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I've had some requests from our veteran players about starting up a National Fantasy Basketball Championship and have considered it in the last year. Honestly, I know that market is much smaller than football and baseball, but there's an opportunity to run a good game here and I'm interested. Fantasy Sports Magazine ran a special basketball/hockey issue each year through 2000 before ending that, but this year we are doing a fantasy basketball magazine for NBA.com and my desire to do a high-stakes basketball contest has picked up again.



Here's some thoughts and I'm looking for feedback from anyone who is interested:



1) Price: Between $500 and $750 per team. Someone help me here. Is $650 a fair medium? $700 better or too much? Payouts will be 75% of entry fees in prizes.



2) Draft: We would host live online drafts, so you wouldn't need to go anywhere if that suits your schedule better. However, I am leaning toward also renting space in Las Vegas on Saturday, Oct. 29th for those who would like to do a live draft. So we'd have a combination of live drafters and online drafters (separate leagues though, depending on the numbers) all going off at the same time.



3) Date: Saturday, Oct. 29th. 1 p.m. EST



4) Online Site: It's not affordable to create a separate NFBBC site and STATS doesn't have a basketball commissioner product yet. So I would contract with Allstar Stats to run the individual leagues and the overall contest and we'd be hosted there. There would be individual league message boards there and I'd create a spot here for the main NFBBC Message Board. It's not ideal, but suitable for the first year.



5) Format: 12 teams, 8-10 categories, Rotisserie format. We'd pay out league prizes and an overall prize just like we do in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship. If we got 60 teams, we could have something around a $3,000 league prize, $1,200 for 2nd, $500 for third and $5,000 overall prize depending on the entry fee. Again, it would be a start.



6) Scoring: Rotisserie format using categories like total points, blocked shots, rebounds, steals, assists, field goal percentage, free throws made and three-pointers made. Should we add FT% or anything else?



7) Serpentine draft for 12-14 rounds and you start 10 players each week. We can finalize those numbers later as I don't have the rules done yet. We'll also have a $1,000 FAAB for in-season free agents using blind bidding process.



That's it for now. Any and all feedback is welcome. The concept of a live draft/online draft is kind of appealing. This would be a labor of love for all of us as the stakes aren't too high for making money or spending money! But I'd need to see the interest first.



Again, just looking for feedback on this and then we could try word-of-mouth advertising to see what kind of interest is out there. Thanks everyone.

This sounds great, G-string! You can count me in and I know of one other guy who would sign up for a team.



My preference is for the higher entry fee, and I'd be willing to go as high as $1250.



Flying to Vegas for a live draft is a possibility for me, but I'd probably go with the online draft instead. Allstar Stats is top notch.



I prefer 8 category scoring with free throw percentage as a category, instead of free throws made.



The more rounds, the better.

Greg,



I'm all for a FBA league. And I'm fairly sure that I can get some buddies to join up. These are the same guys who can't grind out a full FLB season and think FFL has too much luck involved.



How about an auction league? Out of all of the major fantasy sports, this is the one where I definitely would want an early draft spot (i.e. LeBron, KG, Duncan).



Of course, a live draft in Vegas is the ultimate but I'm OK with online drafts to spur signups.



The FT made vs. FT % is the big issue - aka The Shaq factor. The category will determine if Shaq is a top 2 pick vs. late 1st round/early 2nd round pick. I vote for FT %.



Hojin

Ok, Greg - 2 ideas:



1. Make the draft in Chicago instead of Vegas. Closer driving distance for some of us and cheaper flights for others. I agree Vegas is more fun than Chicago, but flying out to Vegas and all that expense probably just isn't in the cards for me for a trial mid-cost league.



2. Add hockey to the mix. Run 4 hoops leagues (2 online and 2 live) and 2 hockey leagues (1 online and 1 live) - get people to double up on the draft experience and sample both 'minor' sports in fantasy terms. Build it, Greg - they will come...



Dave

Yes, FT% is preferred.



Maybe I just do it all online this year and next year we decide which city is best for the participants. Okay, this has some momentum and I'll see where it leads us. Keep the feedback coming.

Okay, I'm just ironing some things out with the NBA and I should have an answer on this in the next day. We're ready to roll this out with just online league drafts on Saturday, Oct. 29th and see what happens, but we need to go through the licensing process first as we have a long-term relationship with the NBA.



Quickly, just on roster sizes:



I'm shooting for a 16-round draft and you'd start 12 players per week: 4 Guards, 4 Forwards, 2 Centers, 2 Flex Positions. You'd have a larger bench than I first announced and more roster decisions each week, but the free agent pool would be thinner. I'm definitely going with 12-team leagues. I know some have mentioned SG, PF, SF and other more specific positions, but the position eligibility is already tough enough.



Here's the plan: $600 entry fee, paying out three spots per league: $3,000 for first, $1,200 for second and $500 for third. That would leave me with $5,000 for the grand champion as I'd be paying out 80 percent of total revenue in prizes (up from my initial 75% total). Any additional revenue from more leagues ($1,060 per league) would go towards the overall prize pool.



I'd love to have a huge grand prize, but let's crawl before we walk. We're keeping the entry fee low, shooting for a realistic number of teams and paying out solid league prizes. That makes the overall prize pool lower for now. But it's a start.



I'll know more tomorrow. Stay tuned.

As always, count me in. I'd probably fly to Vegas if you need some people to fill out a live draft. What would the categories be? I've only played the cdm format.

