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What the NBA Lockout Means for ASFL2
5:40 PM on October 14th, 2011 by Jay Soester

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Well, we've lost two weeks of the NBA season and consequently two weeks of the 21 week Fantasy Basketball regular season.

You know something's up when it gets the Taiwanese animation treatment:




If you haven't been following the lockout, I don't blame you. ESPN.com & SI have done a good job covering the developments and I'd recommend their resources to those interested. SI's Zach Lowe has been providing the details of the latest proposals throughout the process. You can find where the sides currently stand here and the details of the luxury tax proposal here. ESPN's Henry Abbott has his own take on the current state, here.
If you're wondering what the hell the two sides are doing letting things get to this point, I thoroughly recommend Larry Coon's article on ESPN relating the negotiations to game theory.
If all you want is a simple Q&A feature, you can view ESPN's here and SI's here.
Personally, if there isn't any progress made when the two sides meet with a federal mediator for the first time on Tuesday, the ASFL2 Fantasy Basketball season is serious in jeopardy.

Fortunately, Yahoo! released their own update on Thursday which answers some questions about the potential for a Fantasy Basketball season that I couldn't previously.

They've essentially said they will alter the draft schedule as the NBA schedule is changed and will update the start week of a league to the new start week of the season. To clarify, November 1st-6th will remain the first week of the season despite not having any games actually played. Each Monday after that starts a new week all the way to April 9th, the start of the 24th, and final, week of Fantasy Basketball.

With that established, I can say the absolute drop dead date for all ASFL2 leagues is January 15th. That's the final day of the 11th week into the Fantasy Basketball season and the 11th-to-last week of the Fantasy Basketball regular season. Why is that the deadline? It's the last week that a 12-team league can see all of its participants play against every other participant in the league during the regular season. The equivalent for the ASFL2-standard 14-team league is January 1st, the final day of the ninth week and the 13th-to-last week.

Beyond the drop dead dates, the amount of time between the announcement of the NBA season's start date and the actual start date is critical. If the period is a month or longer, I should be able to fill somewhere near the standard number of live drafts, hopefully all with 14 members. If the period is three weeks, I'll likely add at least one autopick league at the expense of a live draft league or two.
At three weeks, I'd likely create at least one slow draft league if the participants were signed up ahead of time using the draft times thread.
At two weeks, it's going to be a scramble. In that scenario, there'd likely only be 2-4 live drafts with the remaining members interested moved to autopick leagues. Hopefully there's some advance notice of the season likely happening beyond an official announcement so a slow draft league can be created regardless of the official time frame. If there is less than three weeks warning before the season starts, I may have to cancel this season's Fantasy Basketball Keeper Leagues and ASASFL leagues. I'll do everything I can to squeeze them in, however...make sure to continuously check the message board and the respective sections of the website for more information.

The league draft times will be the same as those currently set up, but the dates will change. I'll mirror the day of the week and time of the current leagues as much as possible leading up to the new start date of the NBA season. From there, you'll be able to request a switch or you can let me know of any desired changes ahead of time.


The future of NBA Standings Pickem is a little bit more clear cut, but less easy to forecast. I won't be able to determine whether or not the game will be run this season until I know the number of games each team will play. Once that is announced, I'll work as quickly as possible to set up and alter the game pages to allow for it to go on this season. That being said, I'm not sure how long it'll take me to alter the game for any necessary changes. Once it's clear whether or not the game will be ready to accept entries at least a week before the season starts, I'll announce that the game is off or on for the 2011-2012 season. With the altered NBA schedule, the bonus point value in the final standings will remain at a maximum of 12% of the highest championship point total before bonus points are factored in. It may be moved back to 10% for next season with the revival of Salary Cap Football.


I'll be doing my best to publish lockout-related information on the front page of the website as major developments take place. For smaller developments and any questions, follow/use the NBA Offseason Thread, Fantasy Basketball draft times thread and the league's twitter feed.

Sections: Main
Tags: Games_Available, Fantasy_Basketball, NBA_Standings_Pickem, ASFL2_Fantasy_Games, NBA_Talk, Basketball_Talk, NBA_Lockout, ASFL2_Drafts_App, ASASFL_Fantasy_Basketball, Keeper_Leagues_Fantasy_Basketball

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