RFA
Brandan Wright (25) - UFA signing
Ersan Ilyasova (25) - acquired via trade
Donte Greene (25) - UFA signing
Luc Richard Mbah a Moute (26) - acquired via trade
Kyle Singler (24) - acquired via trade
Gerald Green (27) - acquired via trade
Wilson Chandler (25) - acquired via RFA
Tony Wroten (20) - acquired via trade
Tyreke Evans (23) - acquired via trade
Alexey Shved (24) - acquired via trade for #26
Jarrett Jack (29) - longtime Wizard, was acquired via trade

I went from a team with no future to the 4th seed in the East, completely on the fly. My team is proof that there's more than one way to put together a competitive team, that it's not "playoffs or fire sale". I had to seek out trades, fiddle with cap space, figure out who to go after and what to pay them...and I succeeded. That's why I feel I'm a good choice for GMOY.