Making SLN Great Again - Ideas for Improvement

[mantypas/CavsCzar]

First off - this has nothing to do with the Sim God. He's doing a great job. Now give me some good juju!

OK - time to be more serious. I’ve talked to a few folks and I feel it myself. The current culture and community of this league can be improved upon. In the end, this league that we all spend (probably) too much time on is just a hobby, where many of us like-minded people across the country have come together to enjoy it. That being said, there are a few things which occur that I feel takes some joy away from the game and can make things more stressful. Therefore, I have taken it upon myself to try to point out things that could be perceived as problems, and offer up solutions. Please note – this is not a dig at anyone in particular and in no way am I trying to call individual folks out for being exhibiting in some of the below. I do so myself, and will actively call that out when I note the below. In the end, the below are just my opinions that will hopefully create an open dialogue.

We are all nerds who love virtual basketball, I’d like to keep it that way while fostering a fun and loving community. I have a lot of ideas written and more that aren’t. My plan was to just lay out what I thought were kinda important and decided to tier them from most problematic to least problematic. I really hope the below doesn’t come off as Karen-ish, but actually creates a dialogue on how we can make this a league for us all to enjoy even more then we do.

Tier 1 - The Biggest Problems which I think can be easily resolved.

Problem 1 – Shitting on GMs, trades, other team’s players publicly on the boards, etc.

The worst tastes in my mouth as an active GM has been when someone openly shit on a trade I did. In the end was it a good trade, eh maybe not the best, but I don’t really think anyone should be made to feel dumb by anyone else in the league. I’ve seen plenty of it on completed trades, heard people calling folks out on podcasts, infamous grading articles, etc. I actually have no issue with grading articles, as long as GMs aren’t being actively shit on and made to feel dumb. I understand there are some really experienced GM’s that may see this as a way to teach less experienced folks on value, but I think in the end of the day, it can get toxic and make folks feel bad, especially if its coming from an online stranger (more to come on this one). If a stranger showed up to your place of work and said you are doing a bad job, I don't think you'd be very happy.

Solution – Just don’t shit on folks publicly
Seems like a pretty simple solution here. I think if you want to give like constructive criticism to a new GM or inexperienced GM – feel free to do so in the DMs or have a conversation on why someone thought it was a good idea and build off that. Believe me, I like learning from my mistakes as much as the next person. It really is the best way to learn. But to be publicly shamed for anything in a virtual basketball league seems cruel, even if its among friends. Again, most of us don’t know each other nor do we know who knows each other. In an online setting like that, things can be construed as the reader reads it. Being nice goes a long way. And if you want to shit on your friends, do so via text or something.

Problem 2 – Cliques and not really knowing other GMs
We all got in this league as a friend of one of the main guys. Lots of us are referred to as under a certain tree. That being said, there are clear cliques we have, where folks tend to treat those they know personally better than the rest of the folk in our league. I mean it makes sense right, you’d be friendly with the folks you know and your real life friends as opposed to internet strangers. But being in this league makes us all some sort of weird rag tag virtual family that competes against each other. Competition can bring out bad, but I still feel like when friends go at it, they can come out as friends. When strangers go at it, it can lead to bad shit. And as I mentioned above, if you don’t know a person, it may be difficult to see their humor if its meant for that across a screen. Many people can read the same statement and take away a different message.

Solution – Let’s get to know each other personally
This is one of the things I’ve thought of for a while. I’d really like to get to know everyone in this group. Where are people from? What do they do for work? What other sports do they actively follow? What other time consuming hobbies do they have? What’s their family like? Any fun facts that we could bond over? Maybe we could have another offseason questionnaire that is just personal questions like this. Maybe we could do like 6x6s where its just answering simple questions like the above. I don’t care how its done, but I think that would foster a better community if we actually knew the folks in the community.

A criticism to this approach would be, do I really want everyone here to know my personal life? Well, I don’t think I’m asking for your social security number, I just want to know if I’d like to hang out with you. It’s really nice hearing the small personal things when they come up in the in podcasts. For example, I had no idea Ralph was an incredible cook until I listened to a podcast where he talked about some Italian stuff he was making. That was cool AF! Also, once I found out Heimer, Merv, and Ashes also played Overwatch, I got pretty happy and was able to connect with them online and pwn some n00bs together. It was really fun and I feel like I could just chat about regular bs with them. You never know where connections like that will come out of, but you will never know if you don’t try. I think that’s what I want most out of this league. Yes, winning would be super awesome, but fostering real friendship out of online strangers is really cool too!

