We are still trying to make sure we have the right matchups in REC-SF, as far as probable subdivisions by competitive level (Upper/Lower) and morning/afternoon, therefore the tipoffs for gym ISAH are still “TBD”, but we can tell you that things will probably start in the late morning there. Please check back by noontime today for the possible updated matchups and tipoffs at ISAH.

In San Jose, as mentioned before on the Rumor Mill, we will not start in full force and at the same time until 6/3. This is because of ongoing issues with gym locations there.

Please scroll down past the spreadsheet to see the gym locations…

GYM LOCATIONS

WED 4/11 (11:45PM) — Great, now PHHS is running into some problems. I have texted the three captains possible solutions. For now, officially, those two games are OFF THE DOCKET (and I have deleted them for now). The gym is available at 530p only for one game, so we’ll have to see what the captains agree on. Another issue is that PHHS is not available 4/22.

WED 4/11 (11:30PM) — Didn’t run into any objections to the proposed draft, so here we have the tipoffs now listed below. There were a couple of special requests made, but due to the rigidity of the ISAH setup, I could not accommodate and will not go through the trouble of listing those requests out. Did the best with what I had… WED 4/11 (1:00PM) — Last table did not post correctly. It is now fixed… (12:45PM) — The A/R-SF+ games were accidentally left off the docket last post, so now they’re on there but the rigidity of the timeframes involved has made it more complicated to schedule the AAA-OAK game(s). I’m trying to get Colossal vs Kurruption to be played at 10:30am, but then if Colossal wins, I don’t have room for the Repeat, so the Repeat might have to wait until 4/22 and both captains would have to come up with an agreeable time for that day — but we’ll cross that bridge later. See below. Again, tipoffs are not finalized for this very reason; something major or minor may have been overlooked.

TUE 4/10 (2:30PM) — BCRC is closed for 4/15, so we’ve moved any OAK games to SF at ISAH. The schedule is not set in stone, but I am trying to start ISAH at 1230p and PHHS at 5p with a 15-minute break in between games — please note, usually it’s worse if you just won and waiting 30 minutes; trust me, you’ll rather just wait 15 minutes while you’re still warm.

Again, this is NOT final. The final schedule will be set in stone by Thursday, as usual.

THU 4/5 (10:00AM) — Due to tipoff timeframe request and the fact that PHHS is only avail 3p+ on 4/8 and 5p+ on 4/15, we have to move the Wii/BBOF game from SJ to SF. Let’s let things settle down a little, but for now ISAH starts at mid-morning, BCRC first set at midday, second set evening, and PHHS obviously after 3p. Scroll down.

WED 4/4 (8:45PM) — Remember to check the latest Playoff Brackets, division by division. Here are the teams and divisions that will be taking a bye this Sun 4/8…

6ft-osf Last LB Game: #5 Below The Rim 6FT at #1 Eagles
6ft-osf Championship: Winner-BTR6/Eagl at #2 Pure Supremacy
aaa-sf Last LB Game: #6 Stunners at #4 Jumpmen
aaa-sf Championship: Winner-Stnr/Jump at #3 Problems
aaa-oak Championship: Winner-Colo/HpsQ at #4 Kurruption AAA
oak-pm Repeat Champ: #8 SpaceJams (OAK) at #4 Straight Gunnin — hopefully capts come up with a solution for 4/15

Here are the games that will happen. They are not in chronological order yet…

Since my hands are tied with these three teams giving me so little breathing space, then I have no choice but to postpone the GBI game until 4/8, whereby the game will probably need to be scheduled at 1p or 2p if you simply do the math. So that just goes to show, once again, that when you sign up for this league, often times you need to be cognizant of what other teams are having as their availability. Again, competitiveness is valued by me a lot so I’d rather go out of my way to schedule two good teams together, but at the same time it’s also a cooperative situation. So if you can do something about the schedule of the OTHER conflict that you have, then please do so.

The other example are the two guys (all-stars) on aaa-sf Who’s Next and aaa-oak Colossal. They are overlapped this week and with all the crazy timeframes, THE GOOD OF THE MANY OUTWEIGHS THE GOOD OF THE ONE. In other words, who cares what happens to players, I’ve got to make sure teams merely have their game set. I mean, that’s the risk you take.

And then I really can’t stand it when guys say they are playing in so-and-so tournament. Look, you made that choice. You chose to put that tournament ahead of your Dream League playoff game. Well, your opponent didn’t. So please, stop acting as if you get to play in every tournament as well as Dream League and Dream League is supposed to bend over backwards to allow you to do both. That is a ridiculous expectation of my time and energy.

