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The SABL BS

Issue 83 October 2001

FROM COMMISSIONER SCOTT ELLIS, 2^ND AMER. BASKETBALL LEAGUE

2001 SABL Drafting Instructions

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 (that's me) draft for him. The commissioner will ring your phone number twice and hang up. If your line is busy, I’ll try twice more. If I can’t get you by then, I’ll draft for you.

When you call me back, I’ll read you the list of players that have been taken since your last pick. You’ll have 10 seconds for each player chosen to make your decision. If you don’t pick anybody by then, the commissioner will hang up and pick your player for you. The draft usually lasts about four hours. When the draft is completely over, trading begins again.

At 11:59 p.m., Nov. 18, the Post draft trading period ends. At this time, I'll post our Dec. 1 rosters, which must be used until Dec. 31. Also at this time, I'll compile our official 2001 SABL league disk (sabl.exe), and put it on our website for your download. I'll also email it to you. It's a self-extracting file, so all you have to do after downloading it is double-click on it (or single-click, depending on how you have your W95/W98/WinMe configured) and it automatically installs our SABL league and schedule into your SOM game for you. No muss, no fuss, just start your game, it'll be there.

IMPORTANT NOTE TO OUR NEW COACHES: You MUST use the official SABL league disk (sabl.exe). SOM Computer Basketball doesn't work like SOM Computer Baseball does - everyone must use the same exact league disk and rosters or your stats will be unimportable into my official SABL league database and the databases of every other SABL coach. That would mean a lot of extra work and headaches for everyone, so please, don't play official league games on your own, homemade-cloned SABL league, or you'll get penalty points when the inevitable issues occur.

These trades took place before our Oct. 29 deadline, but were not reported to me until three days later:

18. Finney trades R. Lewis to Garden City for Manning, Heat's 1st pick and Garden City's 2002 1st.

17. Heat trades Fox to Finney for Amechi

Just to reiterate, I'm not resigning as SABL Commissioner. I will continue to serve as long as you all want me to. It's just that I've seen a couple of other Strat basketball leagues with better looking websites than ours. Not more informative, but better looking. I would love for ours to look good, too.

I know how to make our website look better, it's just that I never seem to have time to get the job done and it bothers me. If someone else does, that would be great, because our website needs to get to the next level. If anyone in our league can assist in doing this, please contact me and we'll get the ball rolling!

Akron Coach Dave Scott is working hard to set up a new communication channel for the SABL on Yahoo's chat and message boards. I think it would be great to support it. Perhaps we can even conduct the draft on it next year! Here's Dave's latest communication:

This is an experiment that might increase our SABL fun. It's a Yahoo Clubhouse where can meet to chat, talk trade or catch up on news. It's free, but does require you to sign up for a Yahoo identification, which also is free.

I think it would be a great place for us to meet during the Draft. We could share news about who has been picked and kibbutz about who might be the next choice. Participating might make the draft go a little faster because we would be up-to-date on who has been taken. 

The site also has a calendar that will include the latest, updated SABL schedule. It also can provide you with an e-mail update for coming deadlines, if you like.

I'd be happy to explain more, but I wanted to keep this note short.

Here's the e-mail address to get your started:

http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/secondamericanbasketballleagu

Dave Scott

Don't get shook . . . I'm not quitting as your commissioner. I'm looking forward to the draft and the season. However, a few of you may remember that I took this league over nearly five years ago because it was falling apart. I'd really rather just be a coach. Perhaps it's time to pass the reins to someone new. But . . .

The SABL is known as perhaps the only national Strat basketball league without a lot of needless, bureaucratic, artificial regulations designed to induce parity, similarity and boredom among its franchises. In other words, if you draft or trade for a player, they are yours, with no salary cap/free agent foo-foo getting in the way. We don't have trade committees second-guessing you and we don't have reams of player limitation rules that make you pull out the calculator every time you play a game.

The hallmark of the SABL is letting you become the best coach that you can be. Freedom, liberty and fun reign. I'd love to turn the SABL over to someone that will continue this philosophy and someone with the drive to see that we continue successfully. If that someone is you, contact me and let's talk. Only current SABL coaches need apply!

