Season 46 5-on-5
Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:00 pm
So we have passed the 60 day mark! I was going to do a trade tracker to pass the time and get points, however, this trade SZN has been a little slower than I think we all anticipated. I also did not want to do too much heavy thinking since I am completely out of the running for anything other than the first pick. So I decided to wrangle up a few General Managers who can do the heavy thinking for me, and we brought back a classic!
Today we have with us the following General Managers to give their opinions on all things related to PBSL (or at least the important questions that I decided to ask):
The GM that loves them young and oozing purple potential, Keepit100. The GM that It took me two years to figure out was in the Skype chat, Xist2Inspire. The slime king himself, that is mad that everyone is now trade talking to the Jazz IamQuailman. The former commissioner, who has a real injury problem right now ballsohard, and the guy that is still wondering when last season is going to be over, NOla.
Anyways, enough with my blabbering to try to get more points, I'm not getting to 1 thousand words no matter how hard I try, lets get started with the first question:
1. Now that we are heading into the point of the season where teams are starting to figure out their rosters and game plans, lets looks at the previous offseason and how it turned out. Who do you think had the best overall off-season, and what move do you think this off-season was the biggest move for any one team?
-K100: I know a lot of attention went to Denver for landing Ironside and Stoll and rightly so, but I think another team in the Johnson Division deserves credit too. The Indiana Pacers. Just kidding. I’ll go with the San Antonio Spurs. I really liked how the Spurs maneuvered around the salary cap to retool their lineup. First off, by shipping Grayson Allen for Norin Radd and Jaren Jackson Jr, the Spurs were able to add a quality 6th man and upgrade their paint over last season’s experiment with Randy Abney. They were also able to retain valuable talent in Robert Bonnett and Cliff Paugh in free agency and signed practically every G/G big they could find who wanted a taste of all the big ol’ women they could have in San Antonio. Contenders are not usually built in the offseason, but after last season’s surprising early departure in the playoffs the Spurs are back this season with a vengeance.
The biggest move was Miami acquiring David Leiker. Leiker has not only elevated his game to career highs, but he has made his teammates better by being an effective facilitator. I think he is a frontrunner for MVP, but how far can he singlehandedly take Miami in the playoffs remains to be seen.
-XIST: Given how the season's played out so far, I have to say Miami on both counts. Looking at their roster from last season, the obvious move would've been to sell off Hughes/Guyer and commit to a young core...but instead, LogP struck while the iron was hot, cashed in some pieces (and Tex was not one of them), and came away with a Top 3-5 PG in his prime. Now Leiker's leading the Heat to challenge for the top seed in the Omega division. Nobody would've guessed that heading into last offseason, so I think the Heat, by making the most impactful move, ended up with the best offseason overall.
-NOLA: It’s hard to argue against the Nuggets as having the best overall offseason for me. Anytime you can sign a player away from a team in UFA is a player you got “for free” meaning you didn’t have to give up anything to acquire the player, just cap space. When you can make multiple signings like that it puts yourself in a position to win more games than you thought you would and have pieces you can trade away at a future date for other assets. Basically, it’s all profit because Ryan didn’t have to give anything up for those signings, he’s playing with free money, and he got Danny Campbell in the draft as a player he can rebuild around whenever he decides to move on. As far as biggest move I think it’s the Grayson Allen trade for the Bulls. Both the Spurs and the Bulls look like the favorites to matchup in the Finals and I really liked the move for the Bulls. Allen has given the Bulls another elite key player to pair with RJ Barrett, and while JJJ is no slouch (just check out the Spurs), Allen is an inside-outside threat and makes the Bulls dangerous from the 3 from both the backcourt and frontcourt now. I thought the Bulls would be hitting a better % from 3P but I do expect their position to climb in the team leaderboard (currently 14th).
-QUAIL; OBVIOUSLY the Nuggets had the best unrestricted free agency, but let's look at the overall off-season as a whole since there was a lot of turnover. Speaking about my team first since it's easiest to call upon, we shipped out Schumann for a rebuilding/resetting package. We drafted an athletic freak on the wing, signed a new starting wing in restricted free agency in Ronald Haile as a potential Bjorn replacement (all-the-while stripping the Cavs of a good young piece going forward), no-brainer re-signed Ja Morant as he is truly the centerpiece of this team, and filled out some depth issues. We had a solid overall offseason. The Nuggets killed it in UFA and honestly didn't do too bad in the Draft getting some great rebuilding pieces. It may all be for naught after moving a couple big time starting glue guys, but they still have Bjorn, Garvin, and Stoll to carry them to a successful season despite definitely losing 3 more games to the Bucks. The Magic swung for the fences cashing in their young player chips for Josh Schumann and later bringing home a familiar face in Boban Marjanovic. But my winner for best off-season is... THE MIAMI HEAT! GM logpmess had a pretty quiet but impactful off-season. They went with the quality not quantity tactic while capitalizing on a team looking to shed money and get younger. Bringing in Barton AND Leiker in one deal while giving up a top 5 pick and another blue potential wing (a position he had a surplus at) was a massive deal for them and honestly, one of the most impact moves of the off-season. Then they retained Miguel Thomas in RFA, and as a result, he's having a career-best season and really showing he can be their glue guy in the paint. Because of these two moves, this perennial top 10 lotto team is leading the Hardaway division race right now, and 2nd best record in the league.
-BALLS: This is “obviously” an opportunity to play the Nuggets but respect needs to be given. Certainly you can point to luck, because really that’s what happens with this magical algorithm- but there also is the saying that luck is the residue to hard work, or in this case proper planning.
I really thought in the offseason the Magics moves in getting Schumann and Boban would be gigantic moves, but they haven’t anned out like I expected. However, it’s still to early to tell if they will continue being flaccid
2. It seems that this year has been a year of change within the league. We have new contenders, teams who have dropped off that are usually playoff mainstays, new players at the top of the league leaderboard, and probably a new MVP after a very long reign by a guy from Shreveport, LA. With all of this change, list out who you think are the top five players right now in the league, regardless of position and do any of them have the sort of lasting impact to be a face of the league for several years to come.
-K100: In no particular order, De'Aaron Fox, Quentin Kidd, Jerry West, RJ Barrett, and my surprise pick is David Leiker. These guys are all swiss-army knives and their versatility both on offense and defense creates matchup nightmares for teams all season. This is De’Aaron Fox’s league right now, but Father Time will rear his ugly head soon enough and Mr. Kidd will be ready to ascend to the throne as PBSL’s best player.
-XIST: This is in no particular order, but:
De'Aaron Fox - Duh. He's putting up insane numbers right now, and is almost single-handedly keeping the Pacers in the hunt for the division. He's 29 now, so zero chance of being face of the league material, even if he does age gracefully. That's just how it works here.
Glenn Sabo - Sabo's actually someone I find to be really underrated. This guy has been Karl Malone 2.0 for a while now, yet Boban and BDJ receive all the glory. At 28, I also don't see him as face of the league material, though I think it's more because nobody really pays attention to him and not because of lack of impact. If he gets traded to a team with a more high-profile GM, he'll get a boost just because said GM will probably brag on him incessantly, but otherwise I see him ending up as one of those guys we look back on and go, "Oh wow, this guy was awesome."
Daniel Yandell - You know, I was actually going to put Leiker here, but then after looking at the stats...Yandell's currently outperforming him in nearly every way except for assists (tied) and turnovers. He's also 23 as opposed to Leiker's 26, meaning that while Leiker's definitely young enough to be the face of the league, Yandell's already hanging with him now. Once Yandell hits his prime, he'll likely surpass him. There aren't any guys his age putting up this kind of stats right now, and we know the league's history when it comes to tall PGs, so if you had to ask me "who got next"...I think I'd have to say Yandell.