At the end of the day, who really gives a rat’s ass about “customer service”? It’s all mathematics, people. Either you can make a timeframe or you can’t. If you want me to apologize (for having bad math?) and make you feel better about the results of the mathematics, here you go…

I APOLOGIZE TO ALL THE PEOPLE I PISS OFF WITH MY BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE IN THE FUTURE.

…but it does not change ONE IOTA of the mathematics involved. Only you can change that. Please pick up players that make sense. Get guys who don’t want to play in every tournament, on every team, and win every single championship in every single league under the sun. Find guys who are committed to YOUR DREAM LEAGUE TEAM. Signup for divisions that make sense and that add to the community of fair competitiveness and exciting games. And finally, please don’t act entitled.

There is one constant variable in all of this: ME.

I will always try to do whatever I can and make things fair and base my decisions on mathematics. Often times, I sacrifice my own teams or my own ability to play. But if it’s too complicated or too much work for me, forget it. Not worth my time and definitely don’t get paid enough to twist around backwards like that.

I hope you can understand my frustrations lately. We have literally changed the schedule 3 times since the tipoffs posted and were supposed to be set in stone. Then people are constantly texting me complaining about this or that. Show me a customer service agent on the Earth that can handle that stress. It’s not one or two guys and I’m not singling out any of the teams I mentioned, because there’s more that I didn’t even mention. It’s just a little bit too much sometimes and if I don’t write out all this crap, then you don’t feel my pain.

Also, this all needs to be said because lots of times my dealings are only with captains and not every captain is good at communicating these issues to their team, or their teammates are just not as cooperative in these situations. It’s good that some non-captain players will be reading this and gain a better appreciation of how everything fits together.

With that, let’s hope for another week of competitive games like we had last week (8 overtimes!).

FRI 3/30 (9:15AM) — The BHPY 430,530p games have been pushed back to 5,6p so that Pure can make it in a comfortable amount of time. Pure has actually paid for the extra gym time.

THU 3/29 (4:45PM) — WKRC tipoffs have been changed to 1230,130p to accommodate scorekeeping staff.

THU 3/29 (4:30PM) — Two major changes:

1. We left off REC-SF- matchups. Last LB Game and Championship has been added at 9:30am and 12:30pm BHPY. There is no other way. Sorry to Hapa for the first game being outside of timeframe, but they are outweighed by gym availability and the other teams’ timeframes.
2. Kurruption said they can’t field a team at 7p due to another league. I don’t know why they place this other league ahead of Dream League, but I’m making an exception this one time. Their game vs Colossal has been moved to 2pm WKRC and Kurruption will pay the extra $10 it costs to play the game at WKRC instead of BCRC.

The other thing is, when it is Thursday and your team notices a major structural change to the schedule, your captain should be texting me, not emailing me. The reason is that email is slow to respond and we would need to make changes on the fly asap.

THU 3/29 (2:30PM) — The final tipoffs are below, as well as the major issues listed. Read the previous posts and take a grain of salt… THU 3/29 (11:45AM) — Below is a rough draft. Everything is in chronological order. As veteran ref Tony Booker would say, “Let’s let it marinate for a bit.” The schedule with the most problems is at BCRC. Teams will just have to remember the Dream League mantra: In any other league, you’d be already eliminated from the playoffs, so you’ll have to suck it up and take one for the good of the community (i.e., not everyone can be pleased) and remember that in Dream League, overall competitiveness and parity trumps schedule. In City League XYZ first of all, you’re season probably is already done. But anyways in City League XYZ, you would have a random set of teams all playing in some morning. In Dream League, the set of teams is obviously NOT random; it is a culmination of 10 years of making sure teams are in the right division. The sacrifice? Having times that every single team agrees on. It all balances out and encourages teams to pickup guys who are ultra gung-ho about hoop and ready to play anytime.