Tier 2 - Things that I think are generally annoying – may or may not be a great solution

Problem 3 – Active Traders hitting folks up non-stop via text

We can all admit, some folks think about SLN more than others. And many times, those folks are very active with coming up with trade ideas. I have no problem with that! In fact, I certainly spend way too much time thinking about ways to improve my team (many times unsuccessfully)! Folks can spend as much time thinking about trades as they want. The one thing that I think is annoying is when I’m getting random text messages constantly about trade ideas and folks wanting something from my team. This is a hobby, not a profession, and personally, I just don’t want to be texted about something I’m not actively thinking about. I get distracted very easily, so this could just be a me problem, but I think it’s important enough to address it here.
I do enjoy this league, and probably think too much about it, but I don’t want random ideas going straight to my phone when I’m at work, with family, with friends, doing things. That being said, anyone that has texted me in this group, know I love you all, don’t think this is a dig. I get its faster and less clunky then operating thru the boards. But I know I can’t be the only ADHD guy that sees phone flashing and gets immediately curious and drops life things.

Solution – Let’s keep trade talks on the boards… EXCEPT
Except when someone put up a block, or during trade conversations says – here is my number reach out there instead. Again, this is a hobby, let’s keep it a hobby and try to keep it out of everyone’s personal life aka cellphones.

Solution 2- Preferred Communications per GM
I’m sure plenty of folks don’t mind getting texted by other GM’s whenever. I might just be a big softie. In this case, we could create a preferred communications list for each GM on how they want to be contacted about potential trades.

Problem 4 – Public Complaining on the Boards
There could be a big injury, there could be a close loss, there could be a mis-entered DC, there could be just something you don’t agree with. There could be tough luck, there could be anything that could cause a complaint. We all do it, I have done it very recently and honestly, not too proud of it. I think public complaints are generally fine, but it can be annoying to read thru when other folks are putting good vibes out there. I also hope this entire article is not seen as a large complaint. I am just trying to call things out and offer solutions.

Solution – Everyone gets to complain – but everyone has the same limit.
This is probably a silly solution, because everyone likes to complain but my idea is that everyone gets a set number of complaints per season. Maybe its 5 (way to low), maybe its 10 (maybe still too low), maybe its more. I am not sure what the basis for that number would be, but again we are just spit-balling here. But that would at least set a limit for the number of public complaints folks read. Maybe we can even create a job, the complaint tracker, to help track number of complaints. Folks that go over the limit lose a certain amount of RP per complaint over. 500 RP for the job, who wants it?

Tier 3 – Some people don’t like this thing – some people do – it is a staple to the league - creative solution time to lead to another article

Problem 5 – the GMOTY award

It’s a cool award, but there are several problems with it. First, who is up for the award seems to change every year. Is it every team that makes the playoffs? Is it top 6 seeds in the playoffs? Do tankers that made good value trades make the list? Additionally, everyone kind of has their own criteria which seems to change each year. Either it’s a really big trade, or a huge win loss turnaround, a combination of the two, or just exceeding expectations by a lot. Finally, if its down to two really good cases, it gets a little political and can lead to folks just voting for the person they like more out of the two or three folks that might win it. It’s a huge award with the big reward of 1,500 RP and the chance to add or take out a year of a contract. Pretty huge!

Solution – Create a new ESPYs style award – make it an award show
Will come up with an article with all of the different awards eligible

These are just ideas I had, not an official proposal, more of a conversation starter. I am also prefacing all of this by saying nothing is perfect, and no one is perfect. I don't think I am asking for either here and recognize I can always be better too. I also don't really know if these are personal gripes I might have or if other people agree. IDK I'm putting myself out there as King Jesse once said on a trade block.

I’d love to keep a dialogue open in the comments if anyone has any thoughts on the above, agreements or disagreements. Additionally, if anyone else has any other problems they see with the current league/community with or without suggested solutions, would love to hear it. Really wrote this for the engagement and to make everyone think. Again, really hope I didn’t sound like a whiny Karen here. At the end of the day, its all love from me baby! Happy to be here, even though I really want to get passed the fricking conference semi finals one day - I stay patient. Stay golden everyone!

[SoNicks]

One shoulder has the Kamala devil whispering “do not post, do not post” The other has the Trump devil shouting “I’m gonna post”



For the uninitiated

[Clinton]

Lets just start a forum where we can just let all the bad vibes out lolol

[Concepts of a Plan]

Preferred communication list makes a lot of sense to me. I know Manty doesn’t want me begging for Nerlens Noel on his cell everyday, so I’ll start sliding in them DMzzzzzz.