I ain't perfect, so please check our 2001 Draft and Rosters & Stats links to make sure I have all of your players and draft pick ownerships correctly.

Just like the last two years, I've posted a 2001 Draft link which I will attempt to keep as live as possible during our Nov. 4 draft. As you make your phone or draft list picks, I will update them on the website as we go. I anticipate the draft to be over by about 4pm Eastern time.

Windows XP comes out on Oct. 25. It's a great operating, system, probably the best Microsoft has ever produced. However, Strat Basketball does not work with Windows XP. It will work with DOS, Windows 95, 98 and Millennium, but not XP.

So, if you're planning to upgrade to Windows XP, make sure you keep at least one computer in the house on another compatible operating system and keep your Strat Basketball on that computer. Or, if you know how, you can do a dual-boot Windows Millennium/XP configuration and keep Millennium around for your old DOS games like Strat Basketball and use XP for everything else.

Give me a phone call if you'd like instructions on how to do this or visit your friendly bookstore for the lowdown. It's not usually hard to do, but if you make a mistake, you could end up losing all the information on your hard drive and have to wipe everything out and start all over again. I know, I've been there, done that.

It's not scientific and it is undoubtedly wrong, but it's posted again this year - the Draft Preview 2001 is now complete. Enjoy and prove me wrong!

16. Aces trade M. Moore to Finney for Finney's 2nd pick

15. Richmond trades its 1st and 2002 2nd to Davenport for its 1st.

14. Druids trade their 2002 1st and 2002 2nd to Bakersfield for for Bakersfield's 2nd and Chapel Hill's 1st

13. Druids trade Fox to Heat for Garden City's 2nd pick.

12. Heat trades J. Smith, Posey, it's first round draft pick, Garden City's 1st and Holcomb's 2002 1st to Garden City for Duncan, Garden City's 2nd and Holcomb's 2nd.

11. Druids trade Blaylock to Akron for Fox and Akron's 2nd pick.

10. Jams trade Ewing to Miles for G. Rice and Miles' 2nd pick

9. Druids trade J. Newman to Miles for Miles 2nd pick.

8. Tulsa trades J. Smith to Holcomb for Finney's 1st pick

7. Bettendorf trades Hoiberg to Akron for Akron's 2002 1st pick

Folks, it's Monday night, Oct. 15 as I write this and still no basketball cards or computer disk from Strat have arrived at my house. I'm sure they haven't arrived at some of your homes as well. This is the latest I've ever seen Strat send out the basketball cards - and they charged my credit card on Sept. 4 and assured me I was in their second shipment!

Strat screwed up.

Because of this, we are postponing the draft until 1 pm on Sunday, Nov. 4, to make sure everyone gets the cards and gets a chance to study them. I apologize for all the changes. You now have until Oct. 28 to submit a draft list.

I had wanted to start the schedule a month earlier than normal this Fall, on Nov. 1 instead of Dec. 1, because many of you fell behind last year in your regular and playoff season games. I wanted to give you some extra time. Because of Strat, we can't do that now. We are going back to our Dec. 1 regular season start date for our 2001-02 campaign. PLEASE STAY ON SCHEDULE! I will be e-mailing you a league disk in November with all the rosters and schedule on it, just like I always do.

Also, in view of Strat's delay this year, we'll have to plan on a late October or early November draft from now on, just to be safe.

My apologies and here's the absolutely last schedule revision:

THE FINAL REVISED 2001-2002 SABL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

July 1 - SABL All-Star Series

2001 SABL Draft Order

The following is based on won-lost records and includes penalty point adjustments. Where won-lost records were tied, penalty points were used to break the ties. Also, divisional winners and the World Champions draft last:

1. Brooklyn 2. Iowa 3. Tulsa 4. Chapel Hill 5. Holcomb 6. Garden City 7. River City 8. McLean 9. Davenport 10. Finney 11. Akron 12. Bettendorf 13. Good News 14. Richmond 15. Miles 16. Galactic 17. Tri City 18. Bakersfield 19. East Asia 20. St. Lucie