Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm starting early with this, so I definitely get finished in time for the season (2003-4). This past season, I've had my website running boxscores of Rockets games, a couple of graphs, and a simple "predict the score" game. It's actually worked really smoothly, fetching the scores, and compiling stats, and working out points for the game. I've therefore decided to be more ambitious, and design a fantasy basketball game. Obviously, I'll be using real stats, rather than simmed ones. There are several decisions I need to make however, that I could really use some help with. Firstly, there's the draft. It's going to be completely automated, but there are two approaches I could take. ba Each player submits a list of desired players in order, and then the system runs the draft independently. A "live" draft, where each player is emailed when there pick is up. This is my preferred approach, but it needs everyone to stay on the ball, or the draft will just grind to a halt. Secondly, there's scoring. Really, I'm not sure which way I want to go with this. Any suggestions as to a fair scoring system that involves all the stats? I'm thinking of allowing a roster of eight players, with a starting five that scores points each night. You'll be able to change that starting five as much as you like, as long as you always have 2G, 2F, and a C. Each team will only be allowed 410 (5 * 82) stats lines to count for scoring over the season (otherwise people could acquire extra points by manipulating the starting five). Is this a good idea? Trades. I'm going to have this as an automated process, whereby you propose a trade through the website, and it will then e-mail the other owner that he/she has a trade proposal. If both parties are happy, then the deal goes through. Which brings me to my next issue. Inactive owners can cause a real problem for this sort of league. I'm going to propose a two week "vacation message" system. An owner will be able to flag themselves as unavailable for up to two weeks. After that, if they don't access their account for another two weeks (with appropriate e-mail reminders), then their team is disbanded, and their players made available. I'm thinking of having a waiver period for released players, meaning that there is a three day period after a player is released, that you must wait to see if anyone else wants the player you're claiming. If there is a lower-ranked owner who claims the player, then they'll get him. Seem fair? Any suggestion and comments would be welcomed. Also, if anyone wants to have a go at some graphics for the site, I'll gratefully accept the assistance. I don't have an artistic bone in my body!
If you are really ambitious you should aim to host the Bob Finn* Fantasy League. We have a major and a minor league. But we do all our drafting offline, so an offline draft option would be needed so the commish could enter all picks in when the draft is done. How cool would that be to get both division in one 'league'. Of course the minors draft the same set of players, but if you could check out both leagues with one link it would be smooth. Also with a cc.net poster running the league we could get the rules just as we want them. But of course you would have to talk to Bob Finn/Behad about this, as they are in control over the majors of the Bob Finn league.
Heath, you probably don't know this because you don't do baseball with us, but I've started hosting our league with some software I bought. Check out our baseball site: http://www.fantasybaseballone.com/baseball/clutchcity/
I wouldn't want to tread on anyone's toes doing this. I'd also hate to cause problems to an established league by buggering up their scoring. I'm going to get the basics set up over the next couple of months. Maybe then I'll do a beta version in the summer, and see what people think. I can feed 2002-3 results through gradually, so you can get a feel for how it all works. I've almost finished the data acquisition code this afternoon.
