The League

This is the ultimate GM challenge. What would you do in a given situation? This league is designed to give you all of the tools the NBA teams have at their disposal to build your NBA team. Everything in this will work just like it does in the NBA. From regular season basketball, to the playoffs, to the draft lottery and the draft, and finally wrapping up with free agency. If it’s in the NBA, it’s in our league. In the inaugural draft we will select players from all the NBA teams, as well as the upper tier talent in Europe (over 20). Each team in addition to its 15 man roster, will also select its head coach. All players that are selected will come with their current NBA or European salaries. Those salaries can be found at these sites.

http://www.storytellerscontracts.info/resources/08-09salaries.htm

http://www.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=827725

To avoid confusion in free agency, when a player has a chance to become a free agent (the opt out clause), we will automatically assume that he does. I will post all available players and their contracts within a week of getting all 30 teams filled.

Please, before you sign up, make sure to read the entirety of this post, as it is all important to know if you'd like to participate in this league. Also, as has been the case with leagues I've run in the past, there will be more people that would like to participate than there are spots in the league. If I'm familiar with you on this board, I'll be able to sign you up immediately, but if I'm not familiar with you and you also don't have a substantial number of posts, I won't be able to add you until the end of sign ups (January 15th). Please post your S/N and the team you'd like to run in your first post here.

The 2009 Schedule

1. The Inaugural Draft (8 Round Draft) - Late January
2. Trade Period - February
3. Regular Season Polls - March-April
   
4. NBA Draft Lottery - May 19th
   
5. Playoff Polls - May-June
   
6. NBA Draft - Late June
   
7. Free Agent Period - July-August
8. 2010 Season Begins

The Inaugural Draft (Late January)
The draft will consist of 8 rounds in a rotisserie-style order. The first round will be 1 player per pick, followed by seven rounds of 2 players per pick. This will make for a total of 16 picks (15 players, 1 coach). With those picks you must remain under the 65 million dollar salary cap for year 1 (It's 65 million because a lot of teams are over the cap and the average NBA salary is 70 Million. The 2009 season will also be 65 million. After that, the cap will go up by 3-5 million dollars per season) There are no trades before or during the Inaugural Draft.

Trade Period (The first week after the Inaugural Draft)
In the first year there won’t be much time to trade because of how quickly we’ll be making our way into the playoffs. But there will be a week long period after the Inaugural Draft for everyone to trade. In future seasons, the trade deadline will be the actual NBA trade deadline, and we’ll adhere to their timetable. Trades must be approved by a trade committee (3/5 members must approve). All trades must comply with all salary cap rules and regulations. Teams thought to be cheating will be docked picks, or tossed from the league entirely.

2009 Regular Season (1 Week Long Poll Per Division - 5 Divisions, March-April)
The regular season will consist of polls taken at various times during the year. Each division will have a poll (4 times per year), and the teams will then be ordered based on their cumulative scores. The top 16 teams will advance to the playoffs with their seeds being based upon those scores. In year 1, it will be determined based on a single poll because of the shortened season.

2009 Playoffs (1 Week Long Poll Per Matchup, May-June)
After teams are seeded based on their scores, they will begin the playoff run. Note that the playoffs will no longer be divided into a Western and Eastern bracket, but one 16 team pool of the best teams in the league. The playoffs will then run 1 Vs 16, 8 Vs 9 etc, until the ultimate champion is crowned for that season.

2009 Draft Lottery (May 19th)
Again, this will work just like the real-life NBA Draft Lottery. All the teams that did not qualify for the playoffs will be put in the lottery based on their cumulative scores, and based on the results of the actual lottery we’ll have our results as well (If the worst team gets the first pick in real life, the worst team will get the first pick in our draft as well… etc). Here is a helpful look at typical percentages for the Draft Lottery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Lottery

2009 NBA Draft (Late June)
Each team based on the results of the draft lottery will be spotted in the first round, while the second round will be based solely on the regular season cumulative scores of the polls (best drafts last). Each player that is drafted will be given the salary that is associated with the draft position they're selected at . All 2nd round draft picks will be given one or two year deals depending on the GM’s decision.

2009 Free Agency (July-August)
Free Agency will work much the same as it does in the NBA with a couple minor rule changes for our convenience. First off, every player that has an option for more years has decided to decline that option. This will help us kick free agency off with a bang, and it will make it a lot easier on us as drafters, by taking all the guesswork out of each player’s contract. The salary cap for year one will be 65 million dollars. Multiple teams may offer players contracts, and even max contracts, but the team furthest under the salary cap is the team that player will decide to join (if multiple teams bid the same amount). Teams can only pull rank (salary cap rank) on one player per week in free agency. This means that if a team is below the salary cap by multiple max contracts it will only be allowed to pull their (furthest below the salary cap) card for their most desired free agent. Free agency will work during real time as a bidding system. After a bid has been on the table for 48 hours it will become final, and the winning team will sign that player to a contract. Teams that are at or over the cap (it will be hard to get over the cap in our league) will be allowed the mid-level exception. That means essentially, they’ll have 6 million dollars to work with in free agency, regardless of their cap situation. Each team will be allowed to sign one player to a 4 year deal, one player to a 3 year deal, one player to a 2 year deal, and the rest to 1 year deals (later years are usually player options anyway).

Expansion (hopefully soon)
The second that David Stern (or whomever the new commish is) announces that there will be an expansion team, we’ll add them to our league. I’m hoping Seattle and possibly a couple European teams are added to the league in the near future.

Rosters (15 Man + Coach)
Rosters will consist of 5 starters, 7 bench players, 3 extra roster spots and a head coach. Head coaches will be given contracts based on draft position. (1st 6 – 5 years, 2nd 6 – 4 years, 3rd 6 – 3 years, 4th 6 – 2 years, and final 6 - 1 year.) When it comes time to hire coaches, the team with the most cap room will pick first, and it will go in order from there. Teams aren’t allowed to fire their coach until after the season is over. Teams with expiring coaches contracts pick before the teams with fired coaches pick. Available coaches include all College, NBA and European coaches that have coached a team in the last 2 years.

Team (General Manager)

Pacific Division

Portland Blazers (as11osu)
Los Angeles Clippers
Sacramento Kings
Los Angeles Lakers (Sabonis4Ever)
Phoenix Suns
Golden State Warriors

Southwest Division

Utah Jazz
Dallas Mavericks
Denver Nuggets
Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs
Oklahoma City Thunder

Southeast Division

Charlotte Bobcats
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
Miami Heat
New Oreleans Hornets
Orlando Magic

Central Division

Milwaukee Bucks
Chicago Bulls
Indiana Pacers
Detroit Pistons
Minnesota Timberwolves
Cleveland Cavaliers

Atlantic Division

Philadelphia 76ers 
Boston Celtics
New York Knicks
Brooklyn Nets
Toronto Raptors
Washington Wizards