Since the regular season in the Jersey Contest ends Tuesday night this seemed like a good time to recap how the playoffs will work. If you think you have even a GHOST of a chance of making it please read this carefully.
WHO WILL MAKE IT:
The top 12 finishers in the current contest will all go on to the playoffs along with the four people who have already won jerseys for a total of 16.
IMPORTANT: WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO
If you end up a Top 12 finisher or are one of the 4 automatic bids you MUST E-MAIL ME BY WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON and let me know you're in. Since every game in the playoffs eliminates the person with the lowest score, missing even one game means you're out. I need you to e-mail me and tell me that you can participate through the end of the NBA regular season (April 18th). If for any reason you can't (vacation, cousin's wedding, whatever) we're going to give your spot to the next highest finisher in the contest since you can't win anyway. That means if you finish 13th or 14th in the regular season there's still a tiny chance you might get in.
The four automatic bids (Devyn, DrDave, DuckBlazer, and Bretski) can just go ahead and e-mail me right now to let me know if you're in.
HOW THE PLAYOFFS WORK:
The prediction format will be the same as always. Each participant will post. They will be scored as usual.
The lowest scorer after each game will be eliminated. Scores do not accumulate from game to game as in the regular contest. Everybody starts at zero each game.
Special Rules:
- I know I said earlier that it makes no difference whether you finish first or twelfth in the regular season, you all get in. That's mostly true but I'm making a small change. It seemed unfair to me that someone who earned a lead which in another month would have assured them of a jersey would get absolutely nothing in this, the biggest contest of the season. So the leader at the end of the regular season will get a bye through the first two games of the playoffs. The second and third place finishers will get byes on the first game. This is a small advantage for having put the good work in but it doesn't unbalance things too much. (The playoffs encompass the last 15 games of the season after all.)
- Some wise schemers will realize that in the single-elimination format playing the game isn't as important as playing the players. You don't have to be the best to survive, just don't be last. Therefore it's an advantage seeing what other people predict and I'd anticipate a whole flock of people wanting to wait until the last minute to post their predictions. To counteract this I am instituting the following bonuses: The first prediction posted in each game will receive an extra 10 points automatically. The second will receive 9 points, the third 8, and so on. These amounts will change as the playoffs progress and the participants become fewer.
- At a certain point, determined by me, I'm going to have participants e-mail their predictions and I'll post them all at once to avoid the situation described above.
- In case of a tie at the bottom both players will get to play the next game and the lower of the two will be eliminated after that game along with the regular elimination of the lowest overall scorer. If one of those two is also the lowest overall scorer in that game then the next lowest overall scorer will also be eliminated.
- There are no 22 point bonus prizes in the playoffs. A perfect (pre-bonus) prediction of 100 will still win a jersey.
And remember...the final prize is even BETTER than the jerseys that have been won so far!
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)