Quintin Kidd - Not going to toot my own horn for long here. Kidd's good, really good, and can just about do it all. He's about to hit 28, so he's right at the point of being the league headliner now that Boban/Bjorn/Barrett/BDJ are starting to fall off and Fox is hitting 30 next year. I get the feeling that a lot of GMs are ready to crown him as the Best Player In the League, but I personally want to see results and not just stats before I'll do that myself. Guess I'd better brace myself for the influx of "So what would it take to get Kidd" PMs…
Delmar Lopez - I had to put a pure scorer on this list, and Lopez beats out Jonathan Lewis because the year he's having now tops anything Lewis has ever done, in terms of both raw output and efficiency. Lopez is also 24, so he's right there with Yandell in terms of "This is the guy who will actually take over the league, because the guys we're looking at now only have 5 seasons max of top production left." He can't really do anything else, but almost 30 PPG in 33 MPG is just too disgusting to not make this list.
-NOLA: In no particular order right now, I have to say De’Aaron Fox, Quentin Kidd, Domick Cobb, David Leiker, and Daniel Yandell. De’Aaron Fox and Quentin Kidd to me are the obvious #1 and #2 players in the league right now. Both of these players are just insane to look at. Fox is currently #1 in scoring, #2 in assists, #1 in steals and #1 in turnovers (that F handling you live with) in the league and has put the Pacers on his back, he is truly an OP and I will always wonder if the Pacers would have won the league last year had it not been for the injury. Regardless he’s still only 29 and he is having his best season to date due to an absurd usage percentage. Quentin Kidd reminds me of Tracy McGrady in his prime, he’s good at everything and is only 27 years old, so the league will be dealing with Kidd for at least the life on his new contract with the Wizards. I also think he has a chance to be the Defensive Player of the Year due to his number of steals and blocks, the only thing I see that might hamper him there is his defensive rebounds which is the only area he doesn’t have an A or B potential in. We all got to see what Dominick Cobb is made of last year. He was the PBSL leading scorer and made his first All NBA 1st Team and just turned 28 years old. His build is very similar to Quentin Kidd except Cobb lacks the handling/passing and steals/blocking skills like Kidd. He’s a very good player with amazing scoring attributes and he’s versatile on the wing as evidenced by him playing PF. He’s been hit by two injuries with this newest one taking him out for a few sims, but as long as he’s healthy for the playoffs I don’t think anyone in Omega would be too excited to play against the Detroit Wings. So the next two guys I think may be where people disagree with me so I’ll make a case for both. Leiker and Yandell are both young PGs that are playing above people’s expectations. Starting with Leiker, this is a guy who is averaging a 62.6% true shooting % for his career. CAREER. There’s something about this player that I began to notice in his last season with the Lakers before he was traded to the Nuggets and it’s his FG%. Just looking at the past 3 years he has been in the top 10 in the league in FG% as a PG. What’s strange about that is usually that leaderboard is dominantly filled with big men, so when a wing or guard makes that list just once it catches your eye. He is consistently making the top 10 and is currently#3 this year. With the Lakers and Nuggets he was on teams that were already good so it was hard to see just how impactful he was. The Heat finished with the in the bottom 5 of the league standings last year and are now challenging the Bulls and Spurs for the #1 spot in the league. The Heat have other players that are playing well but it’s Leiker that is the difference maker. This guy is single-handedly (just like Fox) creating elite teams. He’s in the leaderboard in points, assists, rebounds, steals, and FG%. Alright, one more player and the one I think I need to explain the most: Daniel Yandell. This may be bias but I think this guy is on his way to becoming an All NBA PG in the league. In the Spurs preseason presser I asked Eazy about his thoughts on Yandell being a top PG in the league and if he could be an All NBA type. Eazy gave a modest answer, but just from his progression it was looking like Yandell would be a top player soon. He’s not putting up record numbers, his attributes don’t scream All NBA, but I’m looking at the stats. When Eazy moved Grayson Allen it opened up the rest of his players to fill the scoring void and I think people would be surprised to know Yandell picked up that slack. Yandell is currently 16th in the league in scoring, #3 in assists, #5 in steals, and #2 in FG%. He’s currently projecting to be another Leiker. The difference is he is still not hitting his potentials in scoring. Averaging 60% in FG is insane for a PG, he’s 6’7 and can play anywhere from 1-3, super athletic, doesn’t foul, and is only 23 years old. Another eye-popping stat is he is averaging 13.3 field goal attempts per game and is averaging 7.4 free throw attempts per game. That’s a rate better than a FTA per every 2 FGA, so he is causing teams to be in foul trouble as well. He’s already won 2 Player of the Weeks so far, so I don’t think this is bias, but at 60% FG rate the saying is absolutely true: Hand Down, Yan Dell.
-QUAIL: I totally agree; this season looks to be one with some new faces making a run at it. It's too early to tell if the success is sustainable, but it's exciting to see new contenders emerging. Now, top five players in the league RIGHT NOW. #1 - De'Aaron Fox... to me, no-brainer. He's the best player period. He's elite defensively, a killer on offense, and an elite passer. He's 3% shy in the free throw department of posting a 50-90-40 stat-line. Fox is posting career best scoring numbers, TS%, steals, assists... ALL THE WHILE INCREASING HIS VOLUME BY 4 MORE FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS. He's absolutely insane and the primary reason the Pacers are set for the next couple seasons. He may be turning 30 just before the next training camp, but he has the size to be impactful at the 1-3 (maybe even small ball 4?!) for the next 5 seasons. Do I sometimes regret moving on from him? Yea, sometimes. I was happy to start fresh, but looking at what he's become... definitely some regret there. #2 - Glen Sabo... He's the best two-way big in the game. I'm surprised he isn't having as much success rebounding now that Boban isn't there to gobble up the boards, though. All said and done, you can always count on him being a threat in the paint, but he is even more of a guarantee on the other end of the floor, completely smothering opposing bigs in the paint and swatting away anything in the vicinity (3rd in blocks). #3 - Quentin Kidd... this "kid(d)" is finally coming into his own. Two consecutive seasons of 27 points/game and starting to really fill out across the board. Not going to lie, he reminds me A LOT of a sim league great Tracy McGrady with how much potential he has. He's still just hitting the peak years of his career and still improving. #4 - Delmar Lopez... Has anyone benefited more from the purple potential foul training than Delmar Lopez? His career trajectory was that of underachieving Julio de la Rosa, but thanks to this training, he is able to finally overcome his fouling woes and blast off into the upper echelon of sim league players. He's the front runner for Most Improved Player right now, with career bests in FG%, FT%, 3P%, Points, Rebounds. He's league the Lakers to a great start despite the turnover from last season. AND... he is ONLY 24 years old. This guy will only continue to improve. His best is yet to come. #5 - Ja Morant... now before you call me a homer, look at this guy. He's a staple at the top of the assists category, putting up career best scoring numbers efficiently, and religiously a top 10 steals guy. He's about as pure of a PG as you can get.
-BALLS: De’Aaron Fox
Dominick Cobb
Quintin Kidd
Glen Sabo
R.J. Barrett
All of these players are later 20’s or early 30’s so it’s really hard to pick out someone who’s going to dominate the league for years to come- so ill change the question to which one I have the biggest man crush on. I think the world of Kidd and despite him being 27 I think he will be at the top of the league for years to come.
