1998-99 Constitution

The Second American Basketball League (SABL) is a computer association operated for the mutual Strat-O-Matic Basketball gaming fun of its 24 coaches.

Dues are $15 a year, payable to the commissioner on Sept 1. Unless special circumstances exist (like a death in the family), all coaches that do not pay will be expelled from the league.

The commissioner will run the SABL in the best interests of the league. The commissioner can be removed if ž of the coaches vote to do so. He also may resign and then be replaced by a successor with the consent of a majority of the coaches. The commissioner may change league rules and the Constitution as he sees fit. He may also schedule binding and non-binding votes as he sees fit. He is the final arbiter of all disputes.

Player Agent Director - Mark Long - Responsible not for making the rules, but the keeper of the rules, and the one who new members suggest new rules to and brings it to a discussion forum, recruits and orients new members, coordinates draft dates and times. Responsible for enforcing rules and penalties associated with misuse of players, responsible for overseeing any trade or rule disputes between players. Maintains rosters and trades.

Operations Director & Statistician - Steve Walters - In charge of overall league seasonal operations. Setting up the schedule, and making sure people are on schedule, maintaining the master league file, coordinates trade deadlines, etc.

There are no trade committees or other such reviewing bodies in the SABL. Responsible owners are allowed to make trades as they see fit. Trades must be reported by all parties to the commissioner before they become official. The commissioner is the final arbiter of all trade disputes. Draft choices one year into the future may be traded. For example, before the 2004 draft, 2005 draft picks may be traded. Immediately after the 2004 draft, since the next draft is now set for 2005, 2006 draft picks may now be traded. No "player to be named later," or "future consideration" trades are allowed.

Anytime a new coach takes over a franchise, they cannot make a trade for one week.

All trades must be reported to the Player Agent Director one month before the start of the segment block for them to be in effect that block. Additionally, there is an in-season trade deadline. After that, all trades made are for the next season. There is no waiver wire or acquisition draft.

Each year a draft of all new and cut players occurs, in October. All coaches must cut their 14-man rosters (12 active players and 2 inactive) by the number of rounds they wish to draft and notify the commissioner of these cuts as per the official Schedule of Events. Draft order is decided based on the reverse order of team records. Worst record first, second-worst next and so on. Only one modification: League champion drafts last and divisional champs draft in the reverse order of their records.

For every three penalty points a coach receives, his drafting order is knocked down 1 place. That means if you were supposed to draft third, and you have 3 penalty points, you will now draft fourth in each round.

If a coach cannot participate in the annual SABL phone draft, he can send a paper (or email) instruction sheet to the commissioner or let the commissioner draft for him. The commissioner will ring your phone number twice and hang up. If your line is busy, he’ll try twice more. If he can’t get you by then, he’ll draft for you.

When you call him back, he’ll read you the list of players that have been taken since your last pick. You’ll have 10 seconds for each player chosen, since your last pick, to make your decision. If you don’t pick anybody by then, the commissioner will hang up and pick your player for you.

Every time a manager is late with instructions, he incurs one penalty point. For each three points that are incurred, that coach will drop down one place in the draft order. Accumulation of 21 points means expulsion from the league.

Games will be played in 4 separate blocks. (1st)Dec 6 to Dec31, (2nd)Jan 1 to Jan31, (3rd)Feb 1 to Feb 28 and (4th)Mar 1 to Mar 20th. These blocks coincide with the trading periods. All games of each team in each separate block will have the same rosters. Because of trades teams may have a different roster in the following Blocks.

DO NOT move players, delete players or tamper with League disk. A new updated league disk from Operations Director Steve Walters will be sent out to all managers before the start of each block. The updated league disk will have current stats as will as any roster changes due to trades. You can't send out any instructions for a month until you get the new league file for that month.

NOTE: You may want to record, on paper, your team's lineups and computer team instruction settings, in order to incorporate them into the updated league for your creation of away instructions.

Instructions for all games in each block must be sent as soon as possible (within first week of block). This will allow managers to play games well in advance of due dates and thus not be under pressure to meet deadline or suffer penalty points as outlined in league constitution.

Procedure for sending instructions and results:

1. Send all instructions for games to be played in each separate month/block, during the first week of the month/block. In other words, send all your instructions for the month during the first week of the month.

2. When home manager receives instructions via e-mail, the home manager will reply to that e-mail with the words 'received instructions'. This verifies, to the away manager, that his instructions were received.

A. If away manager does not receive verification of instructions within that first week of the month/block, the away manager will resend instructions and state that it is 2nd time sent, to home manager and cc to Commissioner Scott Ellis at scottiefl@bellsouth.net and Operations Director Steve Walters at myril@gate.net . This will verify that the away manager did send instructions and that the away manager's obligations regarding sending instructions are complete.

B. If home manager does not receive instructions with that first week of the month/block, the home manager will: (1) E-mail away manager and cc to Commissioner at scottiefl@bellsouth.net and Operations Director Steve Walters at myril@gate.net, to let away manager and league office know that instructions were not received. (2) One penalty point will be assessed to the late team. (3) Permission to play game(s) in question, by letting computer manager set eligible players and lineups for away game instructions, will be granted to home team, by either Operations Director Steve Walters or the Commissioner.

3. Play games and send results to away manager and cc to Steve Walters at myril@gate.net. The away manager will reply to that e-mail with the words 'Received results'. This verifies, to the home manager, that his results were received.

