Go!

October 31, 2000... Bill Krieger

The Draft

Well, the best-laid plans... We had two people missing (so much for my ready-made 16-team schedule) and Walla phoned in their draft... but the draft was a lotta fun. Leading me to:

Quote of the Draft

"A fluke championship is still a championship"

- Danny Bruessel, Diablo Spawn

Oh yeah, a couple of franchise moves:

  • Steve moved (again) from Shakopee Shysters (or something) to the Burlington Express. Yes, the Burlington Express, not the Burlington CoatFactories as was widely speculated on internet chat rooms prior to the draft.
  • Don Fenton (again) changed his moniker... under pressure from women's groups in the greater Chicagoland area, the WifeBeaters are now the CleavageBeaters
  • Upheaval in the Shorewood franchise caused owner Jack Evans to move the Scepters to Nantucket... the Nantucket Buckets to be specific.
  • Bill Sullivan rolled up the moving van and took his team (and one month deposit) from Four Lakes to St Louis, the St Louis Scammers.
  • And, of course, our newbie from the rainy northwest, Rob Triol, is the Rip City Renegades. Cool.

Week 1

Hey dudes... draft is history, and the NIBL patriarchy is hard at work. For now, here's the week 1 schedule (mmm, by hand, I love it):

WEEK 1 GAMES
Napa Valley @ Walla Walla Who missed more of the draft Walla on the phone or Napa passing on Gary Payton in the first round? This game will give the answer.
Manila @ Diablo Randomly-selected replay of the championship game last year... scary!
St Louis @ Rip City Look for St Louis to give the Rip city newbies a rude introduction to the NIBL in week 1.
Aruba @ West Chicago This is the replay of the NIBL 1999 championship game... who cares?
Vegas @ Joliet A lot of head-scratching by the pundits analyzing Joliet's draft strategy. The pundits have been wrong before... we'll see.
Cap City @ Nantucket The Buckets and the Tools... sounds like a bathroom supply closet, not a fantasy basketball game.
Burlington @ Elk Grove Perennial under-achievers meet in week 1... one of these teams will have a winning record! Well, for one week at least


Johnny Rai and I are working on the requisite spreadsheets to awaken the NIBL software monolith. We should have a schedule and all the other fun stuff up later this week.

World Pretend Basketball Championship

Here's the short version: We got an email from these guys last summer. They had their own fantasy basketball league (the GNABO) and wondered if we wanted to have an intergalactic showdown between our champion and their. A couple of emails later, we agreed on the first annual:

World Pretend Basketball Championship

NIBL Champ: Diablo Spawn

at

GNABO Champ: Tulsa Glens

GNABO stands for "Glasstown North American Basketball Organization". You can find the GNABO online at:

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~cdalby/gnabo.html

The GNABO is home team for the the first championship game, the NIBL will be home team next year. Being the home team, we'll play the first championship by the GNABO rules. While I can't find the GNABO rules anywhere online (how convenient), I think it's pretty much a seven category scoring system, where you use the top points, assists rebounds, blocks, steals, etc from your starting lineup versus the top scores from your opponent.

The Pretend Championship will be played with last year's Diablo and Tulsa rosters on the first game of this NBA regular season, or tomorrow if you like. I'll post the lineups and results from this MEGA-event later in the week. Should be fun...

yow, bill