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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 17:22:03 GMT -5
There seems to be quite a divide here with regards to 'tanking' and the only way to move forward with this discussion is to figure out where people stand. If you've been reading the 'Roster Violation' thread then you'll know that I see nothing wrong with tanking and would actually encourage GM's to follow that course of action when they find themselves with a bottom dwelling team and little to work with going forward.
For those who have a problem with tanking I'd love to hear why so please take this opportunity to explain your stance on the matter....maybe it will help me to understand where people are coming from.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 18:13:59 GMT -5
There is a gigantic grey area in the term tanking.
Tanking that I deem acceptable - being a bottom 10 team at the start of the season and trading your best player who is 32 years old for a slew of prospects and picks. This makes you worse which makes your draft pick better and gives you future assets which you can use whereas the older star player won't help you until he's too old. Now you're picking 3rd instead of 10th. That's fine with me.
Tanking that I deem unacceptable - starting your backup goalie on a night when your starting goalie plays and your backup doesn't. Having your best players sit on reserve and not accumulate points. Etc.
If you make yourself bad by trading for the future, I'm fine with that. The Sixers are doing that to a degree no pro team has ever done and I love it. They may be the worst team in NBA history this season and I'm okay with that. But the way they're doing it matters. To tank the other way isn't fair to the rest of the league and I don't want it in our league. It's kind of hard to explain why without using vague terms like ethics and fair play, but hopefully you can see my point.
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Post by PineRider (SJ) on Oct 22, 2014 18:45:23 GMT -5
Trading your good vets for prospects and picks is "rebuilding" and should be fully allowed.
Not having a valid roster is "bad planning"; it happens and should be fixed ASAP.
Intentionally not fielding your best roster is "tanking", and should not be allowed.
There is room to give people the benefit of the doubt: simple oversights, people get busy, etc, in which case a warning is warranted. A continued pattern, on the other hand, should not be tolerated.
Just my quick thoughts. I would like to elaborate later...
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Post by JetsGM on Oct 22, 2014 18:53:27 GMT -5
I agree with everything SJS and TBL have said in the above. In particluar i would like to highlight SJS statement: There is room to give people the benefit of the doubt: simple oversights, people get busy, etc, in which case a warning is warranted. A continued pattern, on the other hand, should not be tolerated. I think its important that before we brand GMs as tankers we talk to them and make sure A. they are aware of the roster problems and fix them B. ask them how the situation happened C. continue to monitor rosters D. see where we go from there
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Post by Penguin on Oct 22, 2014 18:54:30 GMT -5
There is a gigantic grey area in the term tanking. Tanking that I deem acceptable - being a bottom 10 team at the start of the season and trading your best player who is 32 years old for a slew of prospects and picks. This makes you worse which makes your draft pick better and gives you future assets which you can use whereas the older star player won't help you until he's too old. Now you're picking 3rd instead of 10th. That's fine with me. Tanking that I deem unacceptable - starting your backup goalie on a night when your starting goalie plays and your backup doesn't. Having your best players sit on reserve and not accumulate points. Etc. If you make yourself bad by trading for the future, I'm fine with that. The Sixers are doing that to a degree no pro team has ever done and I love it. They may be the worst team in NBA history this season and I'm okay with that. But the way they're doing it matters. To tank the other way isn't fair to the rest of the league and I don't want it in our league. It's kind of hard to explain why without using vague terms like ethics and fair play, but hopefully you can see my point. I think we should be careful in punishing tanking. Tanking the 2nd way you mentioned can be unfair to people who are trying to tank the first way too. Rebuilding IMO is a viable team building plan that happens in real life, manipulating the fantrax system to lower your points on the other hand isn't. My team is currently balls low in the standings so not sure how much weight my opinion holds, but if you look at my offseason moves I obviously have a lot riding on the upcoming draft (3 1st and 5 2nd round picks). I didn't think Id be this low to be honest but hockey gods decided right before season to have my best 3 players on LTIR (Staal, Stepan, Jenner) and then take out some of my other roster players while he was at it (Palmieri, McCabe, Kozun). I'd be a liar if I said I didn't want a high pick. My team I inherited was really old, gave contending a try last season and ended up middle of the pack. The team didn't have a good prospect pool and had a really old core. I want a franchise player to build around and plan on trading my veterans near end of season to contending teams for prospects/picks (PAP, Burrows, etc). Am I trying to win now? obviously not but I don't think it's logical for someone in my position to try to win against teams who have at least 6-7 players better than my best right now. I wouldn't agree if people in my position for example should be punished for trying to turn their aging non-competitive team around through prospects and picks.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 19:30:46 GMT -5
There is a gigantic grey area in the term tanking. Tanking that I deem acceptable - being a bottom 10 team at the start of the season and trading your best player who is 32 years old for a slew of prospects and picks. This makes you worse which makes your draft pick better and gives you future assets which you can use whereas the older star player won't help you until he's too old. Now you're picking 3rd instead of 10th. That's fine with me. Tanking that I deem unacceptable - starting your backup goalie on a night when your starting goalie plays and your backup doesn't. Having your best players sit on reserve and not accumulate points. Etc.