Originally posted by dlongood:

As always, count me in. I'd probably fly to Vegas if you need some people to fill out a live draft. What would the categories be? I've only played the cdm format. Eight categories, 12-team leagues:



Points

Total Rebounds

Blocks

Steals

Three Pointers Made

Assists

Field Goal Percentage

Free Throw Percentage

Greg -



Where are we with this? Is it gonna happen? I know you are busy paying everybody, just wondering if this is a go?



Thanks.

Originally posted by RotoSpin.com:

Greg -



Where are we with this? Is it gonna happen? I know you are busy paying everybody, just wondering if this is a go?



Thanks. I've tried to get licensing from the NBA to run this to no avail. I'm still trying to pull this off, but today was a bad day. Anyone who is still interested in competing, e-mail me at [email protected] and we'll see what final option we have. I know we have interest from plenty of NFBC and NFFC guys to form a few leagues, so let's get together.

Greg, I want in. I'll email you tomorrow morning.



What's the 12-team, 8 category equivalent of the 141 league points I scored in the NFBC this year? Something like 89 points? Here I come, ladies! Be afraid! Be very afraid!



(Yeah, right)

Greg,



Great job, as always. I was very pleased.



There is one minor glitch that you'll have to clean up for next year. All of the players that were listed with forward/center eligibility in the player directory were only eligible at forward during the draft. One owner failed to realize this and thought that he had filled his center spots when he drafted a few forward/centers early in the draft. When the final 2 rounds came, the AllStarStats draft software forced him to choose two center-only players, even though he really did have all of his position requirements filled.



By the way, I would love to see the NFBBC posts continue on this message board. Football sucks. I never go to the NFFC board. Let's give this board some life during the cold winter months, while we count the days until pitchers and catchers report.



Oh, and Greg, can I get the $4000 now? You know you'll be writing it out to me in April anyway; do we really have to go through the motions?



[ October 29, 2005, 07:54 PM: Message edited by: Moneymaker ]

All sounds good Brian. Yeah, that was a small glitch in the live draft software that I'd like to do away with. A player who qualifies at multiple positions means he qualifies at center, so he had those spots filled. We'll fix that for next year when we introduce the National Fantasy Basketball Championship. No question we could have filled three leagues this year with no promotion. Next year we'll do this right.



We can do the smack talk on this forum and on the NFFC board. I'm sure Eddie, King of Queens and others will participate on both areas. I'll keep the smack going too as I follow both leagues. Good luck man and just tell me where to send the check....when and if you win it!

What's going to be the deal with players earning position eligibility in-season? Will it happen after they play 5 games at a new position? I'm itching to get Tyson Chandler out of my forward spot and stick him in at center.

Originally posted by Moneymaker:

What's going to be the deal with players earning position eligibility in-season? Will it happen after they play 5 games at a new position? I'm itching to get Tyson Chandler out of my forward spot and stick him in at center. 10 games in season for a new position.

Greg,



I'm submiting free agent bids for the first time, and I see that AllStarStats has no concept of conditional bids.



I need to know -- if I bid $200 for Magic with Michael as my player to drop, and I also bid $100 for Isiah, again with Michael as my player to drop, who will I get if I am the highest bidder for both?



Does the order in which I submit these bids matter?



What if I bid the same amount for both entires in the example above? Who would I get?



I sent an e-mail to Rich Pike.



[ November 05, 2005, 09:45 PM: Message edited by: Moneymaker ]

You will get the one you bid the highest for. as for when u bid the same amt, i have no idea

Cool. That makes sense. And I just won't bid the same amount for anyone.



Greg, could you please post the winning bid amounts? It's not on the AllStarStats league website anywhere.

Originally posted by Moneymaker:

Cool. That makes sense. And I just won't bid the same amount for anyone.



Greg, could you please post the winning bid amounts? It's not on the AllStarStats league website anywhere. I'm in Phoenix at the Arizona Fall league Symposium, but will be back in the office tomorrow. I will figure out how to do that and will post them here. Good luck guys.

All the information on bid amounts is on the league website under "Evaluator Results". I didn't notice it until recently.

Originally posted by Moneymaker:

All the information on bid amounts is on the league website under "Evaluator Results". I didn't notice it until recently. Yes, Rich Pike told me that via e-mail earlier this week. Sorry I didn't pass that info onto everyone right away as I was in New York most of this week.



Also, Allstar Stats has live STANDINGS on the basketball site. Have you found that yet? I'll tell the rest of the guys that one as the live standings is very, very, very cool.



Hope all is going well with the basketball league as I've been knee deep in baseball rankings and ratings right now for our first magazine. I haven't been over to that site near enough. Good luck, champ.

I did notice the live standings, and I think it's a cool feature, especially when it looks like it does right now:



1. Moneymaker, 75 points

2. A Tribe Called Evil, 66 points

Originally posted by Moneymaker:

I did notice the live standings, and I think it's a cool feature, especially when it looks like it does right now:



1. Moneymaker, 75 points

2. A Tribe Called Evil, 66 points Brian, can you imagine having live standings this past baseball season!!! You might have gotten an ulcer during that final week or two with those standings updating after every 5 minutes!!! Down the road, though, it would be cool to have that feature for baseball. We'll see!

My stomach turns over little things (like Mark Blount shooting off his mouth and getting benched!); I can't imagine what it would be like to see my points rise and fall during the final week in the midst of a sprint for $105,000. Maybe live standings aren't such a good idea.

Tom,



Greg must be out of the country or something. I haven't seen him on the message boards lately and I couldn't get in touch with him at the office. Do you have any information with regards to pay-outs? When will they happen, etc.?