THU 3/29 (10:45AM) — The many tipoff conflicts are creating a scheduling bottleneck. I’ll have to push back my estimation of tipoff publishing until 5pm today. Meanwhile, here are some MAJOR issues we are working through…

• a/r-sf+: #5 SF Warriors at #2 The Fam — totally opposite timeframes, 99% sure we’ll postpone to 4/8. This allows the Losers Bracket to avoid a doubleheader (4 teams dwindle to 1), which brings us to…
• a/r-sf+: Winner-Braves/Who’sNext at Winner-FullTilt/StunGuns — therefore this game gets postponed to 4/8. That means the Last LB Game and Championship gets pushed back to 4/15, with possible Repeat Champ on 4/22. I’m out of town 4/29, so let’s get this all done by 4/22, otherwise we string this along into next season, which is just kind of stupid quite frankly.
• a/r-sj-: #6 Wii Not Fit at #1 BBOF — same issue as the one for a/r-sf+, but Wii is indicating they might be able to play in the morning, so I’ve left it on the docket.
• aaa-sf: Falcons are the only team out of 3 in the Losers Bracket that hasn’t asked for a late game. In these instances, I go with the majority. It is simple and straightforward: I would rather have 1 team mad at me than 3.
• 6ft-osf: Pure Supremacy plays in SF. Balance of home/away, looking at the whole season.
• AL/NL: Rangers play Trybe in Oakland. Trybe has traveled more this season.
• WKRC: There might be more games here depending on the tipoff conflicts, but we try to minimize the games there because this gym is more expensive.

Again, the two a/r-sf+ games have been removed from the schedule table. The rest of it, you can already see that we have major tipoff issues in the pref1/pref2 columns in red. We’ll try to work through these, but worst case, we could end up postponing more games. Also look at SF and the tons of requests for late games. How are we going to fit all those games into late slots? I have no idea at this point.

THU 3/29 (9:45AM) — As you can see from the Playoff Brackets post, we just spent a lot of time consolidating all the playoff brackets onto one page. Thank goodness for Google Spreadsheets. Right now we are figuring out matchups, then doing timeframes. Also, we’ll look at special requests, which are linked to the MSR page from every previous Bird’s Eye post. Sorry for the delay. I would estimate being done with tipoffs at 2pm today.

If you paid a $5 request and you ended up being postponed (or not getting your request fulfilled), please email me and I will refund you.

Jump down to the draft version of 3/25 schedule…

THU 3/22 (9:45AM) — Boy, we got problems. First, ISAH is on hold because they are having trouble finding someone to open the gym for us. Yep, that’s right. The gym is actually available but no one wants to open it. Shows you how stressful it is to work there M-F; everyone cherishes their weekend. Right now, I have the probable schedule below set with the usual ISAH+BHPY. However, if ISAH gets nuked, then I will probably give a bye to all A/R-SF+ (Upper), AAA-SF and AL/NL teams. The remaining teams in 6FT-OSF, A/R-SF- (Lower), REC-SF+ (Upper), and REC-SF- (Lower) will continue all at BHPY if ISAH is no longer on the docket.

There is one team in AAA-SF that wants a bye, but it’s not possible to do a combination of them a bye and others not. It’s all or nothing. So while that team is hoping ISAH is closed, if ISAH opens, then too bad, business as usual.

Things in SJ are no better, as PHHS is suddenly not available due to a conflict and heads butting over control of the gym, but we’re trying to get at least a few evening games. Alternatively, we are checking on availability at JLHS (new gym building codes issues), AHHS (maybe too short notice, requires permit), and YBHS (probably rented out to another group).

I have officially postponed the AAA-SJ games because I can find no resolution to tipoff conflict anyways, and there’s only three teams left there. If I am restricted to just evening games, I will probably keep going with the A/R-SJ+ (Upper), since there’s a couple teams in A/R-SJ- (Lower) that cannot even play in the evening.

OAK is full speed ahead and I might need to move a 6FT-OSF game there if ISAH is off the docket.

There’s one more bye: HoopsQuad. This is because they are the highest seed in the Losers Bracket of the 7-team bracket. In the 2nd round, we only need two teams left in the Losers Bracket, as we’ll add two more losers from the Winners Bracket next week to field a “mini-final-four” in the Losers Bracket, to yield one team left standing after next week.

Overall, we have a ton of special requests, so we’re trying our best. Be sure to check all the listings above the table. For the SCHEDULING ISSUES section, it’s best if you look at the pref1/pref2 columns and see if they are red. If they’re red, there is an issue which I will talk about when the tipoffs actually post. And please take things with a grain of salt.

Finally, I looked at the tape of Frisco vs Run N Gun and, indeed, our scorekeepers messed up. So luckily for Frisco, there was video. And their captain DID call timeout to try and fix the problem, so they followed protocol. I guess that means all of you ought to be videotaping your games, just in case. That’s fine by me. So what will happen is, at the tipoff of “Frisco/RunNGun at #2 SFFD”, really we’ll play a 2:00 overtime between Frisco and Run N Gun, then immediately start the Winner vs SFFD. PLEASE ARRIVE EARLY. IF WE FINISH THE PREVIOUS GAME AHEAD OF TIME, WE WILL HURRY UP AND START THE FRISCO/RUN OVERTIME.

