I haven't played all that many leagues, but it seems like open leagues feature the same group of owners (mostly H of Fers with 100,000 or so games played) over and over...and over again. Are there like, 50 active owners all together, or what?

You are correct. Seems like number of folks playing game continues to fall. Much has been written over the last couple of years about the lack of attention the SIM or game has received from the program guys and Fox Sports.

To me the downfall really began when they restructured the salary system a few years ago. Led to an open league situation where everyone must utilize and count on variable, worthless, computer generated rookies. That is the last major change I can remember, but I'm somewhat of a novice compared to some owners.

Fox also doesn't promote the game much at all. Things will pick up some once basketball season begins, but I have never seen it take so long for both open and theme leagues to fill. Sad situation.

I've been around a long time, and remember "the good old days" when leagues (both open and theme) filled in days instead of months.  There were literally probably at least 4 or 5 times the owners then as now.  The game was never "perfect" (nor can it ever be), but as long as WIS was making changes and paying attention, it kept everyone interested and fairly happy.  Unfortunately, 5 or 6 years ago WIS just threw up it's hands and said scr*w the NBA SIM: we're doing player additions for every new season but not spending another minute on it.  WIS' lack of attention to their product, combined with staleness of that product has led owner after owner after owner to leave the site.  Pretty sad state for such a good product.  Haven't found an alternative that's better, so I'm still here. 

That was my next question: are there any other online basketball games like this out there?

The beginning of the end for the NBA sim was when they changed the salary structure for force you to build "real" teams instead of "What-if" teams of great players.

They used to have an example team listed in their intro screen that you could not build after they changed the salaries.

It was both funny and sad.

Posted by ncih on 9/11/2014 11:24:00 PM (view original):
The beginning of the end for the NBA sim was when they changed the salary structure for force you to build "real" teams instead of "What-if" teams of great players.

They used to have an example team listed in their intro screen that you could not build after they changed the salaries.

It was both funny and sad.

I used to put 87 Jordan and 62 Wilt on the same team together with some decent players but with the new salary structure I can't do that anymore. 

I don't think the current salary structure is the issue.  You can build an OL team with 5 all-star caliber starters.  I think the problem has more to do with no significant updates in the last few years.

utter indifference

or as the Dairy Man said: "Udder Indifference"

get it? Udder Indifference?

Some of us can no longer laugh at WIS' incompetence.

We could just count off. I don't think it would take very long.

Posted by ncmusician_7 on 9/13/2014 12:39:00 PM (view original):
I don't think the current salary structure is the issue.  You can build an OL team with 5 all-star caliber starters.  I think the problem has more to do with no significant updates in the last few years.

I agree that is the current problem.

What I mentioned above happened a long, long time ago.

Sim leagues filled in a couple of days. 

There were great league ideas and lots of owners.

I remember during the last big update (so like 2009 or 2010) someone (probably seble, back when he still gave a damn about us) posted a file with a tentative list of player salaries. It was... well, if I remember correctly, there were only 3 player seasons above 10 million: 61-62 and 62-63 Chamberlain, and 88-89 Jordan. Imagine how easy it would be to build with that structure.

I don't think this is the main problem with why so few people play, but it merits consideration: Many of the current owners happen to be very good at building teams. I'm only talking about OLs, for obvious reasons. So... a new owner comes in and builds an OL team with his faves. He happens to play in a league with guys like gmgreen, ethorne, benhoidal, etc., and wins around 10 games. This is discouraging to him, and decides that spending time learning how to play this game is stupid, and that it isn't worth his time/money, and quits. There's nothing we can really do about this. There's nothing admin can really do about this. It's just how it is.

Has anyone noticed that the last posting under critical news was made on 8/17/2011?