3. The most recent Horns and Fangs episode (http://www.mixlr.com/josh-kalvelage) flirted with the idea of a potential restart of the sim league, going back to lets just say the ‘60s and using real players again. What is your stance on a potential restart to PBSL? How would you go about restarting the league if it was up to you? How would you decide the draft order for a reset draft? Would you let GMs pick new teams to represent? Do you think this would draw more interest from former GM’s or potential new GMs? Would you be more inclined to have “real” players again? Do you not want to abandon your current build/roster in favor of starting over?
-K100: Lot of questions here AngryBanana. Bro, are we doing 5-on-5 or 55-on-5? Yeah, I would be down to restart the league in the 1960s. As a student of the game it would be fun to learn about past greats from basketball’s forgotten generations. If we were to restart, I’d want to do it sooner than later - like no later than season 50 of this iteration of PBSL. I’d say if this league started over with season 1 in what would have been season 51 then I would let the draft order be the reverse order of the league with the champion getting 1st pick. I think it would be much more competitive if everyone knew they were playing for the #1 seed the following year. Yeah, I would be okay with random cities/mascots doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t know any of the former GMs but if some have expressed interest in re-joining on the condition of real players only, I think that would be good for the league. The more interested people who are vested in keeping the league active the better overall the league will be in the long run. I really like my current build with Philly but if the league voted in a couple of weeks to start over by Christmas, I would not complain. It’s all in the game.
-XIST: I'm all for a reset. The history of the NBA fascinated me growing up, so I'd totally get a kick out of using actual players again, especially since that'd give me incentive to read up on them. Guys like Digiskunk have tried their darndest to give these blank slates some personality, but you just can't beat real guys...which is further evidenced by all the (often unfitting) real player names being slapped onto these players.
I'd like to start in 1970, with the two "conferences" being the NBA and ABA. 1st Round draft seeding would be determined by the results of the final pre-reset season (it'd be crazy to have everybody in the league trying to compete), with the champion getting the first pick and the runner-up the second (the rest of the draft would continue alternating between conferences every pick). It'd probably be more of a draw for former GMs than new, I see little evidence to indicate otherwise.
It'd be a bummer to lose my current team, as I've worked pretty hard for the past 10 seasons to keep this franchise consistently competitive. It'd also be hilarious, because the old league also ended right when I'd finally put a title contender together. On the other hand...I suuuuuuucked at teambuilding when we started this league, and I'd kill to get another shot at building a franchise completely from scratch.
-NOLA:I’ll hit each question with as best briefness as I can. Personally, I would be in favor of a restart if it came up, but I also think about the league as a whole and would vote against it if I saw that others would leave as a result. The league is “full” with some GMs kind of being inactive at times, but for the most part no team has been completely abandoned. This means that if we restarted the game we possibly lose some GMs on the hope that one or two more GMs would come back again. We’ve already had to contract and I hate the idea of losing more GMs. When the league started we had 29 initial teams and it took forever to fill all 29 spots. Then we added a team to get to 30. Unfortunately, we had to cut 4 teams due to an abundance of inactive teams not too long after we added 1. We have a wait list of maybe 1? Restarting the league doesn’t seem like a smart idea at the time. I think the time to do it is when we lose more GMs to where we need to consider another contraction or restart to get GMs that left to come back. To me a restart should be considered if we question if the current league risks dying out if things stand the way they are currently. Now, if we did restart the league we should go back to maybe the 60s to capture as many real players as we could in the restart as we missed out on a good 30 years from the initial creation draft. The draft order should be randomly done in the game live so we can all make an event out of it and watch. If you want a different team, we should allow all GMs who want to move to make a post and they figure out which teams are open and who wants what like we did when we started (basically trading teams). I also think a more viable idea is to scrap the college draft and go back in time to create real players in the draft which to me is the best of both worlds (not a full restart, real players come back). I don’t really care about where my team is at whether I am competing or rebuilding. If the league wants to restart and it makes sense I’ll vote for a restart. If we possibly lose more GMs than gain if we restart, I’ll vote against. I think the idea of a restart was brought up when we were discussing bringing back real players, so maybe we should explore redoing the draft file first over restarting.
-QUAIL: I have 0 interest in restarting the league if we were to go back to the 1960s. I think most of my apprehension there is the lack of knowledge of the players from that time. If we were to restart in, let's say, 1975, I think I could be more receptive to that. That said, people proposing the creation draft and restarting the league weren't around for the first go around, so i can understand the allure of starting a new league... but if you think 1 round of a rookie draft is painful, just think about how 15 rounds of a creation draft would go. If I'm remembering correctly, the last one took two to three weeks to complete. It was a nightmare. Again, I get the allure, but it's not all sunshine and roses when starting over. As for some of the other questions, I think if you reset, you absolutely give teams a chance to claim their original team or announce they would like to add their team to a pool of teams available for swapping. Then at that point, whoever designates "SWAP" would have to coordinate with other GMs in the pool to execute a swap. If you cannot get one done, then you can take your old team back. I would almost say you could offer "sweeteners" such as picks (creation draft pick swaps). If you can't decide on a team, then you stick with your previous. Draft order would be generated through an online randomizer broadcasted LIVE for those to watch. One big concern with restarting is losing interest of people who are invested in their current teams. Sure, we may attract Darth or FTB back, but at what cost?
-BALLS:I think there has to be a cost benefit analysis that needs to be done here. Does this bring back more interest in the league and if so, at what cost? How many net gains and losses do we have? Do we even have a person willing to commish it? Those are a lot of hurdles to leap over before even starting to configure the league and I don’t think we’ll get past them.
I personally would enjoy starting over in general. I’m having a lot of fun currently but putting faces to names and just imaging those guys on your team is a lot of fun. I think in terms of picking teams and order, I would say that you should do a snake draft and do it by GM. Allow GMs to trade picks to be able to swap contested teams if it’s that valuable to them.
4. As I have previously mentioned, we are at a point in the league where we should have a better idea of who is good and who isn’t (yikes.. has anyone seen the Thunders record? I thought they would have been a playoff team with that sea of green they have. Their GM is completely oblivious) who is one GM that you think has flown under the radar and is playing a lot better than expected, and who is another GM that is disappointing compared to where you thought they would be at this point?
-K100: Surprising was Indiana – I have to give credit where it is due. Losing Stoll sucks big time. I don’t know how you lose Stoll but whatever, life happens. Some GMs might have rage quit or abandoned ship immediately and sold Fox for pennies on the dollar but Indiana has weathered the ridicule and continued to field a good, competing team this season. Plus, he still has a $1 in cap space. And who knows, if De'Aaron goes nuclear in the postseason we still might see Fox and Friends win a title after all.
Disappointing is Orlando. The Mourning Division as a whole has been disappointing this season so it is not as bad as it could be, but still Orlando's start has been a hot mess. The Magic are still the most talented team, and I think they will win the division over the Bucks, but the Magic starting lineup is just not living up to snuff, at least not yet. I’ll give false9 the benefit of the doubt because he has succeeded with weaker teams before, but this is looking like one costly lost season from a tax standpoint. Rest assured though, my ass is not complaining too much.
-XIST: Truthfully I feel that there's been more disappointments than positive surprises this season, but I gotta give a shout-out to Pauly for appearing to defy the "Pacers 1st sim curse" for the second straight season. For top disappointing, I'm going with the Magic, I can't be be the only one who raised an eyebrow when Schumann and Bronny were teamed up, and had a chill run down their spine when Boban returned home. However, it just doesn't seem to be clicking, which has to be a bit of blow to both Schumann and Bronny's stock...and a sign that Boban's ability to force will a team into contention has started to fade. Still plenty of time to turn it around, though. Also, I don't like questioning Syndicate, because he's more than earned the benefit of doubt, but trading Leiker during the draft, going all-in during free agency, only to then ship off some of those win-now pieces because "oops, tax" is an odd sequence of events. But again, still time to turn it around.
