2011-12 Articles
The HAC Season Officially Starts
DECEMBER 31, 2011
The draft results are in, the league home is all set up, there is nothing more to do than to set your lineups and the 2011-12 HAC Season has officially started!
The e-mail draft took a while, but since it was over the holidays, it could have taken a lot longer. I appreciate every HAC franchise owner’s dedication to the process with incredible flexibility and patience.
If you see any errors with your roster, please let me know immediately!
I’ve contacted ESPN customer service and they have said that standings *will* be retroactive to the start of the NBA season. I’ll believe it when I see it, but that is a good sign.
The waiver process will begin immediately. To start the season, the waiver order will be the reverse of the draft order. To briefly explain, if a player is released from a franchise, he will go on waivers for 48 hours. During that time, the 9 other HAC franchises will have an opportunity to put in a waiver claim for that player. If more than one franchise has put in a claim, the team with the higher spot in the waiver order will acquire that player. The waiver order will not be reset once the season begins. So, keeping a high spot in the waiver order could be a strategy if a desirable free agent is on your radar screen.
Trade proposals can also commence immediately.
I will draft up a basic rules page with some guidelines simply for a handy reference if anyone needs it. I apologize that it is not ready now. One thing to keep in mind is the transaction limit for the league of 30 transactions. This includes trades, and I will see how every franchise is doing during the season with that. It may need to be increased, but probably not. I doubt any team will reach that 30 limit.
Another thing I am going to look at is our overall roster size of 13 players. I am amazed at how many good players are on the free agent list. Just to forewarn everyone, I am contemplating having a supplemental draft sometime during the season of two rounds to dilute the free agent pool a little bit. This is not a certainty so don’t count on it, but it will serve to dilute the free agent pool and give people even more flexibility with their rosters. I chose the 13 roster spots in mind of the draft and also to make roster moves a bit more challenging so you would have to really think about if you wanted to keep a player or release him. So, this will be something I’ll look at, at least for the first half of the season.
Other than that, I think everything is ready to go! Thank you to everyone for being a part of this league and thank you to everyone for having so much patience with the draft. If the draft is any indication, and I think it is, with the great people in this league, we are going to have an outstanding season. Set those lineups and let’s start playing!
High Above Courtside Draft Starts...Tomorrow!
DECEMBER 16, 2011
Ok High Above Courtside fantasy basketball franchise owners...
I hope you are gearing up for the league draft. While I'm planning on starting the SLOW draft for the league starting tomorrow, if anyone has any objections, please let me know and it can be moved. Seriously! It is no problem. I know this is very, very hasty and usually it wouldn't be like this if the NBA had its act together. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot we can do.
Ok, now - to start a draft, you have to have a draft order, right? Well, here is how I went about doing that. I organized all of the franchise team names in alphabetical order (Lundy and Tsoleen - you both need team names!). I then went to a random number generator website and randomized numbers 1 to 10. I am attaching a screen shot of it here.
Now, here are the HAC franchises in alphabetical order as of this morning:
Detroit Bad Boys
Donkey Crankers
Dream Team
Lundy's Team - where is the originality!
Newark Purple Drank
Psycho Somatics
Rudy Gay and Chardonnay
Sacramento Oaks
Tsoleen's Team - aw, you can do better than this, Tsoleen!
Washington Spin
With the numbers that were randomly generated, I affixed them to the teams. Meaning, #6 came up first, and I looked at the 6th team alphabetically and that is Erik's Psycho Somatics...so he will get the 1st pick. I hope this makes sense. Again, feel free to contact me if it doesn't, and I can try to go over it in more detail.
Here is the official draft order!
1. Psycho Somatics - Erik
2. Sacramento Oaks - Mike
3. Detroit Bad Boys - Dave
4. Donkey Crankers - Nate
5. Tsoleen's Team
6. Lundy's Team
7. Rudy Gay and Chardonnay - Ken
8. Dream Team - Glen
9. Washington Spin - John (me)
10. Newark Purple Drank - Brian
THINGS TO KEEP IN MIND FOR THE DRAFT:
-8 hour time limit, to start off with, for all picks. If you do not make your pick in the time allotted, the next team can feel free to pick.
-The timer will officially start at 12:00pm Eastern tomorrow unless anyone voices very strong objections!
-E-mail your picks to the ENTIRE league. I will start up an e-mail thread for the league's draft.
-A google document will be started for the draft and will be updated constantly with all picks and all franchise owners will have access to it.
-Picks can be traded if you'd like. I see no reason to stop that.
-There WILL be, at most, TWO keepers per franchise. No team has to keep two players if they don't want however. But be aware of this. More specific rules about how players will be kept will be established very soon.
If I think of other important details, I will communicate them as soon as possible. If anyone has any questions, comments, suggestions...ANYTHING, please feel free to let me know and I'm sure anything can be arranged. You know, if you'll be away from internet access or can't check things or whatever...that's no problem. You can give me a list and we can go by that for your team.
Until then, happy drafting!
High Above Courtside Progress Report
DECEMBER 14, 2011
Make sure to stretch and get ready!
Hello, illustrious fantasy basketball franchise owners:
So, the NBA season is going be starting soon, on Christmas Day. That means, as a league, High Above Courtside needs to get going with our own plans for a league draft. To preserve my own sanity, I am going to attempt to start it through e-mail and see how that goes. I will compile a Google Document of all of the picks as they are made, so everyone can see them. This, to me, seems like an easier alternative than to spend a week organizing a live draft so that everyone can be online at the same time.
The first step is a draft order, and I'll try to do that soon, like today.
The other thing is when do we start the draft? How does Saturday at noon eastern time sound? Basically, the person who controls the franchise with the first overall pick would have their draft pick timer start then. I'm thinking we can start out with an 8 hour pick timer to start with. To be honest, I'm not in a gigantic hurry, but if any of you disagree with this idea, please let me know and it can easily be changed.
Other than that, all of the rules are on the Settings page. As far as keepers, we are going to have them, so draft with that in mind. The basic parameters is that each franchise can retain up to three players from this season to next. You don't have to keep any players from your roster if you don't want though!
If you have any questions, comments, problems, suggestions...anything! Please don't hesitate to contact me. Also, if I forgot anything, please let me know. I probably did.
I will contact you all soon with more definitive information including the draft order. Thank you for being in this league, and I look forward to a very long and storied future!