The SABL BS

Detailed scientific analysis of the available players in our draft has been done and is now posted on our 1998 Draft Preview link. Enjoy.

Final 1999 Draft Order: 1. Great Lakes 2. Holcomb 3. Philly 4. Chapel Hill 5. Tulsa 6. East Asia 7. Bettendorf 8. Meade 9. Davenport 10. Tri-City 11. Garden City 12. Akron 13. McLean 14. Galactic 15. Deerfield 16. Miles 17. Richmond 18. Brooklyn 19. Finney 20. St. Lucie

East Asia Coach Paul Bennett is extending an open invitation to all SABL coaches to come on across the Pacific Ocean and visit him in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand, if you are ever on an extended vacation to Asia.

"My girlfriend and I will help out any way possible. It's a great area and really cheap once you are here," says Paul.

A trip to Thailand sounds wonderful and by golly, if I ever get the dough, I'm gonna go, Paul! Thanks for the invitation to crash at your exotic locale!

With apologies to Rick James and MC Hammer, Owner Gary Goldstein, a Philadelphia native full of cheese steak, has renamed the Memphis Blues to the Philly Super Freaks.

Druids - Corbin, Perkins, T. Mills, B. Benjamin, Edney, McCarty, E. Strickland, Delk

Aces send Nash & Miles' 3rd to Chapel Hill for Pack, Chapel Hill's 3rd and Chapel Hill's 2000 2nd

Druids send Pippen, Druids' 2nd and 4th to Galactic for Anthony, Delk, Chapel Hill's 2nd, Garden City's 2nd and Heat's 3rd

East Asia sends Nick Anderson to the Heat for L. Johnson & Heat's 2000 2nd

Heat trades Phills, Hunter & Laettner to Garden City for Foyle, Starks & B. Barry.

Miles trades Dee Brown to Druids for Galactic's 2nd pick and Druid's 3rd pick.

Philly trades Coleman, Rose, R. Rogers and his 1st & 2nd picks to McLean for Kidd, Cummings, McKey & McLean's 2nd pick

Look for our regular season and playoff schedule to be similar to last year. Once the computer game is out, we've drafted and the first trade deadline has passed (Nov. 7), I'll be compiling our SABL league disk, which I will post here under a "1999-2000 League Disk" link. I'll also email it to everyone.

Please check out the Schedule Of Events link to understand how our trading periods work. Basically, you are always trading at least a month ahead of time. Players you trade and draft for in October and the first week of November, you can use in December. Players you trade for in the last three weeks of November, you can use in January. Players you trade for in December, you can use in February. Players you trade for in January, you can use in March. Players you trade for in February, you can use next year.

Also, you can trade draft picks one year into the future. You can trade 2000 draft picks now and after our 1999 draft, you can trade year 2001 draft picks.

My advice to keep from falling behind: SENDYOUR INSTRUCTIONS AND RESULTS EARLY AND KEEP TRACK OF EVERYTHING YOU DO SO ANOTHER COACH CAN'T BLAME YOU FOR BEING LATE!

A friendly reminder: Check our constitution for your responsibilities on instructions and results. I ain't gonna nursemaid any of you. You can't just tell me "I never got anything from that coach." If you wait to send me your stats because you are waiting on results from somebody else, you are late, too and you'll get penalty points, too! SEND ME THE STATS YOU HAVE and try and contact the other coach a couple of times at least to get some results.

LATENESS KILLS PLAY-BY-MAIL LEAGUES AND I WILL NOT LET LATENESS KILL THE SABL.

If you don't have time to play, then go away. We'll get another coach for your team.

By the way, send me your stats just like you did last year - SEND ME GAME FILES AND BOX SCORES ON A FLOPPY DISK OR EMAIL THEM TO ME ON THE INTERNET. I'll import them into our SABL league database and post the stats on our website. I have a more stable computer this year and forsee no major stat problems.

Just like last year, you will have to download my self-extracting Official SABL League Disk (sabl.exe) and use our official league disk to play your SABL games. Due to the stupid programming limitations of SOM Basketball, we have no choice. If you don't use our league disk, I will not be able to import any of your league stats into our official league database. I do not have time to set up individual spreadsheets for all our SABL teams and for league leaders, so PLEASE PLAY ALL YOUR SABL LEAGUE GAMES ON OUR OFFICIAL LEAGUE DISK OR YOU WILL BE EXPELLED FROM THE SABL.

This is a reprint from our October 1998 newsletter. Hope this helps you coach your team.

As you prepare your game plans and instructions for the upcoming season, remember some basic rules:

1. It's OK to rearrange the minutes played by position as long as you don't schedule minutes at a position not listed on a player's card and as long as you don't EXCEED the total amount of minutes per game a player played on his card.

2. It's OK to alter a players Inside Percentage, but you can't play a guy inside unless he's rated inside.

3. It's OK to alter the Steal Shoot percentage and to program the Normal, Close and Sag portions.

5. ALL GAMES MUST BE PLAYED WITH NO AUTO REST, NO INJURIES, STATIC FATIGUE, NEUTRAL COURT, WITH SAVED GAME FILES AND BOX SCORES.

These rules are unchanged from last year, but I want all our new coaches to understand the ropes, too.

