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Whats up folks - excited to mix it up with y'all this season. Looks like a fun & active league. Full disclosure - I only intend on being here one season.

Welcomes and Farewells
Welcome to Season 62 in Div III.11 where six new teams have entered the fray, displacing our five relegations and one (thank god) champion, Carolina Rebels who spent four short seasons in our league, joining us in SEason 58, winning a relegation series, then making the playoffs, and then the finals, to move in short succession to Div. II.4. Once again, last season we saw a ridiculously tough Big 8, with 6 teams finishing .500 or better, with Linndale's +197 point differential not being enough to make the playoff cut, while the Great 8's fourth place (Paging whitestok, are you there whitestok?) finished -10, going completely AWOL by July 20th, to lose their final five regular season matchups in walk overs, dropping from 1st to 4th.

As always, there's lots of shifting to come on the transfer market...I'm hoping to get some preseason rankings posted on Friday, although that will be a bit of a fluff ranking as the market doesn't tend to settle down until a couple of weeks into the season. While we wait, here's a quick overview of those who left and those who've joined us for Season 62.

Las Vegas Silver Stars WR: 5121 | CR: 238
FR-S: WR: 6793 | CR: 332
Lion Pride WR: 4607 | CR: 212
BK Dogs WR: 7619 | CR: 373
The Beer Bellys WR: 8324 | CR: 414
Carolina Rebels: WR: 1324 | CR: 51

The Relegators
The Best of the Worst - The Beer Bellys (WR: 8324 | CR: 414). I know their world/country rankings don't reflect it, but they had the best record of the Regulated Five and made a best effort to maintain their unlikely five season run through Div III.11. I know I can speak for the rest of the remaining managers here when I say road trips to The Keg will be sorely missed. The Bellys find themselves in my old stopming ground, IV.29 (and aren't the only III.11 team to show up there).

The Maybe Next Season? - This one is going to be a three way tie because, despite their inefficiencies, they all battled their way to 5-17 rather than being a roll over dummy for the rest of us.
- BK Dogs (WR: 7619 | CR: 373)
- Las Vegas Silver Stars (WR: 5121 | CR: 238)
- FR-S (WR: 6793 | CR: 332)
Admittedly, two of these teams (BK and FR-S) are probably two seasons away from truly competing, but as I said, I'm giving props for doing more than just showing up and sniping a game or two that they probably shouldn't have one. BK Dogs stunning victory of the season came in Game 2, where they defeated eventual Finals participant Mindless Zombies by 17 on the road. Las Vegas didn't have any stunning wins, but handled the teams they should have handled beating up on BK Dogs by 20 in their lone matchup and wiping the floor of FR-S in both of their matchups. Speaking of FR-S, they had a somewhat surprising victory clear back on May 30th against 209's Most Wanted, before eventually shocking everyone (including themselves) by knocking off Philly Dribble by 7 in the third to last game of the season to put a downspin on Philly's playoff positioning.
BK Dogs find themselves in IV.28 alongside Las Vegas, while FR-S joins The Beer Bellys in IV.29.

The "We're Tanking" - Here comes Lion Pride, who relegated last season from II.3, on the back of a seasoned manager whose done this thing before. Star big man Clement Holley is now on the transfer list to complete their tank job as they finalize their push for a reset. I'm sure they'll be back in the neighborhood of III soon enough. I, for one, am glad to see no other Rebels or Lions in our midst and rightfully take back the full mantle of both the Lions and the Rebels.


Last edited by Baine at 08/22/2023 10:19:52

Welcomes and Farewells - Part Two
The Promoted Out
A Good Riddance to Carolina Rebels, who is maybe the best managed team I've ever encountered. They started the season ranked 10th in total salary and didn't change their position much over the course of the season, but consistently went out and beat "better" teams over the course of their four season tenure with us. They find themselves in Div II.4, joining our league's Season 60 champion The White Walkers in the Great 8 up there. They have a WR of 1324 and a CR of 51.

The Newcomers
With three new teams on both sides, here are the newcomers, in no particular order:

Fort Wayne Pistons, managed by The Mechanic.
World Rank: 6563
Country Rank: 318
Fort Wayne have been in existence since season 53, starting out in IV.45 having promoted to Div III twice before and last season made the finals in IV.24, losing in three games to Batnobili after finishing with a 21-1 record.

