2004-2005 SECOND AMERICAN BASKETBALL LEAGUE 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
Dues are $15 a year, payable to the commish 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.
Fees pay for web site maintenance, a trophy for the winner each year,
and incidental costs incurred by the executive team members.
SABL Executive Committee
The SABL Executive Committee will be a three
person team responsible for the overall operation of the league. Decisions made by the executive team are
final.
COMMISSIONER
The commissioner will run the SABL in the best
interests of the league. The commissioner can be removed if ¾ 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.
Web Site Operator – Knox Bardeen –Responsible for maintenance of the web
site and will help commissioner communicate with the league either through
e-mail or web site notification. Helps
coordinate draft dates and times. Maintains rosters and trades on the web site.
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. Maintains
and assigns penalty points.
TRADES
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 and web site
operator 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.
Trades Dec1-25 take effect Jan 1
Trades Dec 26-Jan 25 take effect Feb 1
Trades Jan 26-Feb 25 take effect March 1, and represents the final trade
deadline for the season.
Trade deadlines and timelines during the
off-season will be determined each year and posted on the “Schedule” link on
the web site.
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 picks 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 an executive
team member. 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.
Operational Procedures
INSTRUCTIONS & RESULTS
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.
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.
Each month, you have
until midnight on the last day of scheduled games to play your scheduled home
games. If you do not play your home
games by this point, the operations director will get a game plan from the away
team manager and auto play the game. One
penalty point will be assessed to the late home team PER GAME. Note:
the only way we can verify game was played is if results have been
received by midnight. It will be assumed
that any lack of results means the game was not played and the operations
director will proceed in auto playing the game.
Whenever possible the Operations Director will send notices late in the
month of games missing. Ultimately, it
is your responsibility to make sure your home game results get e-mailed.
B.
If you are an away
team and have not received results by the 25th of the month, please
send a notice to the home team, commish, and
operations director. Include in this
notice a copy of your game plan so the Operations Director can auto play the
game if needed. Note: away teams will never be assessed a penalty
point for missing game results. However,
games will be autoplayed using computer generated
lineups for both teams unless the away team sends the operations director a
game plan.
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 team’s 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.
Remember, a total of 21 penalty
points and you are expelled from the league.
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
"
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!
DO NOT USE THE GAME'S EMAIL PROGRAM. USE OUR
WEBSITE TO GET THE CORRECT COACH'S EMAIL ADDRESS.
GAME PROTEST PROCEDURE
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. It’s
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.
LEAGUE DIVISIONAL ALIGNMENTS
Where possible, divisional alignments will be made
based only on geographic considerations.
SCHEDULE
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.
POSITION ELIGIBILITY
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
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.