I'm posting this to see if there is any interest in a double-era prog with a spin. Also, since I've never run a prog, any advice from those who have would be cool, or an experienced owner that would like to run it for the 1st season or 2 with me. On to the idea.

I'm kind of bored of seeing rosters that look like, "PG/ SG/ SF/ 9 Cs and PFs." Those rosters couldn't possibly work IRL, and it leaves out lots of great players that aren't as great in SIM. In this league, players can't move down positions (no LeBron/ Wade/ etc at PG), but as long as they're 95%+ can move up to any position (most years LeBron could play SF, PF or C). We shouldn't have to have everyone policing, but we all just need to pay attention in case someone wants to get sneaky. Hopefully everyone that joins wants to abide by the spirit of the league, but there are people that try to see what they can get away with. If anything sketchy comes up, we'll have a committee to go over possible violations. As I see it, 2 instances where someone is clearly gaming the system is more than enough for a ban, but we'll cross that bridge if we get to it.
I think this will encourage more creative team-building. You can still look to make a great rebounding team with the right guys, but not so great that assist-bomb teams or well-rounded teams don't have a shot. I'd like to see someone try something like LeBron at PF for a season, or Magic at SF, or Dirk at C, and still be competitive.
There are other things I've considered, like only being able to trade the next draft's picks or from the next 2 drafts, that I'd put up for vote. I also thought we could take/twist an idea from the URAPP and have each team lose one random player to Free Agency at the start of every off-season, but I don't want it to be a franchise-crushing loss, so there would be a Protected List. When Submitting keepers at the start of the off-season, the owner would say who their 4 Protected guys are. The rest of their players are randomized, top name goes into FA. So, you might lose a 12th-man or maybe a starter, but never one of your top-4 players.
We'd be starting with the 69-70 and 99-00 seasons.

This post is all about seeing the interest-level and getting input. If you have an idea that could make the league better, please post it or SM me. It might take a while, it might be very soon, but I will be starting a prog when it looks like there's enough interest and all of the details are settled on. Also up for ideas: the name. My first thoughts were Small-Ball Progressive or 1Up League (because players can only move up positions), but all name ideas are welcome.
If you think this league could work for you, with or without some changes, post and let me know. The sooner I get responses the sooner we can incorporate ideas and get started.

I’d play

Posted by dBKC on 6/7/2020 3:51:00 PM (view original):
I’d play

Right on. I'd be happy to get you in the league, dBKC. I might lean on you as we get started, just until I'm sure what I'm doing.

To be clear, I'm trying to make this unique. I love the DSPL (and TEPL) and plan on being in those for a long time. But if the only difference between this league and the DSPL is the positional rule, that's too similar to generate excitement. Why create a league just to be an imitation of a great league? That's why I'm open to adding one or two more big changes, while keeping the theme I've posted. If you've had ideas to incorporate into a prog, let me know and we'll see if we can make it work.
Things I'm thinking to put to a vote, or a committee consensus.
1. Salary Cap - $52M or none (I'm leaning none)
2. Trading picks - 1 season in advance or 2
3. Protected list - I figure 3-6 guys, majority will decide
4. Starting seasons - I'm thinking 69-70/ 99-00 to get a good mix of old/recent with no overlap, but maybe 69-70/ 89-90
5. To somewhat lessen the chances of someone gaming the system, do we want roster limitations (2PG, 2 SG, 2 SF, 2 PF, 2 C, 1 flex-PG/SG/SF, 1 flex-SF/PF/C)?
And we can look to incorporate ideas from anyone interested, to a point. I don't want to bog everyone down with too much fine-print. I just want a fun league that's bringing something new, and hopefully enough of you do too.

Apparently only dBKC and I are interested right now, but I'll keep holding out hope.
I wanted to include that I'm thinking over all lotto odds possibilities, and that's another thing to have a league vote or committee decide. Even odds for top 3, or top 4? Bottom 6 in the lotto, bottom 8, or all non-playoff teams? Stuff like that.
I'm not setting all the rules in stone yet because I want the league tailored for enjoyment. Everybody has chances for input. Sometimes things will be league majority, so some people might not get everything exactly as they want, but I'm open to everyone's ideas. At this point, he only thing I'm dead-set on is the no moving guys down positions.
Again, if you have any interest at all in helping to shape and start a new prog, let me know. A post here, or an SM. Ideas or questions, or just a simple, "I'm in" and I'll keep you up to date. Thanks, and everyone take care.

JP

I like the idea but have two major concerns:

1) My team center right now has more teams in leagues in it at this moment in time than I've ever had in the 13+ years I've played here.

2) Owners could do some sneaky stuff with the depth chart / WIS sub-logic is severely flawed and could make it very difficult to police.

But yes, I love the concept.

