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It’s great to be back among friends. I’ll always try my best to be as competitive as possible because I hate to lose. Realistically Im not in the immediate financial position to make moves. I’ve got one D2 level guard and some projects and my young guys will get significant minutes.

Pre-Final Transfer List Season 57 Rankings
Lots of transfers still to finish up before the official start of the season on Saturday, with one pending for after Saturday's games (Seattle's PG Eric Madden - last season's 21st pick in the draft) - so lots could change with this, because I'm doing these rankings based on variations of team salaries. Couple of things to take into consideration:
1. Two teams currently have 17 players on the roster (Philly Dribble & pintipv - neither of which has a player currently listed on the transfer list.
2. Three teams currently have 11 players, one of which has two players listed so I expect them to be adding in the next couple of days.
3. The majority of teams have 12-15 players currently rostered, though I know for myself, I'll be trying to settle in at 13 players

Current League Leaders in Salary
1. Mighty Moose Rockets with $315,387 - though it appears they're shedding some salaries with the transfer listing of both Jean-Louis Fleurent ($66,867) and David Charles ($35,587). If Hutch44 successfully cashes in on those, they're looking at nearly $3 mil in cash, which I'd assume would be used for replacement salaries, unless a tanking is in the works.
2. Philly Dribble with $312,245, with no players listed currently
3. Gremlins with only 12 players rostered comes in at $296,384.

Current League Leaders in Assumed Starting 5
These are probably not the actual starting 5 in all scenarios, but for simplicity, we'll assume the highest 5 paid players would be the starting 5 for each team.
1. Mighty Moose Rockets coming in at $270,241 (again, this could change if both Fleurent and Charles are sold)
2. Gremlins with $217,873
3. Lion Rebels with $211,969

Current League Leaders in Assumed Top Coming Off the Bench Players
Again, for simplicity, we're assuming the top 6-10th players in salary would be coming off the bench and playing meaningful minutes - obviously, this is probably not the case depending on manager style, team training efforts, tank jobs, or a desire to play deep into the Cup tournament.
1. Philly Dribble - $72,467
2. Gremlins - $72,101
3. San Dominica Warriors - $71,974

With all of that, here's the prediction for league rankings heading into season 57
Big 8
1. Mighty Moose Rockets
2. Lion Rebels
3. Philly Dribble
4. Rip City Revival
5. Linndale
6. War Birds
7. Seattle SuperSonicz
8. San Dominica Warriors

Great 8
1. Gremlins
2. The Beer Bellys
3. Żubr Białystok
4. pintipv
5. Dallas Bomskwad
6. The Ashkickers
7. Miami Cleo
8. Weather Society

I gauged this on a weighted scale based on three criteria - 1) Top 5 Salaries; 2) Top 10 Salaries; 3) Top 6-10 Salaries. The higher ranked in tier 1, the more points - the higher ranked in tier 3, more points, but much less than tier 1 and 2.

One thing to note - for the Great 8, 5 teams are within $17k in total salary of each other, so there's lots of room variance here. There's quite a much larger discrepancy in the Big 8 - overall higher salaries and not as many teams as tightly put together.

Final side note before moving on to my playoff/relegation predictions - looks like there was at least another player added to the transfer list WHILE I WAS WRITING THIS. How dare you Bomskwad! ;)

Playoff and Relegation Predictions
So, based on the obviously flawed rankings above, here are my playoff and relegation predictions for the season:

Relegations
Automatically relegated: San Dominica Warriors & Weather Society (of note, WS is a measly $419 above the salary floor). Also of note, San Dom and Seattle are very closely ranked in my weighted rankings, so in hindsight, maybe they should be the ones to relegate!

Relegation Games:
Big 8 5 Linndale vs. Great 8 7 Miami Cleo - Winner: Linndale
Great 8 5 Dallas Bomskwad vs. Big 8 7 Seattle SuperSonicz - Winner: Dallas Bomskwad
Big 8 6 War Birds vs. Great 8 6 Ashkickers - Winner: Ashkickers

Playoffs
Big 8
1. Mighty Moose Rockets vs. 4. Rip City Revival - Mighty Moose moves on.
2. Lion Rebels vs. 3. Philly Dribble - Philly moves on.
1. Mighty Moose vs. 3. Philly - Mighty Moose to Championship

Great 8
1. Gremlins vs. 4. pintipv - Gremlins advances
2. Beer Bellys vs. 3. Zubr Bialystok - Moar Beer!
1. Gremlins vs. 2. Beer - Gremlins moves on to face the Moose.

Div III.11 Champion: Gremlins

It is interesting, that while the Big 8 looks to be better overall (again, we're going by salaries, this isn't actual game predictions), Gremlins outclasses everyone else. Of all 16 teams, 5 of the top 6 by my dumb weighted salary rankings are Big 8 teams, but Gremlins still comes out on top.

