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Yeah... No toughness ranking will ever be perfect. Toughness is a subjective concept that depends on match-ups, rosters, gamesmanship and a hundred other things that aren't quantifiable.

And if I tried to accomodate situations like IV.49's by including data like effort and enth, calculations would be prohibitively complex and (I think) even more subjective. After posting my rankings I considered that you could use something like average BBStats for al games in a league (from the USA NT offsite scouting tool). But I'm not willing to spend the time collecting and collating all that data. And I don't have the computer know-how to create a tool that would do it for me.

You might cite even more evidence that these rankings are a bit off: Prairie Dogs (29602) has the top NR of any D.IV team (owing to his long cup run this year). But in the two rankings, V.41 (his league) is ranked 5th and 9th. Surely they ought to be considered for toughest league overall.

Maybe I should have shown the ratings as ranges. And if I hadn't slept through my college math classes, I might have known enough about statistics to put a meaningful range on the ratings. In any case, I wouldn't take them too seriously. Like I said, this exercise was mostly to spend time on my day off and is (insert sarcasm here) *very scientific* ;-). If you're near the top, you're probably about as tough as any other league near the top, regardless of exact rating.

In defense of my rankings, however, I would say that knowing when to CT and when to TIE are part of what make teams tough. Practically, published team rankings and game results are all we really have to go on. Who wins and loses and point differential are what put you in place to promote and demote. And IMHO that's what matters, because toughness is all about how hard it is to promote and keep from demoting. If you've got a weak team with HCA throughout the playoffs, it's easier to promote than if a strong team has HCA. And a measure of league toughness should reflect that (which this does).

Does anybody have any really good first round D.IV playoff games I should be checking out tonight? I expect IV.10 to offer up relative snoozers tonight, but things should get very intense in the semis.

Recognizing my margin of error and of BB’s propensity to use words when perfectly good numbers would do (a charming, yet clunky habit), maybe this nomenclature for toughness is better:

wimpy (1): IV.34
scrawny (2): IV.6, IV.36, IV.50
weak (3): IV.23, IV.35, IV.3, IV.12, IV.7, IV.38, IV.25, IV.48
decent (4): IV.53, IV.57, IV.2, IV.8, IV.52, IV.37, IV.15, IV.40, IV.27
solid (5): IV.5, IV.44, IV.33, IV.51, IV.64, IV.13, IV.43, IV.47, IV.62, IV.61
stout (6): IV.17, IV.45, IV.21, IV.19, IV.49, IV.26, IV.11, IV.24, IV.22
robust (7): IV.1, IV.4, IV.63, IV.18, IV.9, IV.39, IV.42
rigorous (8): IV.56, IV.59, IV.46, IV.31, IV.29, IV.16
tough as nails (9): IV.58, IV.60, IV.54, IV.30
Chuck Norris (10): IV.20, IV.28, IV.32, IV.10, IV.41, IV.14, IV.55

Can I propose an additional category?

fudge (2): IV.46, IV.5

;)

Last edited by Mix at 8/7/2012 7:19:49 PM

Semis coming up.

Spider Pigs(49080867) @ Dream Vision(49080866)

and

Droids(49080869) @ East City(49080868)

Get psyched for the semis!

Semis coming up. From the best DIV league. Get ready for a wild time

GR Venom (49080967) @ Chanute Sharpshooters (49080966)

and

Curly Fries (49080969) @ Philadelphia Phantasm (49080968)

Get psyched for the semis!

Last edited by gwoodyard at 8/8/2012 10:50:46 AM

Oho, used to be in a league with GR, let's go GR!

Putting the joking aside, I think it's a worthy effort to critique the managing in the developmental D4.

Some first hand observations from IV.49: Gibrona CB is our overall #1 (in W/L, not PD) but 8th in total salaries ($121k/10 players) versus #1 in PD, the Atlanta Pacers' ($169k/7 players). I'm not sure if that shows 'toughness' but it does demonstrate efficiency. He doesn't TIE every game yet he hasn't CT'd during this regular season.

Last season our league saw one D3 demoted team drop in but he sold off his roster and seems to be tanking (4-5 weeks between logins). Additionally, out of the current crop of D5 promotions only 2 seem to be putting in any significant effort to improve. One actually made the playoffs and the other looks to be the only other one that will survive RL. These factors make our league look far from elite on paper.

Regarding CT/TIE and toughness, it's not always good strategy to show your best and lay all your cards on the table. I'm ok with a regular season loss against comparable teams for a few reasons. 1) To see another team's strengths. 2) To give my opp a false sense of confidence and most importantly for me 3) stacking enthusiasm. I freely admit to being a junkie on that stuff. :)

To diverge a bit, I've been reading The Last Season by Phil Jackson. In it, he chronicles his '03-'04 season at the helm of the Lakers (Kobe/Shaq era feat. Mailman & Glove). It's a light read and I'd highly recommend for anyone interested in bball strategy. There's also some unexpected revelations in it including that Phil tried to get Dr. Buss to trade Kobe for Jason Kidd and Shawn Marion. A great section is when he discusses motivating his players: "I prefer them to see them develop a warrior mentality, in which they honor their opponent. Too many players today degrade their opponent....Your opponent is who makes you a better warrior." (p. 176).

Great building with you guys. Hope we can bring the B3 gold to the US sometime soon.

Last edited by Mix at 8/9/2012 3:08:39 AM

Thank you! I've been saying that my league was the toughest in D.IV for a while. But, there are a lot of really good leagues out there.

Good luck against GR in the semis gwoodyard. And, if you make the finals beat the phantasm cause I couldn't.