-NOLA: I don’t think they are flying under the radar anymore, but the Heat and messi has really turned things around so much so fast. L Messi is a GM that I think Josh and Raby brought up in the Horns and Fangs podcast as being a “quiet GM”, but he is always around and is active when he needs to be like the offseason. I think because he is quiet some GMs don’t initially notice just how good of a turnaround he made, but after 3 sims it’s hard to ignore the standings. I also don’t think many people pegged the Heat as being the favorites to win their division during preseason, but they look to be running away with it due to the Pelicans and Mavericks stumbling a bit and the Pistons having injury problems. As far as who is underperforming I have to go with the two top teams in the Mourning division. The Bucks and the Magic I thought would be much better than they are currently playing. I know the Bucks lost Bjorn in UFA but they still have a really good group of players and were able to sort of make it up with the Haile signing in RFA. With Ja Mortant and Rodriguez I still expected the Bucks to be dominant and they haven’t quite looked that way yet. Same for the Magic after they traded their youth for win now pieces. Bringing in Schuman and Boban I thought would have catapulted the team to be favorites in their division, which they still aren’t far behind due to the Bucks slipping, but again I thought this team would be very strong with Bronny hitting his prime and Richard Hunt becoming a very good PG. I think one of these teams will make the adjustments needed, and possibly both, but man in that division even my team could be a contender.
-QUAIL: The Heat and the Jazz are two teams that really have taken off this season and surprised a lot of people. Granted, I would attribute the great start of the Jazz to the RECOMMENDED gawds of Sim League more so than digiskunk, who probably is high and cutting his peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in L shapes right now instead of trying to figure out how to get enough points to pay his tax off and keep Len Bias. The Heat look incredible though; very impressed with their team's start and build! Also, I can't ignore the Laker's and the success they continue to have despite all the changes in their rosters each off-season. They have lost David Leiker and Jerry West in the last two off-seasons (in addition to some big time names like Wanderlei Silva), yet here they are again fighting for their division title with the Spurs (and ahead of the Pacers). As for disappointing GMs, I don't think the GM himself is disappointing, but I know Andy (false9) is disappointed in the slow start for his team. There is a lot of big name talent on the Orlando Magic right now that cost a lot of young talent and assets... I still think they have more than enough time to catch the Bucks and contend for the division. Cohesion struggles following a season of team upheaval is real... trust me, I know. The Bucks are somewhat dealing with that right now too.
-BALLS: I think Josh is that GM. He’s smart to stay out of skype as commish and doing so really allows him to stay off the radar. He has the most complete team ive seen in awhile and really the team is humming.
In terms of disappointments I would have to say the Magic’s performance (not Andy’s Gming) as I said earlier are the biggest head scratchers out there. They’re the team in the Alpha conference I don’t think anyone wants to see with their level of talent.
5. Given that this is a very diverse group of GMs, both in terms of vets and newer guys as well as from past performance levels, I am curious to hear if any of you have any sort of “no trade” list of other GMs in the league? You do not need to call anyone out, but is there anyone that you consider too slimy to trade with or just hate the way talks go down with those individuals? What are some things that turned you off about trade talks with them and why would you never trade with them again? On the flip side, are there people that you love trading with, and tend to gravitate towards when looking to trade? What is it about their style that lends to a good conversation?
-K100: I wouldn’t go as far as “No Trade” list because I think I have traded with almost everyone in the league at least once (I’m coming for you Cavs GM) but I don’t go out of my way with a handful of GMs anymore because I think we just evaluate talent differently. The conversations with these kind GMs are usually curt and there is not much wiggle room to negotiate. I think those kind of trade talks are pointless after a few failed tries, so I just don’t bother anymore. It is what it is. I don’t really have any favorites either. A trade is a trade, I guess. I don’t particularly care who it is with at this point. Some GMs are definitely easier to talk to than others, which is nice but even with the tough negotiators they sometimes give a little glimpse as to how they think about sim league, which can be useful should we cross trade paths again down the road, and I think that is cool.
-XIST:I don't really have a "No Trade List" in the sense of "this guy sucks to deal with, screw him." It's more of a mix of healthy fear and respect that makes me wary of trading with certain GMs. Their constant successes with player evaluation, teambuilding, and championships creates the impression that they just know more than you. Thus, no matter how good the deal looks or how well it seems to fit with your plans/goals...you just can't let go of the feeling that you're being pantsed, the trade will ultimately benefit them more than it will you, and that they'll still be more likely to win another title as opposed to you. There's only 4 on that list, and at least 2 of them know about it, though I'm pretty sure that I've let all 4 know at one point or another.
The two guys I really enjoy trading with, or at the very least talking trades with, are Quail and Nick. It's chill, no hard feelings if no deal gets reached, no big deal if it's a straight-up no go from the jump, and if the deal turns out lopsided...oh well. We all share similar preferences for players and teambuilding styles, so it's not uncommon for us to just randomly talk with no real intention on getting a deal done, just seeing where each others' head is at the moment. I also really miss Trell and Coltsguy, as they were just wild and up for darn near anything if you could break it down and explain why it was a good/fair move.
-NOLA:No “no trade list” for me, no one has done anything to where I wouldn’t consider trading with them and to make my team better I have to keep all options open. There’s some GMs I don’t consider messaging because I’ve never heard from them back before or by the time they read my trade proposal it’s already too late to make a trade. I understand that not everyone logs in everyday so I don’t get upset, I just know I probably shouldn’t hedge my bets on them replying in time so I usually don’t send the message. If they send one I’ll definitely reply back. Some guys I like trading with usually respond pretty directly. I’m thinking of eazy, pauly, mamba, keepit, etc. Just guys off the top of my head that I talked to recently or made a trade with not too long ago. They’ll counter if they need to or just outright reject the trade rather than beat around the bush. I don’t have to sit around for long to know what they’re thinking which allows me to talk to other guys knowing where we stand.
-QUAIL: I'm always open for trades with everyone, but there are some teams that I'd rather not trade with unless the fit is just undeniable and offer is right there staring you in the face. I think there are two things that really are a big turn-off: 1) no response to PMs *cough*cavs*cough* and 2) sending an overly lopsided trade offer. Don't get me wrong, the latter I'm sure we've ALL done on more than one occasion, but if you start a conversation straight off without any social lubricant with some big ole goofball trade offer, I'm just less likely to even move past that. Then there are GMs that just over-value their own talent, which honestly is their prerogative to do so. As for people I love trading with, I just enjoying being able to talk through deals and bounce ideas off one-another. It's the social aspect of the game that I find really appealing. Not being immovable on your position or willing to offer reasonable counter trade offers are always things that I find attractive in a potential trade partner.
-BALLS: I don’t really believe in no trade lists but I do think theres a lack of activity by certain GMs. I don’t mind calling them out because we don’t really talk anyway
. For instance, the Mavs, Jazz, Heat, and Cavs are all teams that you have to ask multiple times to even get a response. Theres the chance they just don’t like me, and that’s ok to me. No response to a deal is the worst response to me, people who have a higher value of players than I do don’t bother me at all.
The people I tend to trade with are people who are open and flexible to make a deal work and also that don’t take things personal if it’s not the right move for either of you. I think at this point we all have some sort of a relationship with one another.
Ok, so we got some great responses from these General Managers.I would like to thank them all for their time and hope that we all have learned something from this experience, like how I am probably a terrible discussion moderator. Sound off in the comments with your reactions, do you agree with what they thought? Do you want to throw tomatoes at all of them for even thinking what they think? Are you mad that your team was not even mentioned? Yeah, you I know you skimmed through this whole article just to see what people said about your team!