ISAH is supposed to report availability by 4pm today. I should have an update for you by 5pm right here.

WED 3/21 (1:15PM) — Below is the list of matchups for this Sun 3/25. Nothing is in chronological order yet, as you can probably guess. There are a couple games in 6FT-OSF which we had no choice but to put in OAK, regardless of looking at the previous teams’ schedules to see the balance of SF/OAK, simply because we do not have enough gym space in SF. We are still searching for gym space, but either gym directors are acting stoopid with their ridiculous pricing or they aren’t calling me back.

I’d put up a jump link but I want you to read the rest of this post. It’s important.

Meanwhile, I’m still updating the Playoff Seeds posts. Then after that, I’ll start posting the brackets which basically serves as a roadmap for each division the rest of the way. These are somewhat less important articles to post because the main concern is simply to get the next round of games up so we know who’s playing at what time this Sun 3/25.

Here is the requisite crap that I am dealing with this week…

Amare Stoudemire rule: NEVER LEAVE YOUR BENCH

Last week at ISAH, there was an oncourt altercation between a player on the Sonics and Marin. While the refs quickly diffused the situation and cooler heads prevailed, sure enough, the young Sonics players on their bench and some from the stands left their position and went onto the court, as if they had to defend a life-or-death situation.

Folks, this is why the NBA has the Amare Stoudemire rule. When you leave your bench, you are throwing kerosene on fire. Tensions rise, people on the court including the refs start to feel like safety is compromised with unknown motion of bodies approaching. This is quite simply unacceptable.

None of the twelve people on the court is going to go into a life-or-death situation. It is far better to let 2 refs calm down 10 players than 10+X.

Now, I should simply suspend the Sonics entire bench one game, but I will just use them as an example here. The next team that does WILL be suspended. This is your warning. You can thank the Sonics.

Fans need to behave too

While we are on the Sonics topic, I don’t like the fact that people in the stands yell at the scorekeepers or refs. Do you actually think that helps? Do you actually think we will come over, bow to you, salute you, say “we are sorry my master”, and do what you are yelling at us?

Sometimes the scoreboard is in error. It is a fact of basketball life. If you have an issue, kindly approach your team captain and have him go up the chain of command to resolve the issue.

This childish behavior must stop. People will be asked to leave the gym at risk of forfeiting their team. Teams will lose the right to have spectators. Please grow up. P-L-E-A-S-A-N-T-V-I-L-L-E.

When you get technicals or ejections in the playoffs

So the Sonics player was assessed two technicals for the altercation and ejected. After the ejection, he was coaching on the bench. That is not acceptable. I asked him to leave. That is what happens at every level of basketball when you get ejected. You must leave the premises. You forfeited that right.

Do not object to that or give me or anybody who works for Dream League an excuse for staying at the gym. Go home and call it a day.

Now, you are all thinking that I am putting the Sonics out there. Well, the Sonics are not a rowdy team at all. They just did what they did and now I have to use them as an example. As I mentioned, I could’ve easily suspended their entire bench.

Suspensions after three (3) technicals

The NBA Playoffs has a rule of 7 technicals then automatic suspension. Since the NBA Playoffs is much longer than Dream League’s, and we are more interested in safety of our rec league, our rule is 3 technicals then suspended for one game, from regular season on through the playoffs. The Sonics player is obviously at 2 already.

Possible scorekeeping issue

Finally, we have an issue in REC-SF+ that I am investigating. Looks like our scorekeepers may have missed a field goal in the 3rd quarter of the Frisco vs Run N Gun game, which Run N Gun ended up winning by two. Please note, we have a triple-check system when keeping score, and it really doesn’t matter what the scoreboard says (as any human being can press the wrong key), it matters what the scoresheet on paper says. However, Frisco was fortunate in that they videotaped the ballgame and I should be able to look at it, tally things up, and see exactly where the mistake was made, if there was one.

Now, this was an isolated incident and I’m not sure I’d approach it the same next time. Why? Because less-than-perfect scorekeeping — and less-than-perfect ANYTHING — in rec leagues is a given. In fact, it happens in the NBA. I think there were two incidents this season where they got a goal-tending wrong. What are they supposed to do, go back in time? I mean, look, life isn’t fair. Sometimes you just have to move on. Believe me, there is a basketball god out there. Someday you’ll be on the long end of the stick where everything goes right for you.