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ALTERNATE TIMELINE
In the event that Moose cashes in on his two players selling for nearly 3 million dollars, shedding 102K in salary, it drops them to 7th highest salary in the Big 8 and 11th overall. In that case, here is an alternate timeline of events:

New Big 8 top 4:
1. Philly Dribble
2. Lion Rebels
3. Rip City
4. Linndale

Overall, I think Moose would drop to 5th by the end of the season, pitting them against Miami Cleo in a relegation series, but I think they still clean up. As far as the playoffs go, I think it would be pretty straight forward:
1. Philly defeats 4. Linndale and 2. Rebels (narrowly) defeats 3. Rip City, while Philly slips past the Rebels to "win" a chance to lose to the Gremlins, who end up ranking even higher in my weighted system with Moose dropping down like they look like they're going to do.

Then again, they could be buying something amazing with their potential 3 million purse - only Hutch44 knows the secrets!

Again - this is pure postulating, gesticulating, and masticating - nothing factual, fantasy, or otherwise should be taken from these ridiculous posts.

hello everyone, glad to be here. not expecting to be here for long because i honestly wasnt planning on moving up. i love the shoutout for my main man mr. meatball though
although ive been managing this team for 10+ seasons i havent been very good at it. this season will be my last with this aging core, im blowing this mf up after. cheers

Welcome and good luck!

*looks around*

We're about to find out who's worth it and who isn't, aren't we? I have a feeling our calling card (defense and rebounding) ain't gonna cut it. On the other hand, kind of hard to find out when you're playing mostly bots, and we are relatively young...

This league is gonna kill us, isn't it? Or make us stronger...

Day 1 (Saturday 23 April 2022) : Performances by (https://www.buzzer-manager.com)

Night results
Seattle SuperSonicz 94 - Mighty Moose Rockets 115
War Birds 95 - Lion Rebels 103
Philly Dribble 109 - San Dominica Warriors 95
Linndale 82 - Rip City Revival 80
Żubr Białystok 106 - The Beer Bellys 103
Miami Cleo 84 - pintipv 101
Dallas Bomskwad 68 - Gremlins 109
Weather Society 99 - The Ashkickers 117

Best collective performance of the evening
Points : 117 : The Ashkickers
Rebounds : 59 : San Dominica Warriors, Gremlins
Assists : 24 : Mighty Moose Rockets
Steals : 9 : Gremlins
Block Shots : 9 : San Dominica Warriors

Personal best performances of the evening
Points : 36 : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets), C. McMahon (War Birds)
Rebounds : 21 : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets)
Assists : 11 : S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok)
Steals : 3 : S. Vecchia (pintipv)
Block Shots : 4 : J. Felip (Dallas Bomskwad)

Top 5 of the evening
Point Guard : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble) (26 Points, 6 Rebounds, 6 Assists, 0 Steals, 1 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 30
Shooting Guard : C. McMahon (War Birds) (36 Points, 4 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 29
Small Forward : J. Fleurent (Mighty Moose Rockets) (36 Points, 14 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 0 Steals, 2 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 39
Power Forward : W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (24 Points, 21 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 3 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 44
Center : M. Klimenkov (Linndale) (23 Points, 18 Rebounds, 1 Assists, 0 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 38

MVP of the evening
W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets) (24 Points, 21 Rebounds, 5 Assists, 1 Steals, 3 Block Shots) : Efficiency : 44

The bad performance of the evening
Q. Bailey (Dallas Bomskwad) (2 Points, 2 Rebounds, 2 Assists, 1 Steals, 0 Block Shots) : Efficiency : -3

Triple-Double of the evening
S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok) (20 Points, 13 Rebounds, 11 Assists, 2 Steals, 0 Block Shots)

All kinds of statistics
The player who forgot to remove his mittens : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), Q. Bailey (Dallas Bomskwad) : 5 Turnovers

Player targeted by the referees : S. Vretzos (War Birds), D. Minkinen (Żubr Białystok), B. Goričan (Rip City Revival) : 6 Personal Fouls

The iron-man : G. Locus (Miami Cleo), W. Kofan (Mighty Moose Rockets), B. Lutz (Lion Rebels), S. Dickens (Żubr Białystok), S. Hatch (Żubr Białystok) : 48 Minutes

The shooter : C. McMahon (War Birds) : 8 Three points

The best performer : M. Velasco (Philly Dribble), C. Calderón (Dallas Bomskwad) : Rating : 14.0

The worst performer : O. Le (pintipv) : Rating : 4.0

Least Surprising Saturday Results
It was fun to see at least three of the losses on Sunday be less than double digits, but there were a couple of blow outs, with Mighty Moose Rockets, having NOT sold off their cash cows, jumping out to a 10 point led in the first quarter and never really looked back, finishing with 21 more points than Seattle SuperSonicz. 29 year old Jean-Louis Fleurent (previously identified as Cash Cow A) dominated the game with 36 points on 31 shots, though his 3-point range efficiency left a lot to be desired (2-11). Seattle just couldn't hit an important shot, going 5-21 from three.

The other unsurprising result was Dallas Bomskwad's 41 point defeat to Gremlins, scoring only 68 points. The only bright spot for the Bomskwad was Carlos Alberto Calderón, the 21 year old C who had 17 points and 12 rebounds before being shipped off to The Moosketeers in USA DIV III.6 to be paired with another 21 year old 7 footer, Larry Dowd (49430982) and will no longer be a bright spot for the Dallas Skwad.