A. If away manager does not receive results by date game(s) are to be played, away manager will: (1) E-mail home manager and cc to Commissioner at scottiefl@bellsouth.net and Operations Director at myril@gate.net, to let home manager and league office know that results not received. (2) One penalty point will be assessed to the late team. (3)Permission to play game(s) in question by letting computer manager set eligible players and lineups for home game instructions to be played by away team, authorized by Commissioner or Operations Director Steve Walters.

Results include individual game files (.gfl), summary files (sum), and box scores (.rtf).

Instructions can also be on paper. Coaches should follow paper instructions to the best of their ability and when instructions are unclear, to manage the team as they think their opponent would wish it to be managed. All paper instructions must have the teams active roster and the real-life NBA team he plays for by his name. Failure to do this earns an opposing coach 1 penalty point.

IMPORTANT: All games in the month must be played and sent to the Statistician by the last scheduled game date of the month. For example, if the last scheduled game in December is Dec. 22, all games must be played and results sent to away coaches and the Statistician by Dec. 22.

Any game results that are not in the Statistician's email box by the last game date of the month will be autoplayed by the Commissioner. For every game missing, the offending coach receives 1 penalty point per each game missing. The Commissioner, or the Statistician, in the Commissioners absence, will make the final decision on autoplaying.

If time permits, the Commissioner, or Statistician, in the Commissioners absence, can authorize the opposing coach to play the missing games by autoplaying the offending coachs team, providing the opposing coach lets the Statistician and Commissioner know whats happening soon enough.

It would be a good idea to print out your team's schedule. It would also be a good idea to get as far ahead in your schedule as you can.

It is the responsibility of coaches to inform the league and commissioner of circumstances which may cause lateness. It’s not the responsibility of the commissioner to nursemaid coaches.

All SABL games will be played under the "Neutral Court," "No Auto Rest," "No Injuries" and "Static Fatigue" options. You must save all box scores and summary files, including the play-by-play.

Penalty points are assessed on the coach, not the franchise. If a coach quits, the penalty point slate is wiped clean for the franchise and its draft picks.

However, if a coach with penalty points doesn't quit, the penalty points that coach incurs stays with his draft picks. This is to prevent a coach from "sanitizing" his draft picks by trading them off, reaping a benefit, and bypassing the penalty point system.

You always take a risk when you make a trade and this is part of that risk. So, if you trade for draft picks, be aware that they could be affected by penalty points. Make sure you bug that coach you traded with to stay on time!

Please let the Player Agent Director know if the games are autoplayed so penalty points can be assessed. The Operations Director will send out the league schedule and instructions every year.

DO NOT USE THE GAME'S EMAIL PROGRAM. USE OUR WEBSITE TO GET THE CORRECT COACH'S EMAIL ADDRESS.

Any coach concerned that his instructions were not followed should do the following:

1. Contact the opposing coach to see what went wrong. This should be an honest attempt to solve things between coaches. Its not the responsibility of the commissioner to nursemaid coaches.

2. If the matter cannot be resolved after this good faith attempt, contact the Player Agent Director to let him know what's going on and/or protest the game.

3. The Executive Committee will rule on the protest within one week of the protest.

Where possible, divisional alignments will be made based only on geographic considerations.

Instructions should reach a coach by the day the games are scheduled to be played. If they don’t, emergency instructions must be used. Accumulation of 21 points means expulsion from the league.

The SABL schedule consists of 88 games. 8 games will be played against vs. teams in your own division, 4 will be played versus teams in the other division of your conference and 2 versus teams in the other divisions outside your conference. The SABL has two conferences and four divisions of 6 teams each.

Players can play any position listed on their card. While playing defense, players can be assigned to cover anyone at any position. Players are limited to the total minutes they played during the previous season, plus 20%. For each 48 minutes of intentional overuse a manager is charged with 1 penalty point. There are no per game restrictions and during the playoffs, there are no minute restrictions at all.

When programming computer instructions, a coach may rearrange a player’s minutes within his eligible positions, but he cannot increase the total amount of minutes a player played beyond his real life per game minute total (i.e., if Scottie Pippen played 37 minutes a game in real life, Pippen can only be programmed for 37 total minutes in the SABL).

In addition, you must make players eligible by the series block (home & away together). You cannot move them up and down by each individual game or split them between home and away series.

Playoff games are to be played by impartial owners decided on by the commissioner. However, if both coaches agree, they may play their playoff games themselves as per regular season rules. Divisional winners make the playoffs along with the teams with the next four best records (wild cards) in the Royal Conference and the next four best records in the Classic Conference, for a total of 12 teams.

The Royal Conference wild card teams, seeded by won-lost records, will play each other, with the winning two teams taking on the conference divisional winners in Round Two. The same thing will be going on the Classic Conference.

Round Three will be the Conference Championships and Round Four will be the SABL Championships. All series are 2-3-2.

Divisional winners are always given home court advantage. If divisional winners play each other, the team with the best regular season record gets home court advantage. In all other cases, teams with the best regular season records get home court advantage.

Tourney brackets are setup with the best regular season record divisional winners on the top brackets and the second-best divisional winners on the bottom. The same thing applies to the wild card brackets, in reverse. Regular season won-lost records determine who plays who, with the worst two wild card teams bracketed to play against the divisional winners with the best won-lost records.