I’m no different than Phil Jackson or John Wooden: basketball is a life lesson. You take the good with the bad. If you’re always complaining about the bad, then you’re not getting it and life will be quite short for you.

Long story short, there’s a chance we will play a standard 2-minute overtime between Frisco vs Run N Gun. Only players that showed up last week will be allowed to play and obviously I’d just continue the same scoresheet from where we left off. A 2:00 overtime shouldn’t last too long, so then the winner will immediately play SFFD at the same location. Run N Gun has a lower bound tipoff of 1p, so I suspect we would probably play this at 1:00PM sharp and start the SFFD game at 1:10PM sharp.

What to do if you have a scorekeeping/scoreboard issue

Should you run into a scoreboard problem, your team will need to call timeout and your captain must immediately tell the ref that he is calling a timeout only to figure out the score problem. If the score problem is rectified in your favor, you will get your timeout back.

At that point, we will need to revert back to the scoresheet and whatever we have on the paper. We keep track of each end-of-quarter score on paper, so you should be able to rebuild the entire quarter up to that point just based on everyone’s memory of what has transpired.

It is actually that simple. Well, maybe not simple, but certainly straightforward.

Do not disparage my staff

I almost decided not to spend anytime investigating this because some of the Frisco players disparaged my scorekeepers. One of them did it on Twitter and now that I have blocked that account as well as anybody else who tweets out entitled BS, he will have to follow using some new account. There is no need to do that, folks.

That goes for refs, too. You have to trust that I have spent many years finding the best scorekeepers and refs that your (not very much) money can buy — seriously, if you want to pay more than what you are paying now, I’d be happy to post on Craigslist and interview a few “more qualified” people. Otherwise, quite frankly shut the hell up and play, or you are welcome to go to any of the other leagues out there who probably won’t have any scorekeepers or refs at our level.

One more thing: “I haven’t complained about refs in awhile, but…” is translated in my brain as “OK, Rich, don’t listen to another word this person has to say.” What’s the difference between that and a rambling disparagement, you feel me?

Let’s not forget there are fines in the NBA for disparaging the refs: $25,000 as compared to $7,500 for technicals. And to think, these NBA players are paid professionals whose job it is to do work on the court. Basketball IS the day job instead of having a day job to get back to on Monday; their whole lives are invested in the NBA which pays them well. In Dream League, you are supposed to act as if this is recreational activity, not like your family depends on your play or the result of your team, to put food on your table.

In Dream League, I charge $5 for technicals. If you want to continue complaining about our refs, then I will soon implement something similar, I suspect I will have to charge $25 for disparaging refs or scorekeepers. I am sick and tired of it. Show up and play and be thankful you have what you have. Otherwise, if you want to feel entitled, I don’t want your money. IT IS NOT WORTH THE CODDAM STRESS, YOU HEAR ME?

Please don’t use the “we pay a lot of money” argument

Another thing that first bothered me about Frisco’s complaint was they used the old, “We pay a lot of money” preface. Three words for you: NO. YOU. DON’T.

If you don’t believe me, let me 3-way conference call you in on any number of phone calls I have with gym directors.

Now that I am done with my How To Be A Grown Man 101 lecture, to those of you who have been acting like Pleasantville every Sunday, I thank you for your patronage and, well, acting like grown men. It has taken a long time to find you and I’m glad we are together in this incredible basketball community of NBA-like oncourt games found nowhere else.

1. Blazers (2-4) — won head-to-head vs Heatonkees
2. Heatonkees (2-4) — lost head-to-head vs Blazers
3. Wolverines (1-5)
4. ZNGA (0-6)

Dream League uses the NFL Wild-Card Tiebreaker system, which basically means (1) head-to-head results, (2) record vs common opponents, (3) strength-of-victory (we interpret that as point differential in games won, then overall point differential), and (4) the rarely used strength-of-schedule. As with the NFL Wild-Card system, you compare teams within your conference first, then outside of your conference. Teams that finish below other teams in the same conference cannot finish higher than that team, therefore, the tiebreaker process starts all over again at the top after you’ve eliminated each successive team from a tiebreaker.