Today we have with us the following General Managers to give their opinions on all things related to PBSL (or at least the important questions that I decided to ask):
The GM that loves them young and oozing purple potential, Keepit100. The GM that It took me two years to figure out was in the Skype chat, Xist2Inspire. The slime king himself, that is mad that everyone is now trade talking to the Jazz IamQuailman. The former commissioner, who has a real injury problem right now ballsohard, and the guy that is still wondering when last season is going to be over, NOla.
Anyways, enough with my blabbering to try to get more points, I'm not getting to 1 thousand words no matter how hard I try, lets get started with the first question:
1. Now that we are heading into the point of the season where teams are starting to figure out their rosters and game plans, lets looks at the previous offseason and how it turned out. Who do you think had the best overall off-season, and what move do you think this off-season was the biggest move for any one team?
-K100: I know a lot of attention went to Denver for landing Ironside and Stoll and rightly so, but I think another team in the Johnson Division deserves credit too. The Indiana Pacers. Just kidding. I’ll go with the San Antonio Spurs. I really liked how the Spurs maneuvered around the salary cap to retool their lineup. First off, by shipping Grayson Allen for Norin Radd and Jaren Jackson Jr, the Spurs were able to add a quality 6th man and upgrade their paint over last season’s experiment with Randy Abney. They were also able to retain valuable talent in Robert Bonnett and Cliff Paugh in free agency and signed practically every G/G big they could find who wanted a taste of all the big ol’ women they could have in San Antonio. Contenders are not usually built in the offseason, but after last season’s surprising early departure in the playoffs the Spurs are back this season with a vengeance.
The biggest move was Miami acquiring David Leiker. Leiker has not only elevated his game to career highs, but he has made his teammates better by being an effective facilitator. I think he is a frontrunner for MVP, but how far can he singlehandedly take Miami in the playoffs remains to be seen.
-XIST: Given how the season's played out so far, I have to say Miami on both counts. Looking at their roster from last season, the obvious move would've been to sell off Hughes/Guyer and commit to a young core...but instead, LogP struck while the iron was hot, cashed in some pieces (and Tex was not one of them), and came away with a Top 3-5 PG in his prime. Now Leiker's leading the Heat to challenge for the top seed in the Omega division. Nobody would've guessed that heading into last offseason, so I think the Heat, by making the most impactful move, ended up with the best offseason overall.
-NOLA: It’s hard to argue against the Nuggets as having the best overall offseason for me. Anytime you can sign a player away from a team in UFA is a player you got “for free” meaning you didn’t have to give up anything to acquire the player, just cap space. When you can make multiple signings like that it puts yourself in a position to win more games than you thought you would and have pieces you can trade away at a future date for other assets. Basically, it’s all profit because Ryan didn’t have to give anything up for those signings, he’s playing with free money, and he got Danny Campbell in the draft as a player he can rebuild around whenever he decides to move on. As far as biggest move I think it’s the Grayson Allen trade for the Bulls. Both the Spurs and the Bulls look like the favorites to matchup in the Finals and I really liked the move for the Bulls. Allen has given the Bulls another elite key player to pair with RJ Barrett, and while JJJ is no slouch (just check out the Spurs), Allen is an inside-outside threat and makes the Bulls dangerous from the 3 from both the backcourt and frontcourt now. I thought the Bulls would be hitting a better % from 3P but I do expect their position to climb in the team leaderboard (currently 14th).
-QUAIL; OBVIOUSLY the Nuggets had the best unrestricted free agency, but let's look at the overall off-season as a whole since there was a lot of turnover. Speaking about my team first since it's easiest to call upon, we shipped out Schumann for a rebuilding/resetting package. We drafted an athletic freak on the wing, signed a new starting wing in restricted free agency in Ronald Haile as a potential Bjorn replacement (all-the-while stripping the Cavs of a good young piece going forward), no-brainer re-signed Ja Morant as he is truly the centerpiece of this team, and filled out some depth issues. We had a solid overall offseason. The Nuggets killed it in UFA and honestly didn't do too bad in the Draft getting some great rebuilding pieces. It may all be for naught after moving a couple big time starting glue guys, but they still have Bjorn, Garvin, and Stoll to carry them to a successful season despite definitely losing 3 more games to the Bucks. The Magic swung for the fences cashing in their young player chips for Josh Schumann and later bringing home a familiar face in Boban Marjanovic. But my winner for best off-season is... THE MIAMI HEAT! GM logpmess had a pretty quiet but impactful off-season. They went with the quality not quantity tactic while capitalizing on a team looking to shed money and get younger. Bringing in Barton AND Leiker in one deal while giving up a top 5 pick and another blue potential wing (a position he had a surplus at) was a massive deal for them and honestly, one of the most impact moves of the off-season. Then they retained Miguel Thomas in RFA, and as a result, he's having a career-best season and really showing he can be their glue guy in the paint. Because of these two moves, this perennial top 10 lotto team is leading the Hardaway division race right now, and 2nd best record in the league.
-BALLS: This is “obviously” an opportunity to play the Nuggets but respect needs to be given. Certainly you can point to luck, because really that’s what happens with this magical algorithm- but there also is the saying that luck is the residue to hard work, or in this case proper planning.
I really thought in the offseason the Magics moves in getting Schumann and Boban would be gigantic moves, but they haven’t anned out like I expected. However, it’s still to early to tell if they will continue being flaccid
2. It seems that this year has been a year of change within the league. We have new contenders, teams who have dropped off that are usually playoff mainstays, new players at the top of the league leaderboard, and probably a new MVP after a very long reign by a guy from Shreveport, LA. With all of this change, list out who you think are the top five players right now in the league, regardless of position and do any of them have the sort of lasting impact to be a face of the league for several years to come.
-K100: In no particular order, De'Aaron Fox, Quentin Kidd, Jerry West, RJ Barrett, and my surprise pick is David Leiker. These guys are all swiss-army knives and their versatility both on offense and defense creates matchup nightmares for teams all season. This is De’Aaron Fox’s league right now, but Father Time will rear his ugly head soon enough and Mr. Kidd will be ready to ascend to the throne as PBSL’s best player.
-XIST: This is in no particular order, but:
De'Aaron Fox - Duh. He's putting up insane numbers right now, and is almost single-handedly keeping the Pacers in the hunt for the division. He's 29 now, so zero chance of being face of the league material, even if he does age gracefully. That's just how it works here.
Glenn Sabo - Sabo's actually someone I find to be really underrated. This guy has been Karl Malone 2.0 for a while now, yet Boban and BDJ receive all the glory. At 28, I also don't see him as face of the league material, though I think it's more because nobody really pays attention to him and not because of lack of impact. If he gets traded to a team with a more high-profile GM, he'll get a boost just because said GM will probably brag on him incessantly, but otherwise I see him ending up as one of those guys we look back on and go, "Oh wow, this guy was awesome."
Daniel Yandell - You know, I was actually going to put Leiker here, but then after looking at the stats...Yandell's currently outperforming him in nearly every way except for assists (tied) and turnovers. He's also 23 as opposed to Leiker's 26, meaning that while Leiker's definitely young enough to be the face of the league, Yandell's already hanging with him now. Once Yandell hits his prime, he'll likely surpass him. There aren't any guys his age putting up this kind of stats right now, and we know the league's history when it comes to tall PGs, so if you had to ask me "who got next"...I think I'd have to say Yandell.