F.Day Internet Lovers Club - managed by Mc KR.
World Rank: 2692
Country Rank: 131
A mouthful of a team name joins us after relegating from II.4 with their beginnings coming back from Season 38 where they started out in IV.64. This isn't their first trip through III.11, having graced our distinguished league from seasons 41-45, promoting out by winning the legue before then relegating back and see-sawing back and forth for a bit until arriving in the NBBA in Season 56 before they relegated in Season 60 and then again last season to find their way here.

Twotone Touloose - managed by Tee665.
World Rank: 12191
Country Rank: 663
A fresh one comes to us from IV.41, with Tee665's crew winning the championship after just two seasons of existence on an undefeated record (albeit, only three "live" teams). But that's no knock! They may be fresh, but there's always room for growth! We'll see what the season brings them in the Great 8.

Las Vegas High Rollers - managed by Bimpy.
World Rank: 10387
Country Rank: 558
Bimpy is another fresh group, following the same path as Twotone by winning IV.52 in just two seasons of existence. They replace the Silver Stars hailing from Vegas and have a bit more bite to their roster than what you might normally expect from a newish team.

VileOnes - managed by Vile Returns.
World Rank: 5507
Country Rank: 267
Taking their first shot back in Season 56 in VI.1, VileOnes make their third trip to Division III after winning two Div IV titles. Will the third trip be the charm?

southpaw army - managed by yohnst.
World Rank: 2824
Country Rank: 137
southpaw army comes to us clear back from Season 30 where they started at II.4 and worked their way back to IV.34 before climbing the ranks all the way back to the NBBA, maintaining a high level of competitivity through Div II and III over the seasons. They're back now in Div III after having finally sunk back to IV.24 in Season 60 and look to be competitive.

With 22 players currently transfer listed and a hundred more being eyed by all 16 teams, I'm sure a lot of shifting and changes will start to happen over the coming days. I'll pull something together by Friday or so and will probably amend it before the allstar break. Best of luck to everyone and welcome to Div III.11!

Glad to hear it!
Welcome and I'll take any luck I would have given you before you announced that!

https://media.tenor.com/I6GFaw6IR3YAAAAC/chuckles-im-in-danger.gif

Wow, my first two games of the season is against the same team as last season. Hopefully it will be different result this season.

Think we're squaded up now, folks!

Lets get it on!

Last edited by yohnst at 08/24/2023 11:36:52

I'll say! North of $500k (for now)!

Season 62 Preview - Part One
Unofficially, here's the official welcome to our Div III.11 residents. Not sure I'll be able to do a weekly write-up this season, but I'm getting my pre-season rankings (which will be LOUD WRONG, I'm sure) out before the first game of the season. It will mostly be wrong because managers aren't finished selling off their sluff and adding their dominance, though some of us seem to be settled in for the long haul with what we've got. If I have time, once things settle down, I may try to update these around the all star break.

Last season I predicted San Dominica to defeat Żubr Białystok in two games. And while neither team made the finals, Żubr certainly looked certain for it until they went AWOL, and unfortunately still haven't made an appearance in over a month now. Once again Carolina Rebels exceeded expectations and spat in my face on their way to defeated Mindless Zombies in three games.

And now, for my disclaimer:

I've done these rankings for the last few seasons with a major modification to it two seasons ago. I measure each salary against the average for each category and then assigned a point value based on that. For example for Total Salary it breaks down like this for teams $100k over the league total average and for teams $100k less the league total average:

Team Total Salary > League Total Salary Average+100,000 = 60 Points
Team Total Salary +100,000 < League Total Salary Average = 0 Points

We'll use this season's current salaries as examples:
- Miami Cleo currently has a total salary number of $397,995, which is almost $100k over the league wide average of $307,902, so in that category they score 50 points, missing out on the bonus 10 points for being over $100k by $10k in total salary.
- On the opposite end of the spectrum is Fort Wayne Pistons, whose current total salaries are $190,728 - when we add another $100k to that, they're still less than the league average, so they score 0 points.

You then have variances for points assigned to a team based on how far they vary from the average with the above examples being the extreme.

I weight Total Salary and Top 6-10 (bench play) the highest (range from 0-60 points), while Top 5 and Top 8 are 2nd tiered (0-30 points) and Top 10 is the lowest tier (0-15 points). I add those five category point totals and then divide by five and you have your rankings by total points. All ties are broken by Top 6-10 rank.