Please note, I don’t think Fernandez acted maliciously in either incident. He admitted that he is first a football player, so it’s hard for him to stop his body. While there appears to be no malice, that explanation does not solve the problem at hand. The issue is that at Dream League, again, we are “Pleasantville” and you simply must be able to demonstrate safety, whether or not it’s your fault. As an analogy, imagine someone who gets into car accidents that are not necessarily their fault, and not being able to secure auto insurance or at least affordable auto insurance. The issue is the bottom-line tally of incidents.

Run N Gun has a potential doubleheader. They are in the Losers Bracket which means if they win the first game in the morning, they stave off elimination and advance to another game in the afternoon, whereby we are rapidly eliminating teams in the Losers Bracket — we will never force any team to play three games, though. So if Run N Gun wins their first game without Fernandez, obviously Fernandez can play in the second game. Of course, at that point, he’s still subject to the ongoing NBA flagrant rules as explained in the link.

Also, in the previous post, we accidentally left out aaa-oak HoopsQuad vs Colossal. That’s back on the docket.

THU 3/15 (8:00AM) — The schedule table below is now in chronological order, but we need to wait for confirmation on scorekeepers and look for overlap issues. I would estimate that we’ll probably get the schedule 100% done and published with tipoffs by 3pm today. Scroll down and also check the special requests, scheduling issues, byes, and doubleheaders lists.

WED 3/14 (2:30PM) — The matchups for 3/18 are posted below. Freddie has helped me a lot with getting the seedings, brackets, and matchups figured out. The Playoff Brackets from which these were derived will not be posted until Friday at the earliest, while the final tipoffs will probably be scheduled by tomorrow 12p (check here for more updates). You can check your Playoff Seedings (not 100% posted yet, though) by using the League Navigator in the right-hand panel and searching on “Teams/Standings” for your particular team’s attributes.

Obviously, as is usually the case when we only post matchups without tipoffs, the matchups listed below are not in chronological order and the gym location could change within the city the gyms are located in.

The following teams have byes for this Sun 3/18…

• a/r-oak p2-LB: bye: #3 Grey Goose — 7-team bracket, 3 teams in Losers, top seed bye, 4 teams in LB for 3/25
• a/r-sj+ p2-LB: bye: #2 Marc Jackson Five — 7-team bracket, 3 teams in Losers, top seed bye, 4 teams in LB for 3/25
• a/r-sj- p2-LB: bye: #5 Space Jamz (SJ) — 7-team bracket, 3 teams in Losers, top seed bye, 4 teams in LB for 3/25
• aaa-oak playoffs1: bye: #1 Members Only, #2 HoopsQuad — 6-team bracket

The following teams are postponed to 3/25 due to lack of gym availability in SF. Also, these divisions only have 4 or 5 teams, so we can afford to stretch it out. The first two weeks of playoffs always results in more games than average during the regular season because of the low seeds playing doubleheaders, then the Losers Bracket the week after. We are in the midst of that. So it makes sense that we would have too many games to put in gyms. Next week Sun 3/25, more teams will be eliminated, therefore I do not expect this to be a recurring issue…

• AL/NL playoffs1b: Winner-Cob/BluP at #1 Rangers — lack of gym space in SF
• AL/NL playoffs1: #3 Ashton’s Finest at #2 Trybe — in OAK but this is my team and I need to be SK’ing in SF
• AL/NL playoffs1a: #5 Cobras at #4 BluePrint — lack of gym space in SF
• a/r-sf- playoffs1: #4 ZNGA at #1 Heatonkees — lack of gym space in SF (also helps me because I’m scorekeeping)
• a/r-sf- playoffs1: #3 Wolverines A/R at #2 Blazers — lack of gym space in SF

Jump down to previously posted issues pertaining to 3/18…

Previously posted issues pertaining to 3/18

TUE 3/13 (11:30AM) — Here’s a tweet I sent out yesterday which describes the kind of week we here at Dream League are already having…

https://twitter.com/#!/poormanscommish/status/179406883839414272

This is after working 14 straight hours on Sunday. I thought I would take it a little easy, but this would soon prove to be impossible. Here’s why…