Quintin Kidd - Not going to toot my own horn for long here. Kidd's good, really good, and can just about do it all. He's about to hit 28, so he's right at the point of being the league headliner now that Boban/Bjorn/Barrett/BDJ are starting to fall off and Fox is hitting 30 next year. I get the feeling that a lot of GMs are ready to crown him as the Best Player In the League, but I personally want to see results and not just stats before I'll do that myself. Guess I'd better brace myself for the influx of "So what would it take to get Kidd" PMs…
Delmar Lopez - I had to put a pure scorer on this list, and Lopez beats out Jonathan Lewis because the year he's having now tops anything Lewis has ever done, in terms of both raw output and efficiency. Lopez is also 24, so he's right there with Yandell in terms of "This is the guy who will actually take over the league, because the guys we're looking at now only have 5 seasons max of top production left." He can't really do anything else, but almost 30 PPG in 33 MPG is just too disgusting to not make this list.
-NOLA: In no particular order right now, I have to say De’Aaron Fox, Quentin Kidd, Domick Cobb, David Leiker, and Daniel Yandell. De’Aaron Fox and Quentin Kidd to me are the obvious #1 and #2 players in the league right now. Both of these players are just insane to look at. Fox is currently #1 in scoring, #2 in assists, #1 in steals and #1 in turnovers (that F handling you live with) in the league and has put the Pacers on his back, he is truly an OP and I will always wonder if the Pacers would have won the league last year had it not been for the injury. Regardless he’s still only 29 and he is having his best season to date due to an absurd usage percentage. Quentin Kidd reminds me of Tracy McGrady in his prime, he’s good at everything and is only 27 years old, so the league will be dealing with Kidd for at least the life on his new contract with the Wizards. I also think he has a chance to be the Defensive Player of the Year due to his number of steals and blocks, the only thing I see that might hamper him there is his defensive rebounds which is the only area he doesn’t have an A or B potential in. We all got to see what Dominick Cobb is made of last year. He was the PBSL leading scorer and made his first All NBA 1st Team and just turned 28 years old. His build is very similar to Quentin Kidd except Cobb lacks the handling/passing and steals/blocking skills like Kidd. He’s a very good player with amazing scoring attributes and he’s versatile on the wing as evidenced by him playing PF. He’s been hit by two injuries with this newest one taking him out for a few sims, but as long as he’s healthy for the playoffs I don’t think anyone in Omega would be too excited to play against the Detroit Wings. So the next two guys I think may be where people disagree with me so I’ll make a case for both. Leiker and Yandell are both young PGs that are playing above people’s expectations. Starting with Leiker, this is a guy who is averaging a 62.6% true shooting % for his career. CAREER. There’s something about this player that I began to notice in his last season with the Lakers before he was traded to the Nuggets and it’s his FG%. Just looking at the past 3 years he has been in the top 10 in the league in FG% as a PG. What’s strange about that is usually that leaderboard is dominantly filled with big men, so when a wing or guard makes that list just once it catches your eye. He is consistently making the top 10 and is currently#3 this year. With the Lakers and Nuggets he was on teams that were already good so it was hard to see just how impactful he was. The Heat finished with the in the bottom 5 of the league standings last year and are now challenging the Bulls and Spurs for the #1 spot in the league. The Heat have other players that are playing well but it’s Leiker that is the difference maker. This guy is single-handedly (just like Fox) creating elite teams. He’s in the leaderboard in points, assists, rebounds, steals, and FG%. Alright, one more player and the one I think I need to explain the most: Daniel Yandell. This may be bias but I think this guy is on his way to becoming an All NBA PG in the league. In the Spurs preseason presser I asked Eazy about his thoughts on Yandell being a top PG in the league and if he could be an All NBA type. Eazy gave a modest answer, but just from his progression it was looking like Yandell would be a top player soon. He’s not putting up record numbers, his attributes don’t scream All NBA, but I’m looking at the stats. When Eazy moved Grayson Allen it opened up the rest of his players to fill the scoring void and I think people would be surprised to know Yandell picked up that slack. Yandell is currently 16th in the league in scoring, #3 in assists, #5 in steals, and #2 in FG%. He’s currently projecting to be another Leiker. The difference is he is still not hitting his potentials in scoring. Averaging 60% in FG is insane for a PG, he’s 6’7 and can play anywhere from 1-3, super athletic, doesn’t foul, and is only 23 years old. Another eye-popping stat is he is averaging 13.3 field goal attempts per game and is averaging 7.4 free throw attempts per game. That’s a rate better than a FTA per every 2 FGA, so he is causing teams to be in foul trouble as well. He’s already won 2 Player of the Weeks so far, so I don’t think this is bias, but at 60% FG rate the saying is absolutely true: Hand Down, Yan Dell.
-QUAIL: I totally agree; this season looks to be one with some new faces making a run at it. It's too early to tell if the success is sustainable, but it's exciting to see new contenders emerging. Now, top five players in the league RIGHT NOW. #1 - De'Aaron Fox... to me, no-brainer. He's the best player period. He's elite defensively, a killer on offense, and an elite passer. He's 3% shy in the free throw department of posting a 50-90-40 stat-line. Fox is posting career best scoring numbers, TS%, steals, assists... ALL THE WHILE INCREASING HIS VOLUME BY 4 MORE FIELD GOAL ATTEMPTS. He's absolutely insane and the primary reason the Pacers are set for the next couple seasons. He may be turning 30 just before the next training camp, but he has the size to be impactful at the 1-3 (maybe even small ball 4?!) for the next 5 seasons. Do I sometimes regret moving on from him? Yea, sometimes. I was happy to start fresh, but looking at what he's become... definitely some regret there. #2 - Glen Sabo... He's the best two-way big in the game. I'm surprised he isn't having as much success rebounding now that Boban isn't there to gobble up the boards, though. All said and done, you can always count on him being a threat in the paint, but he is even more of a guarantee on the other end of the floor, completely smothering opposing bigs in the paint and swatting away anything in the vicinity (3rd in blocks). #3 - Quentin Kidd... this "kid(d)" is finally coming into his own. Two consecutive seasons of 27 points/game and starting to really fill out across the board. Not going to lie, he reminds me A LOT of a sim league great Tracy McGrady with how much potential he has. He's still just hitting the peak years of his career and still improving. #4 - Delmar Lopez... Has anyone benefited more from the purple potential foul training than Delmar Lopez? His career trajectory was that of underachieving Julio de la Rosa, but thanks to this training, he is able to finally overcome his fouling woes and blast off into the upper echelon of sim league players. He's the front runner for Most Improved Player right now, with career bests in FG%, FT%, 3P%, Points, Rebounds. He's league the Lakers to a great start despite the turnover from last season. AND... he is ONLY 24 years old. This guy will only continue to improve. His best is yet to come. #5 - Ja Morant... now before you call me a homer, look at this guy. He's a staple at the top of the assists category, putting up career best scoring numbers efficiently, and religiously a top 10 steals guy. He's about as pure of a PG as you can get.
-BALLS: De’Aaron Fox
Dominick Cobb
Quintin Kidd
Glen Sabo
R.J. Barrett
All of these players are later 20’s or early 30’s so it’s really hard to pick out someone who’s going to dominate the league for years to come- so ill change the question to which one I have the biggest man crush on. I think the world of Kidd and despite him being 27 I think he will be at the top of the league for years to come.
3. The most recent Horns and Fangs episode (http://www.mixlr.com/josh-kalvelage) flirted with the idea of a potential restart of the sim league, going back to lets just say the ‘60s and using real players again. What is your stance on a potential restart to PBSL? How would you go about restarting the league if it was up to you? How would you decide the draft order for a reset draft? Would you let GMs pick new teams to represent? Do you think this would draw more interest from former GM’s or potential new GMs? Would you be more inclined to have “real” players again? Do you not want to abandon your current build/roster in favor of starting over?