A sad day in the history of the SABL - Michael Jordan has been cut by the Finney Longhorns. Check that out and other final cuts being made by everybody on our Rosters and Draftable Players links.

With 9 people in favor of our new positional rule and 7 against (1 neutral), it's becoming clear that a good many of us DO NOT want this change, more than I anticipated. I know I said the majority would rule on this issue, but after talking with everyone, I'm not comfortable in changing a rule so many of us do not want. Therefore, the voting is declared over and the positional rule will be as it was last year - PLAYERS ARE RESTRICTED TO PLAYING POSITIONS LISTED ON THEIR CARDS.

We'll revisit this issue again in the future, especially if we expand to 24 teams. I apologize to everyone who may have made trading or drafting plans based on this possible change.

I do not vouch for the authenticity of the following article, submitted by Bettendorf Druids Owner Mark Feeney:

A year after hiring George Allen Jr. and his "the-future-is-now" philosophy as his general manager, Bettendorf Druids owner Zarim Abdul-Aziz has fired the former Virginia governor and named himself as general manager.

"Nobody seems to be getting Paul (Druids Coach Paul Westhead) the kind of players he wants, so I guess I'll have to do it myself," Abdul-Aziz said in announcing the firing. "It's time to clean house."

Gone from last year's squad are Toni Kukoc, Gary Trent, Rex Chapman and Darrick Martin.

Chapman is the latest to go -- he was sent to the Miles Bulldogs Saturday for the Bulldogs' second-round draft pick.

Scottie Pippen did not even get a chance to put on a Druids uniform. The former SABL all-star, acquired in the Allen era for the Druids first-round pick in 2000, was sent to the Galactic Thunder along with the Druids second-round pick in 1999 for Greg Anthony, Tony Delk and three picks in this year's draft.

The Chapman trade now gives the Druids nine picks in the first three rounds of the SABL draft -- three choices in the first round, four in the second and two in the third. With 13 players still on the roster, Abdul-Aziz is going to have to make some tough decisions.

"Well, Benoit (Benjamin), Terry (Mills) and Ty (Edney) already have said they won't be back," he said. "And I doubt Sam Perkins will return. That makes it a little easier."

Veterans like guards James Robinson, Erick Strickland and Fred Hoiberg, swingmen Johnny Newman and Ron Harper and frontcourt players Walter McCarty and Tyrone Corbin also know they could be gone in an instant for the right deal.

"I think the other owners around the league realize by now they have a buyers' market when they come to talk with us about players," Abdul-Aziz said. "I'll be honest. We haven't been winning much with these guys -- and that includes the newcomers (Delk, Anthony and Corbin). It's time to see what we can get for them."

All five men who played center for the Druids last year will not return, unless the club surprises everyone and re-signs Perkins.

"I'm not worried about that," Abdul-Aziz said. "Even if we don't draft a true center, it looks like the rules are going to be changed so that there are no position restrictions. We'll just make someone into a center."

The SABL is one of most liberal strat leagues you could ever find. We have freewheeling drafting, trading and coaching. You're allowed to be the best coach you can be.

Besides being fair and playing the games honestly, there's only one other thing I really ask of everyone - being on time with instructions and results. We devise a schedule every year that lets you play your games a month ahead of time, if you want to. There's no reason, short of a family or personal emergency, to get behind.

So, please be on time or I will assess penalty points, I'll authorize autoplaying of your team and you could end up falling down in the draft order, or even expelled from the SABL. More than any other factor, lateness kills play-by-mail leagues. Please stay on or ahead of the schedule that will be on the league disk I'll be sending you after the draft.

Check the official rosters on our website and make sure I have your roster cuts by the Sept. 20 deadline!

Right now, the tally is 9 for, 7 against and 1 don't care. Please email me or phone me ASAP about this. The majority will rule!

Beginning this season, coaches can now play their players anywhere they want to, regardless of what it says on the player cards. That means you could play Herb Williams at point guard and Mugsy Bogues at center, if you want to. You'd get slaughtered, but you can do it if you want to.

The only real reason we've never done this is because up until last year, we still had dice players in the league. The dice game will not function unless you keep players in the positions they have on their cards. The computer game does not have this restriction, so our SABL abolition is now ended.

Hmmm . . . I wonder how Shaq would look at the point . . . he makes his fast break shots . . .

Actually, I won't have the opportunity to find out, yet. I believe this rule change will benefit everyone in the league, but I don't want anyone to think I'm changing this rule to benefit myself. So for this season, my team, the St. Lucie Aces, WILL NOT be able to play any of its players out of position. Shaq will have to wait until next year to play the point.

Additionally, let me know how you feel about this new rule. If a majority of coaches tell me they do not want it, it will be repealed and we'll go back to our old positional rule.

Final 1999 Draft Order: 1. Great Lakes 2. Holcomb 3. Philly 4. Chapel Hill 5. Tulsa 6. East Asia 7. Bettendorf 8. Meade 9. Davenport 10. Tri-City 11. Garden City 12. Akron 13. Carolina 14. Galactic 15. Deerfield 16. Miles 17. Richmond 18. Brooklyn 19. Finney 20. St. Lucie