• MESSY SF GYMS: I got berated by the BHPY gym director due to the many plastic bottles and other trash left both under the team chairs and on the stage. Please clean up after yourself. If not, I will have to hire their janitor at $100 and I will definitely be spreading that cost to every team that shows up. Let’s say we have 10 games, or 20 teams, on any given Sunday. Each team will be required to bring $5, just like you already bring $25 for the ref, to help offset the cleanup cost. I suggest you tell your spectators to cleanup if you want to avoid this charge. For now, I’ve told the gym director I’ll stay and cleanup, but if it becomes too much work for me, you know me, I’ll say eff it, let’s hire a janitor. ISAH IS ALSO A MESS, SO CLEANUP AFTER YOURSELVES OR I’LL START REQUIRING A FEE FOR ME TO STAY THERE AND CLEANUP AT 10:00PM AS WELL.
• TEAM CHINA WILL FORFEIT ITS 3/11 GAME: I told them not to pickup Nick Mali for the REC, and sure enough it’s actually happened 4 times this season, 3 times in the regular season when nobody told me about it. Freddie plays on this team and even told his captain that there could be consequences for doing so. Of course, there are other teams in REC that are not playing fairly either, but the point is, you don’t take the law into your own hands.
• HEARTBREAK KIDS WILL FORFEIT ITS 3/11 GAME: Matt Tuffuor has only played in one regular season game and therefore is ineligible for the playoffs. Because he played on 3/11, Heartbreak forfeits that game. You can’t go all season long without an impact player then all of a sudden bring him in for playoffs. I mean, that’s just common sense. Also, a frontline with Low Saechin and Tuffuor is, in my opinion, AAA-REC caliber and definitely not REC, but that is a separate issue from Tuffuor not playing in at least 2 regular season games, 1 of them being in the last 3.
• STRAIGHT GUNNIN’ WILL FORFEIT ITS 3/11 GAME: The captain panicked when a bunch of his teammates said they couldn’t make it. So he had 4 and then called up backups who happened to be good players and had a major impact on the team winning. This is not kosher in Dream League. It’s kosher in every other league out there, but not in Dream League. When you are entering playoffs and your players bail on you, you show them that they’re bailing on you. You bring 4. You bring 4 and a scrub. You lose by 20. That’s what you get for picking those flakes up. That’s what they get for leaving you hanging. And yes, I have been in this situation. However, this hasn’t happened to me in years because I know whom to ask to play on my team and tell them in the beginning of the season that showing up is important, so don’t give me any false hopes.
• NEXT SEASON WHEN YOU SIGNUP YOU WILL NEED TO SUBMIT A ROSTER WITH HEIGHTS AND EXPERIENCE. ‘Nuff said on that. Please be reminded that we have the right to move teams up or down during playoffs as a backup to that. If you’re Straight Gunnin’, maybe next season you make sure your backups play in at least 2 of the 6 regular season games, 1 of which needs to be in the last 3 games.
• Please review the roster guidelines at http://www.drmlg.org/bay/leagues/sundays/divisions/. Here’s the thing. In other leagues, feel free to stack and stack and stack and win that coveted championship. In Dream League, we try to promote the oncourt experience as bar none. In other words, on the whole (not saying for every game and probably not for most crucial playoff/championship games), you would rather lose a close/suspenseful game that goes down to the wire rather than blow out a team that has an inferior ability to recruit the players that you have. The latter happens in other leagues, which is why they are not Dream League. Honestly, if you like the latter, I won’t take it personal if you play in those other leagues. Here in Dream League, we have plenty of divisions for you to find the right fit and have an enjoyable oncourt experience for both teams.
• In Dream League, it’s better to signup for the wrong higher division than lower division. Maybe I need to spell it out even though I’ve been doing this for years already, but if you’re a cellar dweller in any division, we can move you down for the playoffs. By contrast, moving up is so much more difficult on everyone involved. So maybe I need to spell this out in the registration area that nobody reads anyways, but if you are deciding between two divisions, please pick the higher one. That’s why Dream League does what it does; you’ll get protected from a “waste” because we can move you down. And it’s more noble of you not to appear like you’re sandbagging.
• WHEN YOU FILE A PROTEST, PLEASE PROVIDE INFORMATION. Often times, people are emailing me and giving me information that would be akin to telling a police officer, “Yo some dude hit me” after being victimized by a hit-&-run. You gotta tell me names. I can’t read your mind. I wasn’t there. You need to do a little bit of legwork when you file a complaint. Walk over to the table and actually look at the spreadsheet. Talk to the refs, talk to the scorekeepers. Build your case. It’s no different in the real world. It’s not like the cop doesn’t have other places to be or other crimes to deal with.
• WHEN YOU FILE A PROTEST, DO IT IMMEDIATELY AT THE SCENE OF THE CRIME. When you see a wrong being committed and you agree to play that team even with the violation happening, what does that say about you from a grass-roots competitive standpoint? Tell me about it when the crime happens. Waiting til after you lose makes you look bad, like you’re taking a hard-fought win away from somebody. In the world of sports, that is ALWAYS a bad approach and it’s not just with me, it’s with your opponent — they now HATE YOU (remember, we are all in this together; a game does not happen without two teams agreeing to play each other). Your captain has my number. It’s not hard to send me a text telling me what’s going on. So the teams that complained this past week, you will be charged $10 for my time and stress dealing with all this after-the-fact. Sometimes I might even decide your issue is not worth my time if it’s after-the-fact. It just depends.