My usual disclaimer: I'm not a scientist, but I am a dork who can't get enough of this dumb game, thus my predictions. Before the ranking predictions, here are some of the highlights and lowlights of our league.

Season 62 Preview - Part Two
Current League Leaders in Salary
1. southpaw army - $492,115. With 22 players rostered, their average is just $22k per player, but as you'll come to see, the bulk of those salaries come in their top ten.
2. Linndale - $401,703. There's some salary to be shed here, as Rod Guyton's been transfer listed for nearly three weeks now - I don't know if there's any moves to be made after that sale, but knowing Speedtraps, I wouldn't be surprised if another vet was added.
3. Miami Cleo - $397,995. After resurrecting from the dead in Season 61, they didn't meet the expectations of their salary, but performed well enough on the back stretch to stick around...it'll be nice to see them back to their usual form (only because they're on the other side of the conferences from me!).

Once again our average salary has increased, this year by $35k for an average of $307k. That makes a total difference in average salary from Season 58 until now a relatively staggering $92k. This season only seven teams are averaging less than that, but three of them are averaging more than $100k less with two teams nearly at or below $200k less than the average.

Fab 5's
These aren't necessarily the starting 5, but instead the top 5 paid players, in which we see a familiar set of three teams:
1. southpaw army - $332k - 67% of their total salaries
2. Linndale - $303k - 75%
3. Miami Cleo - $300k - 75%

Overall, the 16 teams average $216k for top 5 paid players with four teams averaging more than $$50k more than the average and six teams averaging less than the average. Las Vegas and Twotone are the only two spending less than $100k on their top 5.

Current League Leaders in Assumed Top Bench Players (Top 6-10)
1. southpaw army - $122k ($24.4k per player)
2. San Dominica Warriors - $102k ($20.4k per player)
3. Żubr Białystok - $90k ($18k per player)

Season 62 Preview - Part Three
Season 62 Final Ranking Predictions
Once again, these rankings are based on salaries, with total salary and 6-10 players weighted highest, then a notch below that ranks Top 5 & Top 8, followed by Top 10. Feel free to be Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith (just not at the same time please). And don't forget, these salary numbers will most definitely change, but my terrible predictions never will! Total points acheived in my rankings will be in parenthesis.

16. Twotone Touloose (0) - I feel bad for these new Div IV teams that dominate and then get dropped in our league...they might have a fighting chance in a different division, but I can't imagine very many of the 16 Div III leagues average as much salary spend as ours does. They did bring in a couple of new bodies...but they're going to have to do something drastic to compete this season.

15. Las Vegas High Rollers (0) - Last season's #15 was a tanking Div II relegated LionPride, and unfortunately for Bimpy, Las Vegas is not even close to being that. I'd have to go back and check, but I'm not sure I've ever had two teams end up with 0 points in these rankings.

14. Fort Wayne Pistons (2) - This season, there's definitely a bottom three, and Fort Wayne rounds it out, but of those three, they appear to have the experience to have the best chance to stick around and make it a fighting chance. But The Mechanic definitely has their work cut out for them.

13. VileOnes (8) - It's not that I'm hating on all the new arrivals (though I will have plenty of hate for yohnst, I'm sure), but this is where it gets starts to get interesting because we're closer to the average overall. Vile Returns is playing with a bit of a shorter roster which grants them the sixth highest ranked roster by average salary per player. We'll see if that's enough for them to not relegate (see, I like to make others hate me to make my life miserable).

12. Żubr Białystok (9) - I wouldn't have guessed that whitestok's group would be ranked this low...but unless they show up and make some moves, despite their tactical saviness, I doubt it will be a productive campaign for them.

11. 209's MostWanted (11) - Once again, I'm insulting Alex from the 209 by placing them this low, despite their clawing and fighting to finish with a .500 record last season in the midst of the terrible Big 8. But with no moves other than their $12k 24-year-old backup in June, they might finish at .500 and stick around, but they'll need a little more juice to make more noise than a couple of upsets.

10. F.Day Internet Club (13) - Congratulations to Mc KC, who occupies 10th in my rankings, the same ranking I gave Carolina last season before they went on to stomp my face in mud in the Big 8 conference finals enroute to their victorious campaign. They have made several moves, so we'll see if they pan out.

9. Tasty Tardsicles (18 - 10th in 6-10 Rank) - Another short roster phenom, spilly19 is rolling the dice on another potentially easier Great 8 conference run to make the playoffs and improve on last season's 14-8 record.