GMOTY, heavily in favor on an espys type thing. It’s a better way of spreading love when people do things in different way and would’ve been a fun way to reward someone like Heimer and Ralph who just had good ass teams with continuity vs making a bunch of moves in a year.

Regarding negativity, the For Love of the Game clause should take precedence here. The visceral reactions to trades in particular and the desire to immediately brand a winner and loser has totally jacked up the trade market in my opinion. Some people would rather offer trash and never have a real conversation about certain players than risk looking like they got cooked in a trade. Especially when the irony is that we don’t know who really comes out ahead for multiple seasons. If two parties feel the value is good and there’s no collusion, me calling jwoo an idiot and saying he overpaid for LeBron does no one any good. (I use this example because I love Woo and also, I don’t think it was an overpay)

For complaints, it’s hard to police like Manty proposed, but a swear jar could be fun. 10 RP per bitch.

I’m personally interested to see what everyone thinks on some of these topics. Particularly the lurker type folks

[SoNicks]

“Im gonna post” * rips da penjamin*

Problem 1

“For the love of the game”

What if I love to debate about fair market value and share my opinions? Banter isn’t and shouldn’t be just all positivity and uplifting. Thats not how anything social on planet earth works realistically speaking. Where there is passion there is discourse. The very nature of this endeavor is competition, which inherently is about being better than the guy across the table from you. debating is a great thing, it makes us think in other ways and challenge ourselves and our own beliefs. Pressure makes diamonds. Calluses make us more durable. Experience and learning and improvement is how we master our trade, pun intended.

Constructive criticism and other peoples opinions can only create bad vibes if you make them into a negative. It’s up to you to stop forest fires look at it from a positive stand point and take something positive out of it. We’re men and we should be able to articulate and handle both ends of the spectrum of commentary. There is a difference between blasting a guy for being an idiot and disagreeing with the valuation of a trade. If people are rudely blasting you then @Me, I’ll B- them into the shadow realm. I’ll fuckin argue the merits of having ice maker in an igloo with an Inuit.

From an analytical PoV, public comments containing criticism will help gms better gauge fair market value for themselves and as well as other specific GMs their particular trade valuation. useful intel in playing the “trading” side of the game theory of BBL. If GMs are dicks or you just plain don’t want to hear it then just post that or message them. “I don’t wanna hear it I’ll meme shame you if you do”or “ no constructive criticism zone, let me die of my own volition if you are a non believer” Every one in the league can and will respect that.

Problem 2
The O6 Cabal is real!!! They are out to get us. They feed on their superiority over us and must dominate us at all times!!! We must fillabuster them! They are the deep state of BBL! Sell Puts on they assess!

/s don’t at me

I’m down to make friends and foster bonds as much as the next grunt in the trench. It’s a busy life we find ourselves in so anything time intensive or forced will inevitably come off disingenuous. For me personally, I think very few members of the league are gonna look at my nonsense and energy and think “yah fuck it imma reach out and be homies with that guy, should be fun”. Now I do color myself a ‘fun guy’ and an even better friend to those who get to know me well enough, but i don’t wanna require people to get to know me or read about me, my self esteem can’t take the fakeness some will unintentionally bring. I get enough of that during the holidays NGL.

Fostering friendships takes time and the uncomfortablility of reaching out and reciprocating. If you got a specific hobby you wanna see if others are interested in, maybe post about it in the off-topic and have the confidence to reply to others extending the hand of invitation in their off topic posts

But the reality is there really is no tried and true way to easily foster the bonds of men from different walks of life without mutual experiences in the flesh.

SOOO if we wanna get real about that let’s plan a massive SLN retreat in the distant future and book a massive really nice Airbnb mansion estate compound somewhere on a beach or golf course. Set up the triennial SLN meet up. I’d go.

A personal questionnaire could be fun for RP if the questions are of the right kind opposed to a census. Or just start your pods with some banter and round table talk and then get on to the main show. Make it 250 RP if it’s just the brass tax and 350RP if the people chat about irl stuff to start.

Problem 3
No contrarian take, I’m a menace. Open invitation here, if you want me to only message you trade talk on the boards and keep the texting for personal talk, I will not be offended in the slightest. Just text me the emoji of a shoe, I’ll get the message!

I have no clear filter or ability to delineate when the line is crossed in the incessant meme-ing and trade spamming. I can easily binge trade spam on the boards instead.
I have literally been told “I thought this was a sim basketball league, not a sim texting league” lmao. shit had me listening to Tom Petty Vinyl for a week, if you know what I mean .

I concur Dr solid take.