If you make yourself bad by trading for the future, I'm fine with that. The Sixers are doing that to a degree no pro team has ever done and I love it. They may be the worst team in NBA history this season and I'm okay with that. But the way they're doing it matters. To tank the other way isn't fair to the rest of the league and I don't want it in our league. It's kind of hard to explain why without using vague terms like ethics and fair play, but hopefully you can see my point. I absolutely, unequivocally, 100% agree with the bolded statement above but this sort of tanking is and should be illegal in every single league, period! If a good team were to decide to bench their best players to land a franchise name in the draft they'd have a massive advantage the following year and that should never be considered acceptable. If a team tanks in a way that you've deemed acceptable (and I fully agree with what you've said) then an astute GM will end up with a HORRIBLE roster and will not pose a challenge to anyone in a H2H matchup (even with an 'NHL goalie'). The cap floor gives teams something to work around but there are many ways to add salary without actually adding production and we can not possibly legislate teams adding production so all we really do is create a small market for overpriced players. I find this an interesting dynamic and one that I'd like to see continue but what I don't agree with are rules designed to micromanage how teams go about their tank/rebuild (eg. must have an 'NHL goalie'). Our definition of 'NHL goalie' is very vague and I'd argue that there is no reasonable definition anyway. I suspect the spirit behind this rule was to force teams to be more competitive but why is that a goal? It seems to me the idea was not to have such lopsided match-ups during the regular season but this is just a fact of life in H2H hockey with 30 teams. I have one goalie (not for lack of trying to land another) and if he gets hurt would I be tanking? We can't control injuries any more than we can control which backup stick with the team. I suggest we stick to the macro issues (eg. cap floor, min games played) and drop the micro issues (eg. must have a goalie).
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Post by Colorado on Oct 22, 2014 19:58:42 GMT -5
Now my time to talk.
My problem is concerning teams that reserve their best players on nights they are playing. Usually resulting in illegal lineups. Not having a goalie also just gives points away.
The reason why this bothers me so much is it effects the chances of a team like mine winning the championship.
I am in a division where there is only one weak team. Obviously, a team in a division with multiple tankers has a huge advantage compared to my team.
Otherwise, I can fully accept trading players to rebuild. Just ice a full fair lineup. When you have six defensemen playing that night, do not make only three active to have an illegal lineup and get zero points. That is very poor sportsmanship and unacceptable in my eyes.
Rich Colorado
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Post by JetsGM on Oct 22, 2014 20:01:01 GMT -5
Tanking that I deem unacceptable - starting your backup goalie on a night when your starting goalie plays and your backup doesn't. I don't think that is automatically evidence of tanking. There are sometimes strategic reasons not to have a goalie get a start depending on the strength of the opposing team and what the status is of the H2H goalie categories.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 20:06:41 GMT -5
Well tanking is something that should be penalized, but only when a gm doesn´t dress his best team every night. Trading vets for picks is good for the league, it will make the race for the win more interesting and has to be allowed.
What we do in another league, is that we do a lottery, where the bottom 5 teams in the final standing are in. The team finishing last in our league is getting connected with the team in last place in the NHL. So whatever pick the NHL team wins in the lottery, the team in our league gets the same. Works pretty good for us.
