My wheels aren't exactly falling off as we head down the stretch, but they seem to be getting pretty loose.

I added a dynamic scoring tab to the public spreadsheet (obviously scores are a WIP with games still to be played). It should auto tabulate as playoff games are played and championships are won.

Shout outs:
1) Hell of a regular season by ash. Such a big lead that someone is going to need an immense amount of things to go their way to surpass him. ashamael winning that many games while being the third worst shooting just shows off some pretty imaginative team building.
2) kinoa1 ended up in the three hardest divisions and all five of his divisions were in the top seven hardest divisions. To get that many wins with that schedule is nothing short of remarkable. 24kpyrite also had 4 of his divisions in the 5 hardest.
3) Almost every single owner got at least one team in the playoffs. Super cool.
4) Ben basically broke expected wins with all the shenanigans he pulled this season. Very impressed with the win manufacturing he did.
5) For what I think is a Savage first, pexetera did not finish with the top combined CREB%. He actually had three coaches finish ahead of him this time (ashamael, amerk and notoriousj).
6) beloud with a very impressive debut.
7) jkaye24 had TWO 60 win teams.
8) dh555 ALMOST held opponents to under 50% efg!

Thanks for the shoutout. I put quite a bit of effort into this thing this time around. Here's another mind-blowing thing to think about: I have the lowest tov% of everyone... and I have James Harden.

What?

In spite of finishing almost 50 games below .500, I managed to get 3 teams in the playoffs.

I flutter between moderate pride and crippling embarrassment.

Posted by 20ks on 5/14/2021 7:11:00 PM (view original):
In spite of finishing almost 50 games below .500, I managed to get 3 teams in the playoffs.

I flutter between moderate pride and crippling embarrassment.

I noticed that too. Quite a feat.

Wait ... there's a 20 point bonus for 5 playoff teams? That wasn't there in season 1. When was that added?

Ugh ... just saw it in the description from season 2.

Don't agree with that one. I understand rewarding putting together 5 solid teams, but It penalizes owners with difficult schedules/division placements, which is entirely luck of the draw. My weak team got placed in the toughest conference and is out. Had it been placed one conference over, I'd have 5 teams in the playoffs and might have a chance. It's hard enough swimming upstream with the most difficult schedule to then lose out on that bonus.

But anyway it is what it is. Sometimes you eat the bear, and sometimes the bear eats you.

It was a strategy thing and voted on before season 2 ... do you stack a few teams and try to win a championship or two or do you spread it out evenly and risk what you said? Historically, getting 5 in has happened very few times and is arguably the harder path to take. I came a buzzer beater by a non playoff team over the eventual champ in the last game of the season from having it last time, and it made a huge difference in my final score (I would have been #3 going into the playoffs had that happened; I finished 13th).

I built my squad to try and accomplish that goal again, and got some hell divisions (two of them with you!) and some in some of the easier divisions.

I think more owners made all five in during this savage than the entire history of the tournament.

Posted by ashamael on 5/14/2021 10:22:00 PM (view original):
It was a strategy thing and voted on before season 2 ... do you stack a few teams and try to win a championship or two or do you spread it out evenly and risk what you said? Historically, getting 5 in has happened very few times and is arguably the harder path to take. I came a buzzer beater by a non playoff team over the eventual champ in the last game of the season from having it last time, and it made a huge difference in my final score (I would have been #3 going into the playoffs had that happened; I finished 13th).

I built my squad to try and accomplish that goal again, and got some hell divisions (two of them with you!) and some in some of the easier divisions.

I think more owners made all five in during this savage than the entire history of the tournament.

There were 4 teams to do it in season one, 2 in season two, 1 in season three and 3 in season four.

To get the title, you need to basically finish the regular season in the top five and get 80 or more points in the post season depending on where you finish. So either all 5 and a 'ship, two 'ships or some miraculous **** to happen. In season one, the winner had all five and two 'ships, in season two the winner had all five and one 'ship, in season three the winner had all five and one 'ship. jkaye24 has the best odds of proving a two 'ship / no all five strategy can win but he might be too far back at the start of the postseason. He needs a couple things to go his way.

mptrey has played two rounds of Savage and never had a team miss the playoffs.

I understand the strategy, but again, no amount of tweaking would have helped me get 5 teams in the playoffs due to the division and conference placement. And one single change in conference draw for just one team could could have created a totally different group of owners getting the bonus. It certainly would have done it for me. That's the issue ... it's a significant amount of points that has as much to do with luck as it does with strategy.

