As mentioned in the forward on the main page, this will be the 4th season of our TS fantasy NBA leagues in a row. The first season saw us have one league of 20 teams, before we moved to a promotion and relegation system across 3 leagues of 12 for the past 2 seasons.

In the top flight over the three seasons, Dabombers won season 1, Jasmine won season 2, & Ruddy won season 3.


There's still a bit of time to go before the season, but we have a few things to sort out between now and then, so we thought it best to get stuck into it now. Steve will be doing the most of the organising/admin/writeups etc through the season, but he's got a fair bit on his plate at the moment, so I'm helping out for the rest of this month.


The main things I see that we need to sort out and agree on, in order, are:
1. Participants;
2. Scoring system adjustments;
3. Length of season;
4. Draft dates;
5.Promotion/Relegation system changes;
6. There must be something else that I cant think of right now.


The season starts on October 29th US time, which is the morning of the 30th for us, so we have about 10 weeks to get sorted, which is good.

Last year, we had the drafts very close to opening night, whereas in the previous 2 seasons, we had them before daylight savings kicked in in Victoria. I'm not sure how we will go this year, but either way, it would be good to get points 1, 2 and 3 out of the way so that we can start researching in preparation for the draft.


The promotion/relegation system we had in place last year was as follows:
<blockquote style='margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; border: medium none; padding: 0px;]
Promotion:
The 4 going up from Div 2 to Div 1 will be the two grand final teams, and (excluding the two GF teams) the team with the best 'points for' and (excluding said Points For winner) the best ranked team at end of our regular season.
The 2 teams going up from Div 1 to Premier will be the GF winning team, and the team with the best Reg season 'Points For' (excluding GF winner of course).
<br style='line-height: 19px; color: #444444; background-color: #fbfbfb;[/img]

and for relegation:
The teams being relegated from Premier will be the bottom team at the end of the regular season, and (excluding the team with the worst reg season record) the team with the lowest 'Points For' at the end of our regular season.
The teams being relegated from Division 1 to 2 will be the bottom 2 ranked teams at the end of our reg season, and (excluding the 2 bottom ranked teams) the 2 teams with the lowest 'Points For' at the end of the reg season.
<br style='line-height: 19px; color: #444444; background-color: #fbfbfb;[/img]

And the get-out wildcard clause if you do happen to find yourself in the relegation zone
- if a team wins the minor premiership (the league splits into two finals systems like SuperCoach) they are exempt from relegation, and the lowest ranked at end of regular season will be relegated (that already isnt being relegated of course).
Effectively, if a team in relegation zone wins all 3 finals weeks, then they avoid relegation.
</blockquote>


And the results of that were this:


<div style='line-height: 22px; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]2 relegated from Premier: fudge; maggots
<div style='line-height: 22px; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]2 promoted from Div 1: Walesy; Jet
<div style='line-height: 22px; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]4 relegated from Div 1: spm67; bgt2110; rodgo; UnderAchievers
<div style='line-height: 22px; color: #444444; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; background-color: #ffffff;]4 promoted from Div 2: philosoraptor; hawker; Lano24; Rev


We saw 2 teams avoid relegation by winning the wildcard, dabombers in Premier and costak in Division 1, meaning maggots and underachievers took their places being relegated down to the lower divisions for this season.

Other points of note include: jet being promoted 2 years running; Rev getting straight back into Div 1 after being relegated the season before; and Walesy doing the same, getting back into Premier after just being relegated the last season.


If everyone is available, the leagues will look like this for this season (I dont know the TS username of the coach of the Gosford Gunners in Division 2 and I have entered their team name from last season instead); BOLD means that they are yet to confirm for this season:


Premier:

Jasmine; Karlos; HEAVER; Ruddy; anthak; Mick; Fez; Dabombers; Owen; Steve; jet; Walesy



Division 1:

maggots; fudge; LiQuiD_SiXx; Stowie; crossy; nicksnow; trav00; costak; Lano24; hawker; Rev; philosoraptor



Division 2:

underachievers; rodgo; bgt2110; spm67; twoeyec; lethal; Rad_E_Cool; doobs; Reyloc; smokinjoemisiti; Don_Cottagers; (*Gosford gunners*)




These are in order of last seasons rank at the end of the regular season, so if anyone is not continuing on this season, all teams will move up in the order they are listed above. For example, if I decided not to play on for this season, maggots would move into Premier and underachievers would move into Division 1 (presuming both of them play on this season).


I want to sort all of this out before the scoring system, but for interests sake, there are a lot of comments in [span style='font-size: 16px;]this thread from last year about the scoring, so that you can start mulling over it all. Read right through to the last comment:

Can all 36 coaches from last season please indicate in the comments below if you will be playing again this season.



And if there are any people out there that wish to be emergencies, then this is the place to put your name forward, in case anyone from last season drops out.