Problem 4
Maybe people just need a huge! I don’t mind people venting their frustrations, we’re only human after all. We’re literally electrified meat, what did you expect? I also don’t mind Jordo Memeing them with reminders that they aren’t special and are in fact one of us as a result too

Problem 5
Gmoy is trash. It’s like Highschool prom and I’m watching Kipke win that fucking thing FOUR STRAIGHT YEARS. I’m fucking handsome and can sing and study and break down football Christian prayer huddles even though I Jewish too! Literally wtf!!!
(Jk he probably only won 3, one year was A curveball year who we voted for and it ended up with the staff publicly shaming everyone cuz the girl wasn’t “pretty enough” to be prom queen so it “clearly” had to be a joke and ripped the honor from her, resulting in her leaving the school)

I digress. I too think GMOY is poop and over powered in its rewards. WGMOY and my optional punishments are goated. Change my mind that a video of a Gm power eating 7 packets of mini powdered donuts without any liquids wouldn’t make us feel closer to our fellow Gm damnit (btw quicker they complete equals more RP)!

[Skillz]

-Maybe this is unpopular but I think shit talk is fun and if you aren’t getting personal or being a dick, less engagement on deals is not always better. I want to feel free to rip jwoo for overpaying for Lebron bc the man normally wins every deal!

-My suggestion to everyone is to make more trades, don’t worry too much about what others think about those moves, have thicker skin, and ratchet up the funny memes !

-We should all do a meet up this spring or summer so those who don’t already know each other can HANG. Everyone here is cool!!!!

-don’t mind texting people for deals - it’s efficient! - but treat trade talks like you are courting a lady. Don’t be the n00b who double and triple texts (I violate this all the time so I sorry)

-I like Merv’s “bitch jar” / swear jar idea a ton lol

[SoNicks]

)

-I like Merv’s “bitch jar” / swear jar idea a ton lol

[Skillz]

As Lavar would say, don’t get too soft on me!

[Joe]

Definitely love the idea of revamping GMOTY (I tried to get us to all align on the guidelines in like 2004 and sent a survey and everything to get consensus and even then we couldn't agree). ESPYs could be very fun! Also down for meetups, would be cool to do another NYC thing like we did a year ago, I've been very unavailable for the last few so prob on me.

Agree with everything Jesse said (and I think some of the stuff Nick said). The point of hosting this thing on message boards and having everything posted publicly is that you get to share your thoughts! Personal attacks are never OK, but what could we ever talk about on pods if we can't evaluate trades and teams in a respectful way? Key word is respectful, we do this thing for fun - but I would posit that part of the fun is pretending to be a real GM who does real analysis of other GMs' decisions and part of the fun is friendly shit talk!

A couple thoughts on texting, because I think this is an important bit (TL;DR is that respectful communication habits are a two-way street):

I think we want to encourage more communication between GMs instead of less, and more trades instead of fewer. With regard to texting vs. DMs, the DM feature on the new boards is the only thing about it that's worse than the old boards, super clunky. The IM feature is pretty good but I get like no responses on that because the person needs to be online at that moment.

Anyone has the right to say they don't want to be contacted in a certain way, so if someone has a serious aversion to texting, they can certainly let that be known and it should be respected. But outside of that, I think that texting is by far the most efficient way to get stuff done and I wouldn't want GMs to feel like they have to wait for people to respond on PMs like it's an email. PMs is how our old league worked (among all the guys we didn't know) and people ended up taking days to respond to things and it made it impossible to get anything done. Try getting a pick swap done while you're on the clock via PM! No chance.

Like Jesse said, double or triple texting is bad (and I am def an offender), no question. I will also say that the primary reason I've done that (still no excuse!) is a deal is time-sensitive, like the trade deadline approaching, or it's the key to executing another dependent deal, and the recipient who had previously expressed interest in such a deal just ghosts for days at a time like they were hit by a bus. I think the communication courtesy is a two-way street: no double texting, but if you're not interested or don't have the time, it feels pretty easy to reply with a clear "hey man, not interested" or "sorry I'm busy, I'm out on this offer and I don't have time to negotiate" and then the inquiring GM can just move on (and should not try to force it - this is part of the two-way street too). Or, if you've got an insane week at work and really don't want to be bothered, just drop a text in the league GC and say "I'm super busy this week, please don't text me til next Thursday." Nobody is expecting everyone to text back at a moments notice on any given day, a few hours later when I finish whatever I'm doing feels reasonable. That's the same way I handle literally every other text I get - feels like SLN stuff should be treated pretty much the same?

[Skillz]

Everyone should be like hoff

We laugh at some of his trades but the man doesn’t care, keeps swimming, wins titles and has a great attitude!