some time ago i thought it would be a nice idea to set up a season with a mock/fantasy draft. But i dont wanted to use the "fantasy draft" feature in Live, so i created one my own.
There is a fantasy game on www. sportingnews.com, they have a system of points a player can earn through a game, based on his stats for the game. He gets 1 so called TSNP for every point he scores, 1.5 for every rebound, 2.5 for steals and blocks and 2 for assists. Missed freethrows, fieldgoals and turnovers effect the points. This was the basis for my mock draft.
I wanted to play a first round in which i played 15 exhibition games. To determine which teams played vs. oneanother i threw a dice. After this first round i would make a list of all the teams and there TSNP. The best 16 teams i wanted to send in a playoff round (1-1-1-1) and i would play every game of this playoffs. I ignored the teams original location and, again, threw a dice to choose there Playoff spot. Thats why New Orleans and Toronto played in the WC and Seattle and Minnesota played East for example. The 4 teams in the conference finals wouldnt participate in the following mock draft and were able to keep their players. Those four teams were New Orleans, Toronto, Seattle and Detroit. NO has won it all after beating the Sonics in the Finals
.
The players of those four teams were removed from the draft list and the other 25 teams then drafted the players. The worst team got the player with the best TSNP out of the first round, which was Antwan Jamison from the GS Warriors. Second worst team got the second player and so on. Finally every team had its roster filled. The players who were on the injured list before the tournament havent participated in the draft. I used the NLSC roster from the 6th of April. Michael Finley for example was on the IL this time, so he wasnt effected by the draft and stayed in Dallas.
The mockdraft led to some strange rosters
. Some rosters were loaded with too many guards or to many forwards or centers. Some teams had more Stars than others, some teams were less than mediocre.
After the draft i wanted to start a franchise or at least a season with this new League and i wanted to play the Hornets. I even relocated some teams, divsionwise
, so Chicago, Miami and NO ended up in the Pacific Division, while Seattle, Golden State and Utah were in the Atlantic 
. I simmed the whole season, just out of couriosity. My Hornets made it to the Finals after finishing the season 41-41 and lost there to Portland 1-4. And more or less nothing came out as expected.
After i reassigned the players and made some adjustments, i thought Minnesota had the best Roster. They were able to keep Kevin Garnett and got Paul Pierce, Steve Francis and Zydrunas Ilgauskas in addition. Because i wanted to have Nene Hilario and Terrell Brandon, i traded PJ Brown and Bryce Drew to Minnesota in return for those too.
Now the starting lineup for Minnesota was:
C - Zydrunas Ilgauskas
PF - PJ Brown
SF - Kevin Garnett
SG - Paul Pierce
PG - Steve Francis
with Troy Murphy, Steve Smith, Richard Jefferson, Brendan Haywood and others on the bench. I thought, they would be THE team to beat in the new season, cause no other team had such a great starting lineup. But i was wrong. They had a losing record and didnt even make the playoffs.
Portland, which later won it all, had only a mediocre roster in my opinion. They had Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, Bimbo Coles, Jamal Tinsley, Wally Szczerbiak, Kwame Brown and Larry Hughes. But they won the championship ... strange.
Tim Duncan ended up in Phoenix alongside Gary Payton. In a blockbuster trade in february Duncan was traded to Memphis - for Chris Webber
. Shaq played for Dallas, Nowitzki, Jamison and Gasol played together in Boston. Gasol was traded later in the season. Michael Jordan and Tracy MacGrady played in Houston, together with Lamar Odom.
New Jersey was one of the best teams, with also a mediocre roster (in my opinion
). Eric Dampier and Shawn Marion were their two best players, but they had one of the best records in the east.
Jason Kidd played for Sacramento, together with Vlade Divac, Malik Rose, Sam Cassell and Carlos Boozer. San Antonio drafted Peja Stojakovic, Corey Maggette and Glenn Robinson. They also got Tractor Traylor for Eric Piatkowski, cause i wanted to have Eric in my team. Steve Nash, Rasheed Wallace and Juwan Howard played for Washington.
I made one other trade, Kenny Anderson for Eddie Griffin (then playing for the Bulls).
Like i said, nothing was like i expected (except the Hornets going to the finals) and actually i dont know why. Maybe the mixture of players on some rosters (like Minnesota) was bad, so they couldnt win. Maybe it was something else. But it was a fun experiment. Maybe i am going to play that season again with the Hornets, now playing every Hornets Game. Maybe i restore everything and just make the adjustments to the Hornets roster and play with the following roster a "normal" franchise / season:
C - Jamal Magloire, Nene Hilario
PF - Eddie Griffin, Jerome Moiso
SF - Jamal Mashburn, Stacey Augmon, George Lynch
SG - David Wesley, Eric Piatkowski, Courtney Alexander
PG - Baron Davis, Terrell Brandon, Robert Pack
The mock draft didnt work out the way i expected, so maybe it is better to either use the mock draft feature already built in or just forget it and play normal ...
Any thoughts and opinions, especially about the Minnesota issue, are welcomed.
TheBigEasy
