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Have you guys thought about the ramifications of having a draft where the team with the worst record gets a higher draft pick and thus (presumably) the better players? I just wanted to point out that this creates a huge incentive to throw games towards the end of the season.

Obviously this motivation exisits to a certain extent in the NBA, but the integrity of the players on the court and fear of retribution from the fans and/or the league keeps even the worst teams from outright throwing games. That is not the case here.

I point out that in HT there is no draft and thus no incentive to finish lower in a series. In fact, in HT it's quite the opposite as there are bonuses paid to the higher finishing team and there is also relegation to worry about.

With only two divisions in most countries, relegation isn't really a consideration here. I am not aware of any bonuses for where a team finishes in its league, but maybe they exist (or will exist) at the end of the season.

Also, the incentive to throw games is greater if the draft is composed of a few players who are clearly better than the others (as is typically the case in the real NBA draft). If the skills of all the players in the draft is roughly equal, then this isn't as big an issue (but this of course decreases the value of scouting).

Maybe the answer is that each set of 48 players should consist of 16 players who are roughly equal but have "first round talent", 16 players who are roughly equal but have "second round talent", and 16 players who are roughly equal but have "third round talent". This would reduce the incentive to tank games to improve draft position while still rewarding scouting.

For example, the last place team (who picks first) will be able to identify one of the 16 "first round" talents even with just a minimal amount of scouting. Where scounting is especially valuable for the last place team is at the beginning of the second round, where that team could get a "first round" talent who one of the other teams overlooked in the first round.

Similarly, for the first place team (who drafts last), scounting would be important to allow them to identify the remaining "first round" talent or talents when it is their turn to pick at the end of the first round.

Relegation is not a concern yet, but it will be for sure already in the next season. The prizes in the league are not implemented yet (saw it in another topic on the forum), but might be in the future. We don't have yet here the indication of how pleased your fans are, but it was already said also that if you are doing bad will affect your merchandise revenue.

And also i believe that being the last one in the league will not guarantee you in the top of the draft. You will just have higher probability of being the first. Check out what happened on NBA on the first 2 drafts they had with these rules:

"The Magic defied the new lottery odds by winning the No. 1 pick two years in a row. In 1992, the weighted system worked in their favor as they parlayed the second-worst record (21-61) into LSU center Shaquille O'Neal. O'Neal helped Orlando make a 20-win improvement and the Magic just missed the playoffs at .500 in 1993. With just one chance out of 66, the Magic scored the No. 1 pick yet again and selected Michigan forward Chris Webber, trading him immediately to the Warriors for the draft rights to the No. 3 pick, Memphis guard Penny Hardaway and three future draft picks."

This year, Portland had only 5.3 percent chance of getting the first pick...

To sum up, I would not throw any games... The draft positioning will not be guaranteed, and the difference between being 8th, 7th or 6th is huge when fighting against relegation.

Edited 6/21/2007 12:18:04 AM by arvie7

Also, the players are not going to have excellent stats. The players I believe at most will be at the respectable level in some traits. That's not a good enough player to throw games.

one sugestion: perhaps the training page could should how many players we have scouted this season so far...

When is the draft?

I think I understand the draft ranker but would like to make sure. I assume the higher the star rating the better, and the grade starts at A, then B, then C and so on. The other criteria I have figured out.

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OK, from reading this thread (thanks everybody for the input!), we'd like to suggest the following plan:

About 1 week before the draft, we will create 48 players which are the player pool for the upcoming draft and we will process your scouting. You will be able to scout a random player from that pool between 0 and 56 times depending upon whether you have scouted 0,1,2,3, or 4 players each of the 14 weeks you were allowed to. You might end up scouting a player more than once, but no more than 3 times.

That information is then displayed on a draft page where you can select a preference list. The players appear in a random order, so that you cannot combine your draft information with that of another team in your league and figure out the skills of other players --- if your friend tells you that there's a great shooting guard out there, you don't know which one of the many shooting guards available to select, so it doesn't help much.

If you have scouted a player 0 times, you will be shown just whether they are a guard or a forward, and nothing else.

If you have scouted a player 1 time, you get their best position, their age, and a rating from 1 to 5 stars based upon their current skill.

If you have scouted a player 2 times, you get their best position, their age, a letter grade from F to A+ (meaning, there are 13 possible grades), and you are shown their single best skill (for example, respectable jumpRange).

If you have scouted a player 3 times, you get their best position, their age, their salary, and their four highest skills.

You then rank your players from 1 to 48 at any time up until it is draft day. You will have to rank the players you know nothing about someplace in your preference list, and it will be up to you decide at what point to take a chance on somebody instead of selecting one of the players you know about.

The draft processes in 3 days, each day being one round and where you select one player. You are allowed to edit your preference list between rounds, but during the live drafting rounds it will be frozen and one pick will be displayed every 10 minutes until the end of the 16-team round.

Please let me know what you think - a few of your suggestions were very helpful to us in coming up with this suggested plan, and if you have any ways we can alter this and make it even better, please don't hesitate to tell us!

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written by BB-Charles on post (156.13)

How much of this is still valid? Where can we see the players "best position, their age, their salary" ?


Edited 7/12/2007 2:55:33 PM by arvie7

Just one question, the rank of teams picking a draft, is that done according to the win-loss standing from the end of the regular season, or do playoff achievements play a role?