I don't think we kept track of division strength in season 1, so I don't know if I got all 5 in the playoffs due to a weak schedule. But I wasn't rewarded with 20 points either, and had to sweat it out with 2 championships to win it. If I seem perturbed maybe that's why.

Posted by robusk on 5/14/2021 11:15:00 PM (view original):

Posted by ashamael on 5/14/2021 10:22:00 PM (view original):
It was a strategy thing and voted on before season 2 ... do you stack a few teams and try to win a championship or two or do you spread it out evenly and risk what you said? Historically, getting 5 in has happened very few times and is arguably the harder path to take. I came a buzzer beater by a non playoff team over the eventual champ in the last game of the season from having it last time, and it made a huge difference in my final score (I would have been #3 going into the playoffs had that happened; I finished 13th).

I built my squad to try and accomplish that goal again, and got some hell divisions (two of them with you!) and some in some of the easier divisions.

I think more owners made all five in during this savage than the entire history of the tournament.

There were 4 teams to do it in season one, 2 in season two, 1 in season three and 3 in season four.

I stand absolutely corrected!

Posted by kinoa1 on 5/15/2021 12:09:00 AM (view original):
I understand the strategy, but again, no amount of tweaking would have helped me get 5 teams in the playoffs due to the division and conference placement. And one single change in conference draw for just one team could could have created a totally different group of owners getting the bonus. It certainly would have done it for me. That's the issue ... it's a significant amount of points that has as much to do with luck as it does with strategy.

I don't think we kept track of division strength in season 1, so I don't know if I got all 5 in the playoffs due to a weak schedule. But I wasn't rewarded with 20 points either, and had to sweat it out with 2 championships to win it. If I seem perturbed maybe that's why.

It was brought up that getting all five in seemed worthy of a big bonus and voted on. That vote passed with flying colors. Maybe it should be revisited after this run. I'm sure dh is willing to discuss anything.

I mean, I get it. I really do. But my worst team (probably was 2nd worst, honestly) ended up in the 2nd hardest division: World four, Atlantic. I made a late lineup adjustment and managed the four seed with it, but could have just as easily been the 7th seed as of the next to the last cycle of games. I made another lineup adjustment with another team that was unquestionably going in one of my two worst and ended up not only making the playoffs but winning that division. Yeah, that one was a much easier draw, but you cannot argue that I got an easy draw in World four. Hell, the team I thought was going to be my 2nd best ended up in the hardest division and finished third - in the division - there.

We both ended up in the hardest two divisions in all five leagues. Being in the top division has happened to me three straight savages now, so I completely understand **** draws. There is so much about this format that is luck; hell, there's so much about this entire sim that is luck - we're literally trying to game probability - that it's almost like trying to get the planets to align to win something like this. It sucks that you didn't know the scoring update, that you came back to the league after it had been changed and assumed it was the same which robbed you of the opportunity to build your squads differently (would you have?), but some of that's kind of on you.

But yeah, the draws suck. Rob literally ran computer anlysis for hours to try and get the most evenly spread draws possible, but you never know which world an owner is going to stick their worst - or best! - team. Take that & multiply it by 23, and yeah, RNG on RNG on RNG. But we're all playing on that same field. And with all of that said, you're still in fifth entering the playoffs with four [edit: three, sorry, it was four the last time I looked but that must have been awhile ago] squads to potentially earn a ton of points with and an almost supernatural ability to absolutely **** on people in the sim, so just go show us all you're still the Savage King.

I appreciate what you're saying, and I'm not complaining that I didn't know (that's on me), because it wouldn't have mattered due to luck of the draw. I was not just in the 3 toughest divisions, but the 6th and 7th toughest divisions I was placed in were in the same conferences as the 4th and 5th toughest divisions, meaning I was in direct playoff competition with the top SEVEN divisions. That's an almost impossible hill to climb to get the bonus. I still got 4 teams in, but even with knowledge and different tweaking I'm not sure I could have gotten a fifth. I don't think anyone could have.

You did a great job and I appreciate that your weak team made it despite being in the 2nd toughest division, but leaving us out of it, it's still a bonus that rewards weak schedule and division placement, plus the luck of the draw of where owners weakest teams are placed. For that reason, in future leagues, maybe it should be revisited.

(BTW I'm also ****** at how much I got WIS'd this time around, so that has something to do with my being cranky. I was 57-25 in games decided by 20 points or more, but 19-34 in games decided by 3 points or less, and 7-13 in overtime games. That, along with my division placement, is some pretty crap luck. Lol)