Closest Saturday Results
Żubr Biały came in against The Beer Bellys with some extra effort to upend them 106-103 with SF Sam Dickens hitting a triple double (20 PTS, 13 REBS, 11 AST). Entering the final quarter, they were up by 6 with four of The Beer Bellys' players injured (one starter, Felipe Guaycuri who had only taken one shot in 17 minutes). With half the quarter gone, they maintained a 5 point lead. Żubr Biały led 100-95 with 2:41 left before Thiess Hinterleitner scoring two free throws after being fouled. 45 seconds later, they'd go up 9, sealing the deal for them on the night with the ending not feeling as close as the final score indicated, but still a disappointing loss for the Bellys, who have to wonder if their fortunes would have been different without all those ankle sprains.

The other close result from Saturday night was Linndale's surprising defeat of Rip City Revival, 82-80, holding Rip to only 8 points in the third quarter to pull off the road upset. Down by 2 at the half, Linndale scored twice as many 3rd quarter points to be up 6 heading into the final frame. With half of the 4th quarter depleted, Rip City found themselves down by 3, 70-67. With 2:56 left, backup SF Zafer Fatik scored from the baseline to cut it to 73-72. After a short time out Fatik then fouled Linndale's SF Arpad Sutori, who sank both free throws. Vitashoka Laddha drove for a layup but missed for Rip City, and starting SG Joe Brown pulled down the defensive rebound, but would go on to miss a hook shot, which was corralled by Laddha. After a weries of misses by both teams over the course of another minute, two free throws were made by backup PF Yiannis Galileos to make it 75-74. But the crowd was brought to its feet a few seconds later after a huge dunk by PF Arley Coronado to give Linndale a three point led. After trading back and forth scores, Rip City called a time out with 38 seconds left, down 79-76. For some reason, Linndale fouled Rip City twice to put them in the bonus and PF Duric scored two from the strip to make it 79-78. A quick foul by Rip brought Sutori to the line, but he missed one of two, leaving it only a two point deficit with 19 seconds left. A full time out later, Ernani Bataglia would get fouled and tie up the game with 10 seconds left. And, as time expired, Linndale's starting PG Thomas Lagorce threaded the ball to PF Arley Coronado who slammed the ball into the hoop to break the tie. BUZZER BEATER!

While Rip City's outside offense and defense were outstanding, Linndale's interior focus and decent offfensive flow proved to be too much, with their starting big men scoring 42 points and bringing down 33 rebounds. While they missed 12 three pointers, they did go 22-28 from the free throw line to aid them in the win. Rip City's starting C was indeed "The Black Hole" with the 37 year old going 0-5 in 33 minutes with only 5 rebounds before he fouled out. He's currently tied at #1 in all of Buzzer Beater for most personal fouls! ;) Vitty Laddha was the only shining star for Rip, scoring 26 points and bringing in 8 rebounds, including 5 three pointers.

Thank you Baine, your assessment and ranking is very generous, hopefully I can live up to it ha ha! Love the interaction in here already!

thatguy's comment got me thinking (RE: his ranking) a bit more about Saturday's games and how 5 teams in the Great 8 were within $20K of each other in salary (2. The Beer Bellys, 3. Żubr Białystok, 4. pintipv, 5. Dallas Bomskwad, & 6. The Ashkickers). While Miami Cleo wasn't in that stratosphere, they were pretty competitive last year, so I was a bit surprised by the apparent beat down pintipv put on them so I dug into their game a bit more. (It is worth noting that the Ashkickers moved themselves into 2nd place in the Great 8 in terms of salary with their recent additions, while Bomskwad has dropped below the salary floor (thus their beatdown Saturday night)).

So, heading into the 2nd half, Miami was trailing by 9 to the new arrivals in pintipv (btw, talk about a STADIUM). They were having a hard time hitting their shots, shooting just 37% from the field, but were staying in it by hitting 7 free throws in 12 attempts (while pintipv had only made 7 trips to the line). The refs definitely seemed to have it in for pintipv in the first half, which made Miami's manager dream of pulling off the road win, if only they could keep it close and start to hit some shots (pintipv wasn't shooting great either - hitting 40% of their first half shots including 1-11 from three point land.

I'll get to my theory in a moment, but suffice it to say, the 3rd quarter was a completely different game - at first, the numbers seem very similar - Miami was 8-22 from the field, including 3-4 from three, while pintipv was 10-22, hitting 3 three pointers (while still missing 6). But the actual story of the quarter was the refs big flip - suddenly pintipv couldn't, wouldn't foul, while Miami doubled their personal foul total, reaching 6 more fouls to match pintipvs total for the first half (and the third quarter, since there weren't any fouls in the period against them). Those fouls led to 9 of 10 free throws made by pintipv helping give them a 13 point advantage in the quarter to increase their lead to 22 entering the final quarter. I heard on Twitter that Elon Musk had a lot riding on pintipv to win the game, so much so that his bid to take over Twitter was at stake, prompting him to pay the refs off to start calling all the fouls on Miami. Game over.