-K100: Lot of questions here AngryBanana. Bro, are we doing 5-on-5 or 55-on-5? Yeah, I would be down to restart the league in the 1960s. As a student of the game it would be fun to learn about past greats from basketball’s forgotten generations. If we were to restart, I’d want to do it sooner than later - like no later than season 50 of this iteration of PBSL. I’d say if this league started over with season 1 in what would have been season 51 then I would let the draft order be the reverse order of the league with the champion getting 1st pick. I think it would be much more competitive if everyone knew they were playing for the #1 seed the following year. Yeah, I would be okay with random cities/mascots doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t know any of the former GMs but if some have expressed interest in re-joining on the condition of real players only, I think that would be good for the league. The more interested people who are vested in keeping the league active the better overall the league will be in the long run. I really like my current build with Philly but if the league voted in a couple of weeks to start over by Christmas, I would not complain. It’s all in the game.
-XIST: I'm all for a reset. The history of the NBA fascinated me growing up, so I'd totally get a kick out of using actual players again, especially since that'd give me incentive to read up on them. Guys like Digiskunk have tried their darndest to give these blank slates some personality, but you just can't beat real guys...which is further evidenced by all the (often unfitting) real player names being slapped onto these players.
I'd like to start in 1970, with the two "conferences" being the NBA and ABA. 1st Round draft seeding would be determined by the results of the final pre-reset season (it'd be crazy to have everybody in the league trying to compete), with the champion getting the first pick and the runner-up the second (the rest of the draft would continue alternating between conferences every pick). It'd probably be more of a draw for former GMs than new, I see little evidence to indicate otherwise.
It'd be a bummer to lose my current team, as I've worked pretty hard for the past 10 seasons to keep this franchise consistently competitive. It'd also be hilarious, because the old league also ended right when I'd finally put a title contender together. On the other hand...I suuuuuuucked at teambuilding when we started this league, and I'd kill to get another shot at building a franchise completely from scratch.
-NOLA:I’ll hit each question with as best briefness as I can. Personally, I would be in favor of a restart if it came up, but I also think about the league as a whole and would vote against it if I saw that others would leave as a result. The league is “full” with some GMs kind of being inactive at times, but for the most part no team has been completely abandoned. This means that if we restarted the game we possibly lose some GMs on the hope that one or two more GMs would come back again. We’ve already had to contract and I hate the idea of losing more GMs. When the league started we had 29 initial teams and it took forever to fill all 29 spots. Then we added a team to get to 30. Unfortunately, we had to cut 4 teams due to an abundance of inactive teams not too long after we added 1. We have a wait list of maybe 1? Restarting the league doesn’t seem like a smart idea at the time. I think the time to do it is when we lose more GMs to where we need to consider another contraction or restart to get GMs that left to come back. To me a restart should be considered if we question if the current league risks dying out if things stand the way they are currently. Now, if we did restart the league we should go back to maybe the 60s to capture as many real players as we could in the restart as we missed out on a good 30 years from the initial creation draft. The draft order should be randomly done in the game live so we can all make an event out of it and watch. If you want a different team, we should allow all GMs who want to move to make a post and they figure out which teams are open and who wants what like we did when we started (basically trading teams). I also think a more viable idea is to scrap the college draft and go back in time to create real players in the draft which to me is the best of both worlds (not a full restart, real players come back). I don’t really care about where my team is at whether I am competing or rebuilding. If the league wants to restart and it makes sense I’ll vote for a restart. If we possibly lose more GMs than gain if we restart, I’ll vote against. I think the idea of a restart was brought up when we were discussing bringing back real players, so maybe we should explore redoing the draft file first over restarting.
-QUAIL: I have 0 interest in restarting the league if we were to go back to the 1960s. I think most of my apprehension there is the lack of knowledge of the players from that time. If we were to restart in, let's say, 1975, I think I could be more receptive to that. That said, people proposing the creation draft and restarting the league weren't around for the first go around, so i can understand the allure of starting a new league... but if you think 1 round of a rookie draft is painful, just think about how 15 rounds of a creation draft would go. If I'm remembering correctly, the last one took two to three weeks to complete. It was a nightmare. Again, I get the allure, but it's not all sunshine and roses when starting over. As for some of the other questions, I think if you reset, you absolutely give teams a chance to claim their original team or announce they would like to add their team to a pool of teams available for swapping. Then at that point, whoever designates "SWAP" would have to coordinate with other GMs in the pool to execute a swap. If you cannot get one done, then you can take your old team back. I would almost say you could offer "sweeteners" such as picks (creation draft pick swaps). If you can't decide on a team, then you stick with your previous. Draft order would be generated through an online randomizer broadcasted LIVE for those to watch. One big concern with restarting is losing interest of people who are invested in their current teams. Sure, we may attract Darth or FTB back, but at what cost?
-BALLS:I think there has to be a cost benefit analysis that needs to be done here. Does this bring back more interest in the league and if so, at what cost? How many net gains and losses do we have? Do we even have a person willing to commish it? Those are a lot of hurdles to leap over before even starting to configure the league and I don’t think we’ll get past them.
I personally would enjoy starting over in general. I’m having a lot of fun currently but putting faces to names and just imaging those guys on your team is a lot of fun. I think in terms of picking teams and order, I would say that you should do a snake draft and do it by GM. Allow GMs to trade picks to be able to swap contested teams if it’s that valuable to them.
4. As I have previously mentioned, we are at a point in the league where we should have a better idea of who is good and who isn’t (yikes.. has anyone seen the Thunders record? I thought they would have been a playoff team with that sea of green they have. Their GM is completely oblivious) who is one GM that you think has flown under the radar and is playing a lot better than expected, and who is another GM that is disappointing compared to where you thought they would be at this point?
-K100: Surprising was Indiana – I have to give credit where it is due. Losing Stoll sucks big time. I don’t know how you lose Stoll but whatever, life happens. Some GMs might have rage quit or abandoned ship immediately and sold Fox for pennies on the dollar but Indiana has weathered the ridicule and continued to field a good, competing team this season. Plus, he still has a $1 in cap space. And who knows, if De'Aaron goes nuclear in the postseason we still might see Fox and Friends win a title after all.
Disappointing is Orlando. The Mourning Division as a whole has been disappointing this season so it is not as bad as it could be, but still Orlando's start has been a hot mess. The Magic are still the most talented team, and I think they will win the division over the Bucks, but the Magic starting lineup is just not living up to snuff, at least not yet. I’ll give false9 the benefit of the doubt because he has succeeded with weaker teams before, but this is looking like one costly lost season from a tax standpoint. Rest assured though, my ass is not complaining too much.
-XIST: Truthfully I feel that there's been more disappointments than positive surprises this season, but I gotta give a shout-out to Pauly for appearing to defy the "Pacers 1st sim curse" for the second straight season. For top disappointing, I'm going with the Magic, I can't be be the only one who raised an eyebrow when Schumann and Bronny were teamed up, and had a chill run down their spine when Boban returned home. However, it just doesn't seem to be clicking, which has to be a bit of blow to both Schumann and Bronny's stock...and a sign that Boban's ability to force will a team into contention has started to fade. Still plenty of time to turn it around, though. Also, I don't like questioning Syndicate, because he's more than earned the benefit of doubt, but trading Leiker during the draft, going all-in during free agency, only to then ship off some of those win-now pieces because "oops, tax" is an odd sequence of events. But again, still time to turn it around.