Hey, Ash. As far as your 2 concerns;
1. Totally understandable. I've been at the point before where I just can't do any more teams. It looks like this league will take a while to get going, so hopefully by then you're able to include one more :)
2. This is the main concern for me as well. I've given it some thought, and I'm sure that with a few guys working together we could find a way to curb the problem as much as we can. As far as sneaky owners, hopefully everyone that joins is getting in because they want to play in the spirit of the league. If a pattern is noticed from a particular player over the course of a season, I believe we can contact admin about vacating wins, correct? If so, the owner vacates enough wins to take them out of the playoffs, and their next 1st (that they still own) will be placed according to their record before wins were vacated, no better than #13, and they're barred from trading the pick.
This is an extreme punishment, but everyone joining will be aware of what the league premise is. By having such an extreme punishment it should keep out people who are just looking to take advantage of a league system. I don't want to throw down such a toll without considering everything, so there will be a committee that will look at the facts. And, yes, there are some people in WiS that have a reputation. The committee will look at all evidence, but if you've been known to do some shady stuff that will be a small factor in the decision. I want the league to be fun, and in my experience it sucks enjoyment for out for everyone when someone clearly pulls some bs. If you do something against the spirit of the league and jeopardize everybody else's fun, and the $ they paid to play, you deserve to pay a toll. The exact punishment can be changed, what I laid is my initial thought.

I think this is an interesting concept that seems to be aimed at more realistic lineups. When you say can't move down, you mean from whatever is listed on their card as their position, right? I'd almost prefer forcing people to play them at the position on the card...with short keeper lists of 3-6, finding players to fill in around them should be easier than it would normally be and most players don't change main positions often.

Simmy can do some strange things with lineups at times...especially in times of foul troubles or clearing the bench. How will you account for players playing where they shouldn't by rule if/when that happens?

Hey, Slash.
1. Yeah, whatever position WiS has that particular season for that player as. So, some players will switch positions as their career goes on. That's part of the reason I want some flexibility with positions. If you've got 2 good players, say a PF and C, and then the C hits a season where he's listed as PF, you shouldn't have to bench him because both guys are listed as PFs that season. Being able to move guys up positions gives some coverage. Plus, if guys can move up we can see some really creative teams. If we did lock players into their position as listed, I think a set roster setup would be helpful. (2 PGs, 2 SGs, 2 SFs, 2 PFs, 2 Cs, 2 flex). But that seems a little stifling, especially in those instances where WiS changes the player's position season to season.

2. The best answer I can give is taking a look at the team's previous game-logs and the circumstances for the incident that brought attention. Most of us can tell when we see an outlier, and we can look for things like foul trouble, blowouts, fatigue, etc. And by looking at previous game-logs we can establish if there was any pattern within that owner's games. It's not a failproof system, but between myself and whoever is on the committee I feel confident we'll generally be able to quickly find if there was an actual offense or SIM quirk. I'm also hoping heavy penalties will dissuade people from shadiness, and that everyone is joining because they like the concept and want to play by a unique set of rules.

savage league took too much out of me to join anything right now but ill be keeping an eye out and would probably join depending on all the different rules

im really intrigued by a "free agency"

maybe something like you get to protect 4-6 players a season...then everyone bids on potential free agents using fake money...highest bid wins the player with tiebreaker going to the team with the worse record...the trick would be figuring out the fake money...everyone would need to be given the same amount at the start of the league and then each season the "salary cap" goes up and each owner is given a little bit more...you can blow all your money right away or you can save it and strike when the time is right...owners that blow all their free agent money right away will still have the extra money from the cap increases to potentially bid on players

Hmmm. I like the idea of bidding on FAs, but think I'd rather not have a win-loss tie-breaker until there is no other choice. It would be, "You two both had the highest bid. Someone bid up. The bid is won when one of you won't raise." If both guys will go max dollars, the tie-breaker could be the win-loss record.
It'll take some planning, but I think we could make this work. My original idea was just have the FA losses go in the draft pool, but this is cool and unique. The FAs that don't get bid on will go into the draft pool, which means we'd have to finish the FA losses/bidding before even starting the draft.

Also, it might be fun to make the currency for FA bids a tradeable asset. Kind of like IRL dealing cash/ trade exemptions. And as soon as you win a bid you are immediately placed on the bottom of the list, meaning you can't win a tie-breaker again unless it's against someone who also won a separate bid.

I gave it some thought, and when I eventually start the league we'll be launching with 68-69/94-95.

Bump

For the few that have shown interest, and those that might later, I'm not letting this league idea die. Just going to work out all of the details.
I gave some thought to dh's idea of FA bidding. A bidding process seems like a fun thing to incorporate, if done right. I had a new thought for this league, though. Every offseason there are 2 drafts: a rookie draft for the 2 rookie classes, and a FA draft for the guys lost to FA and guys that weren't on teams the year before.
The rookie draft would work the same as most progs, with a lotto and non-lotto teams placed in inverse order of finish.
The FA draft would be randomized every offseason. At first thought, I'd say the 2 previous Finals teams could get no higher than, say, pick #4. The other 10 playoff teams could get no higher than #6. Those pick numbers are open to change, but I think we should handicap the PO teams slightly, and give just a small sort of reward to the 2 conference champs. I've always thought that the previous top 2 teams should receive some type of reward, but given the talent the top 2 teams usually have, I could never think of a balanced way to give them anything. This is the most balanced way I've thought of, so far.
Or, considering the FAs are coming from 1) teams that protected their top guys and 2) guys that weren't on a team the season before, we just have no restrictions on the FA order draw. The FAs won't have any franchise guys, just some really good role-players.

I'm really eager to get enough owners involved so that officially starting up makes sense, so post if you're interested. Thanks.

JP