Here are some follow-ups to previous issues…

• 6FT-OSF adds Pure Supremacy and Kurruption from OAK. As we discussed earlier, we felt that both Pure and Kurr had more than the two maximum impact players from AAA or above. But both teams have conflicts with their AAA versions in AAA, so we’ve added Pure and Kurr into the 6FT-OSF, giving us a nice 8 teams in 6FT-OSF playoffs. For their first playoff game, I think I will probably keep both Pure and Kurr in OAK due to shortage of gym space in SF anyways, but as the playoffs progress, we will be balancing them out as we keep going. That being said, Beast (OAK) will play their first playoff game in SF unless it is against one Pure or Kurr, of course.
• A/R-SF will be split into an Upper and Lower. We will keep ZNGA in the A/R-SF Lower.
• REC-SF Upper is looking a lot like A/R-SF. Granted, maybe a slight notch below A/R-SF Upper teams, but most of the “elite” teams in REC-SF Upper would beat the teams in A/R-SF Lower. As discussed above, similar to the problems we’ve been having in Oakland with rosters, we’ll need all teams to submit full rosters next season if they signup.
• BTR (AAA) will move down to A/R-SF Lower. Moving them is a no-brainer. But I’m not completely sure if they should be in A/R-SF Upper or Lower, but I’m gonna go with Lower just based on what I’ve seen so far. That gives A/R-Upper a nice round 8 teams. A/R-Lower will have 5 teams. Again, I’m not sure about this. I might put them in A/R-Upper if the scheduling turns out to be easier to deal with.
• Underdogs will move to AAA-OAK from AL/NL. This was the plan from the get-go. I couldn’t put them in AAA in the beginning because, for whatever reason, they were already scheduled into the AL/NL season roadmap.

Hopefully I didn’t miss anything. That’s it for now, I hope. I’ll be posting some of the playoff seeds shortly.

1. Stun Guns (6-0)
2. The Fam (5-1)
3. Who’s Next (4-2)
4. Braves (3-3) — tie h2h vs DAR/SFW, tie common opp (2-1 vs Blzr/Fam/Heat) vs SFW, won s-o-v (13.7)vs SFW, won common opp (3-1 vs Blzr/Fam/Heat/SFW) vs DAR, no h2h vs Mtz, tie common opp (0-2 vs Stun/Fam) vs Mtz, won s-o-v (13.7) vs Mtz
5. SF Warriors (3-3) — tie h2h vs DAR/Brvs, tie common opp (2-1 Blzr/Fam/Heat) vs Brvs/, lost s-o-v (11.4) vs Brvs, tie common opp (2-2 vs Blzr/Fam/Brvs/Heat) vs DAR, won s-o-v (11.4) vs DAR, no h2h vs Mtz, won common opp (1-1 vs Fam/WhNx) vs Mtz
6. Motionz (3-3) — no h2h vs SFW, lost common opp (0-2 vs Fam/WhNx) vs SFW, no h2h vs DAR, tie common opp (1-1 vs Fam/Wolv) vs DAR, won s-o-v (12.4) vs DAR, won h2h vs Full
7. Full Tilt (3-3) — lost h2h vs Mtz, no h2h vs DAR, tie common opp (1-1 vs Fam/Wolv) vs DAR, won s-o-v (9.4) vs DAR
8. Dynasty A/R (3-3) — no h2h vs Full, tie common opp (1-1 vs Fam/Wolv) vs Full, lost s-o-v (6.4) vs Full
9. BTR AAA (1-5)

Dream League uses the NFL Wild-Card Tiebreaker system, which basically means (1) head-to-head results, (2) record vs common opponents, (3) strength-of-victory (we interpret that as point differential in games won, then overall point differential), and (4) the rarely used strength-of-schedule. As with the NFL Wild-Card system, you compare teams within your conference first, then outside of your conference. Teams that finish below other teams in the same conference cannot finish higher than that team, therefore, the tiebreaker process starts all over again at the top after you’ve eliminated each successive team from a tiebreaker.