-NOLA: I don’t think they are flying under the radar anymore, but the Heat and messi has really turned things around so much so fast. L Messi is a GM that I think Josh and Raby brought up in the Horns and Fangs podcast as being a “quiet GM”, but he is always around and is active when he needs to be like the offseason. I think because he is quiet some GMs don’t initially notice just how good of a turnaround he made, but after 3 sims it’s hard to ignore the standings. I also don’t think many people pegged the Heat as being the favorites to win their division during preseason, but they look to be running away with it due to the Pelicans and Mavericks stumbling a bit and the Pistons having injury problems. As far as who is underperforming I have to go with the two top teams in the Mourning division. The Bucks and the Magic I thought would be much better than they are currently playing. I know the Bucks lost Bjorn in UFA but they still have a really good group of players and were able to sort of make it up with the Haile signing in RFA. With Ja Mortant and Rodriguez I still expected the Bucks to be dominant and they haven’t quite looked that way yet. Same for the Magic after they traded their youth for win now pieces. Bringing in Schuman and Boban I thought would have catapulted the team to be favorites in their division, which they still aren’t far behind due to the Bucks slipping, but again I thought this team would be very strong with Bronny hitting his prime and Richard Hunt becoming a very good PG. I think one of these teams will make the adjustments needed, and possibly both, but man in that division even my team could be a contender.
-QUAIL: The Heat and the Jazz are two teams that really have taken off this season and surprised a lot of people. Granted, I would attribute the great start of the Jazz to the RECOMMENDED gawds of Sim League more so than digiskunk, who probably is high and cutting his peanut butter & jelly sandwiches in L shapes right now instead of trying to figure out how to get enough points to pay his tax off and keep Len Bias. The Heat look incredible though; very impressed with their team's start and build! Also, I can't ignore the Laker's and the success they continue to have despite all the changes in their rosters each off-season. They have lost David Leiker and Jerry West in the last two off-seasons (in addition to some big time names like Wanderlei Silva), yet here they are again fighting for their division title with the Spurs (and ahead of the Pacers). As for disappointing GMs, I don't think the GM himself is disappointing, but I know Andy (false9) is disappointed in the slow start for his team. There is a lot of big name talent on the Orlando Magic right now that cost a lot of young talent and assets... I still think they have more than enough time to catch the Bucks and contend for the division. Cohesion struggles following a season of team upheaval is real... trust me, I know. The Bucks are somewhat dealing with that right now too.
-BALLS: I think Josh is that GM. He’s smart to stay out of skype as commish and doing so really allows him to stay off the radar. He has the most complete team ive seen in awhile and really the team is humming.
In terms of disappointments I would have to say the Magic’s performance (not Andy’s Gming) as I said earlier are the biggest head scratchers out there. They’re the team in the Alpha conference I don’t think anyone wants to see with their level of talent.
5. Given that this is a very diverse group of GMs, both in terms of vets and newer guys as well as from past performance levels, I am curious to hear if any of you have any sort of “no trade” list of other GMs in the league? You do not need to call anyone out, but is there anyone that you consider too slimy to trade with or just hate the way talks go down with those individuals? What are some things that turned you off about trade talks with them and why would you never trade with them again? On the flip side, are there people that you love trading with, and tend to gravitate towards when looking to trade? What is it about their style that lends to a good conversation?
-K100: I wouldn’t go as far as “No Trade” list because I think I have traded with almost everyone in the league at least once (I’m coming for you Cavs GM) but I don’t go out of my way with a handful of GMs anymore because I think we just evaluate talent differently. The conversations with these kind GMs are usually curt and there is not much wiggle room to negotiate. I think those kind of trade talks are pointless after a few failed tries, so I just don’t bother anymore. It is what it is. I don’t really have any favorites either. A trade is a trade, I guess. I don’t particularly care who it is with at this point. Some GMs are definitely easier to talk to than others, which is nice but even with the tough negotiators they sometimes give a little glimpse as to how they think about sim league, which can be useful should we cross trade paths again down the road, and I think that is cool.
-XIST:I don't really have a "No Trade List" in the sense of "this guy sucks to deal with, screw him." It's more of a mix of healthy fear and respect that makes me wary of trading with certain GMs. Their constant successes with player evaluation, teambuilding, and championships creates the impression that they just know more than you. Thus, no matter how good the deal looks or how well it seems to fit with your plans/goals...you just can't let go of the feeling that you're being pantsed, the trade will ultimately benefit them more than it will you, and that they'll still be more likely to win another title as opposed to you. There's only 4 on that list, and at least 2 of them know about it, though I'm pretty sure that I've let all 4 know at one point or another.
The two guys I really enjoy trading with, or at the very least talking trades with, are Quail and Nick. It's chill, no hard feelings if no deal gets reached, no big deal if it's a straight-up no go from the jump, and if the deal turns out lopsided...oh well. We all share similar preferences for players and teambuilding styles, so it's not uncommon for us to just randomly talk with no real intention on getting a deal done, just seeing where each others' head is at the moment. I also really miss Trell and Coltsguy, as they were just wild and up for darn near anything if you could break it down and explain why it was a good/fair move.
-NOLA:No “no trade list” for me, no one has done anything to where I wouldn’t consider trading with them and to make my team better I have to keep all options open. There’s some GMs I don’t consider messaging because I’ve never heard from them back before or by the time they read my trade proposal it’s already too late to make a trade. I understand that not everyone logs in everyday so I don’t get upset, I just know I probably shouldn’t hedge my bets on them replying in time so I usually don’t send the message. If they send one I’ll definitely reply back. Some guys I like trading with usually respond pretty directly. I’m thinking of eazy, pauly, mamba, keepit, etc. Just guys off the top of my head that I talked to recently or made a trade with not too long ago. They’ll counter if they need to or just outright reject the trade rather than beat around the bush. I don’t have to sit around for long to know what they’re thinking which allows me to talk to other guys knowing where we stand.
-QUAIL: I'm always open for trades with everyone, but there are some teams that I'd rather not trade with unless the fit is just undeniable and offer is right there staring you in the face. I think there are two things that really are a big turn-off: 1) no response to PMs *cough*cavs*cough* and 2) sending an overly lopsided trade offer. Don't get me wrong, the latter I'm sure we've ALL done on more than one occasion, but if you start a conversation straight off without any social lubricant with some big ole goofball trade offer, I'm just less likely to even move past that. Then there are GMs that just over-value their own talent, which honestly is their prerogative to do so. As for people I love trading with, I just enjoying being able to talk through deals and bounce ideas off one-another. It's the social aspect of the game that I find really appealing. Not being immovable on your position or willing to offer reasonable counter trade offers are always things that I find attractive in a potential trade partner.
-BALLS: I don’t really believe in no trade lists but I do think theres a lack of activity by certain GMs. I don’t mind calling them out because we don’t really talk anyway
. For instance, the Mavs, Jazz, Heat, and Cavs are all teams that you have to ask multiple times to even get a response. Theres the chance they just don’t like me, and that’s ok to me. No response to a deal is the worst response to me, people who have a higher value of players than I do don’t bother me at all. The people I tend to trade with are people who are open and flexible to make a deal work and also that don’t take things personal if it’s not the right move for either of you. I think at this point we all have some sort of a relationship with one another.
Ok, so we got some great responses from these General Managers.I would like to thank them all for their time and hope that we all have learned something from this experience, like how I am probably a terrible discussion moderator. Sound off in the comments with your reactions, do you agree with what they thought? Do you want to throw tomatoes at all of them for even thinking what they think? Are you mad that your team was not even mentioned? Yeah, you I know you skimmed through this whole article just to see what people said about your team!