This is not the ultimate solution, but i think it´s a step in the right direction.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 20:13:08 GMT -5
I don't think that is automatically evidence of tanking. There are sometimes strategic reasons not to have a goalie get a start depending on the strength of the opposing team and what the status is of the H2H goalie categories. I completely agree and have utilized this in the past. Exception to the rule
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2014 20:13:26 GMT -5
I don't think that is automatically evidence of tanking. There are sometimes strategic reasons not to have a goalie get a start depending on the strength of the opposing team and what the status is of the H2H goalie categories. Fair point and yet another reason not to jump to conclusions on peoples motives behind roster moves. Rich - Based on your logic, every team in the NHL's Western Conference should be feeling hard done by. It's all part of the game so lets focus on what we can control. I assume everyone will agree that benching active players in an effort to tank is unacceptable but you're suggesting we legislate teams intro competitiveness and that is impossible.
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Post by zaphod (NYI) on Oct 22, 2014 20:35:30 GMT -5
I think yes, we should be concerned with tanking. That is a bit of a no-brainer as far as I am concerned. We need to define what we mean by tanking of course. To me, it is having players on your bench/minors who are accumulating points in the NHL but are not active on your D30 roster. Furthermore, I believe that if you have a player on your team that you think it is better to not activate them when they are active in the NHL for "strategic reasons" that you probably should just get rid of that player. This is a judgement call, and a very slippery slope, but I would put the onus on the GM using this strategy to defend their reasoning than having to wait for an Admin to track you down or another GM to call you out.
at the end of the day "tanking" is going to be required to be tracked by a committee or an individual who is going to be forced to make that judgement call. The most important factor in all of this is creating rules and sanctions that all 30 GMs must understand and adhere to with the expectation that if they are hit with sanctions, they are going to abide by the ruling.
you would hope that 30 of us are wanting to compete fairly and really...if you think winning at fantasy hockey is some measure of your success as a human being, your priorities might be slightly off.
all I can say for myself is that I am as bothered as Rich on this matter and perceiving "cheating" occurring in the league makes me less interested in putting time and effort into building my team "the right way"
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Post by Colorado on Oct 22, 2014 21:57:17 GMT -5
re Jets comments to me.
I think you misunderstand my objectives. My two points are really simple.
1) No team should be allowed to reserve an active player when he has active positions open.
2) Any team can make any trade they want. As long as they believes it helps them now or in their rebuild. Cap compliant of course.
P.S. I support a draft lottery.
Rich Colorado
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Post by johnnybower (Det GM) on Oct 22, 2014 22:10:23 GMT -5
I think the rules need some tweaking if this is to be addressed fully. Zaph's statement above alluding that GM's having players in the minors when they are accumulating points in the NHL are violating the integrity of the league is indeed a slippery slope because as long as this move is within the prospect eligibility rules, it's not illegal and should not be considered tanking. Perhaps we should look at changing how many games a player needs to play in the NHL before he loses prospect status in our league. Lowering the number from 110 games (for non-goalies and 55 for goalies) will force GM's to put such players in the big leagues sooner. It would also likely force GM's to release some decent prospects back into the pool and allow more GM's to field rosters that comply with the league rules. However, if a GM is keeping such a player in the minors while non-NHL players are on their active rosters or bench, that is wrong.
I think a few GM's have inherited really awful teams and have been working to try and get compliant while trying to not get screwed in the process. That being said, I am rebuilding myself and have had to make some deals I would have rather not made to get compliant in terms of both salary and roster. It's tricky but I guess that's what being a GM is all about.
But I agree that repeatedly keeping eligible players on the bench when there are open active roster spots is tanking.
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Post by JetsGM on Oct 22, 2014 22:37:16 GMT -5
re Jets comments to me. I think you misunderstand my objectives. My two points are really simple. 1) No team should be allowed to reserve an active player when he has active positions open. 2) Any team can make any trade they want. As long as they believes it helps them now or in their rebuild. Cap compliant of course. P.S. I support a draft lottery. Rich Colorado i don't think i made any comments in reference to you or at least not ones that i realized. i agree with your point #2 and i almost completely agree with pt #1, however imo there are very rare strategic exceptions.
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