International Fantasy Basketball Keeper Leagues Tiers 1-4 Rules
Separate rules for each league are as specified
. International Fantasy Basketball Keeper Leagues (IFBKL) Complete list of League Rules and By Laws
Leagues Description- The IFBKL is a 4 tier Head-to-Head style scoring set of keeper leagues where each team is going head to head weekly (with exceptions for All-Star break week and playoff match-ups) on the ESPN Fantasy Basketball platform for the Hall-Of-Fame tier and Fantrax for the Lower tiers (All-Star, Pro, and Play-In). Each League has 16 team and It is run by the Commissioner and founding member. It's rules and principles are meant to come as close to the experience of being the GM/Coach of an NBA team in the aspect of drafting, acquiring, trading, and day to day playing time of a roster (but with many more minutes to be divided).
Expectation of League Members- Each league member is expected to act in the best interest of their team with the goal of winning and to treat other members with respect and common decency and sportsmanship and to follow the league rules and bylaws as described in this document and the ESPN League rules respectively. The league members are also expected to point out any issues with the league to the Commissioner. Issues such as cheating, poor sportsmanship, and inactivity shall be reported to the commissioner immediately. Also Members in the lower tiers should be working to earn their way up and accept a call-up by the commissioner. League members should either be available on GroupMe to other members or have another form of contact that is made available to the league for the purpose of trade discussions and when rule changes or other important matters of the league need to be discussed
Role of the Commissioner- The Commissioner shall act as the chief decision maker and executive of the league and decide which new rule proposals will come to a vote. The Commissioner also will bring questionable trades to a vote or immediately veto any trades that will obviously adversely affect the competition of the league. The Commissioner retains the right to remove any member at any time for violating league rules or common decency. The Commissioner shall always act in the best interests of the league and not his own team.
4 Tiers and Tier Definition- The 4 tier system isdesigned to get the highest quality managers into the top tier league in order to have a competitive league while keeping the league free.
Play-In- This is where every new manager will start. This tier is a no keeper redraft league. The top 2 finishers each year will be called up to the Pro tier. More could be called up based on what happens in the lower tiers.
Pro Tier- This the next tier up from the Play-In tier and has 5 keepers. The bottom 2 from this tier are demoted to the Play-In Tier each season. Candidates for call-ups will be determined by the Commissioner by looking at the following factors. 1) Wins 2) Improvement of team. 3) Contributions to the league (setting lineup, responding to trades, setting keepers, participating in the draft. My goal is to have the best managers get called up, with the goal being to call managers up who are both 1) more skilled than other owners in the league and 2) participate regularly and are good communicators.
All-Star Tier- This is the tier where managers from the Pro Tier can move up to by proving their worth in the ways defined under the Pro Tier section. Owners from the All-Star Tier can be removed for inactivity or demoted to the Pro Tier and the All-Star Tier is the Call-up pool for the Hall-of-Fame Tier.
Hall-of-Fame Tier - This is the top league. Owners in the Hall-of-Fame Tier will have proven their worth in the Play-In, Pro and All-Star Tiers before they are eligible for the Top Tier. Owners from this tier may be removed from the league for inactivity or demoted to the 2nd tier for consecutive last place finishes.
Rosters, and IR- Each team gets a total of 16 players on their roster consisting of 10 Starters (G, G, G, F, F, F, PF/C, C, UTIL, UTIL) and 6 Bench spots. Each team will also get 3 IR spots to be used if a player is listed as out and IR eligible through the ESPN site. No team may roster more than 5 Centers.
Scheduling- The Scheduling shall be set by the commissioner league manager each off-season so that each team will meet each team once with 18 1 week regular season match-ups followed by 3 playoff rounds. Adjustments will be made in the event of a shortened NBA season due to lockout or other reason. Playoff rounds will also be 1 week match-ups. (The sites will automatically adjust shortened schedule periods in length of match-ups and game limits-this mostly applies to the All-Star match-up periods)
Scoring and Games Played Limit - Each Head-to-Head match-up runs Mon-Sun (with exception of the 2 week match-up during All Star Break) and has 9 total wins possible that will be divided between the two owners. Wins are determined by which manager does better in each of the following categories 1) FG% 2) FT% 3) 3 Pointers Made 4) Rebounds 5) Assists 6) Assists/TO Ratio 7) Steals 8) Blocks and 9) Points. A tie in any category will be scored as a tie. The tiebreaker for playoff match-ups is the ESPN default setting of better regular season record wins. The games played limit is 34 Games per match-up. If a team exceeds this, it will continue to accrue stats for the rest of the day, but will not earn any stats from the next day until the end of the match-up (ESPN applies the limits, automatically, it is not enforced by the commissioner and is not a hard limit.). 34 Represents The limit for a standard match-up, which is 7 days in length. Longer and shorter match-ups will have their limits scaled proportionally. By default, there are not limits on players. These shorter or longer match-ups, again, are determined by ESPN, not the commissioner. If you look at the schedule at the beginning of the year, it will show you in advance what the limit will be for each week of the schedule.
Lineup Changes- Lineup changes are allowed daily and lock individually at scheduled game times.
Player Acquisitions- Each team may acquire up to 3 players per match-up on a waiver system. Any player who is in the free agent pool and not on waivers may be acquired at any time once the season begins and the Commissioner has declared the draft complete. Any player who is dropped must be acquired on a waiver system with a waiting period of 2 days. Waiver order is determined as each manger makes a claim they are moved to the end. The waiver order does not reset.
Trades and Trade deadline- Trades may be agreed upon between 2 or more owners. Each owner involved must agree to the terms of the trade and submit the trade through the ESPN League site for any trade involving 2 owners. If three or more owners are involved they must submit the trade to the Commissioner for approval. If a trade is disputed, the dispute must be sent to the League Commissioner and the League Commissioner shall tally votes. If 8 or more owners disagree with the trade, the League Commissioner shall Veto the trade. The Commissioner may wait 24 hours once a trade has been accepted to approve the trade, if it seems like it may be disputed. Each year the Commissioner will set a Trade deadline that will be approximately one week after the NBA’s trade deadline as allowed by ESPN. Although very rare, the Commissioner reserves the right to veto any trade deemed to limit the competition of the league.
Playoffs-The Champion of the league will be determined by a playoff at the end of the year. The top 8 teams will make the playoffs. Each playoff match-up will be a 1 week match-up. The playoff seeding tie-breaker shall be regular season head-to-head record. Since our league has no tie-breakers during the regular season, the default tie breaker for playoff match-ups is regular season record. In the event of a shortened season (for example '19-'20) the champion will be determined by the highest record at the time of cancellation (through all completed match-ups) if prior to any completed playoff match-ups or the highest regular season record of the remaining teams in the playoffs at the time of cancellation.
Call-ups- Candidates for call-ups will be determined by the Commissioner by looking at the following factors. 1) Wins 2) Improvement of team. 3) Contributions to the league (setting lineup, responding to trades, setting keepers, participating in the draft). The most important factors being 1)ability to make roster moves that benefit your team and lead to more wins and 2) communication with other league members. I will usually look at numbers to see how much a team has improved and look at the record vs. the previous year and also look at factors such as, if a team has made questionable trades etc. I try to do my due diligence to make sure I am not just calling up a manager that took over a good team. Call-ups should always be accepted by the owner as if you are in a lower tier and not trying to be called up, it defeats the purpose of the league.
Demotion- Demotion will be used for improvement of competition in the Hall-of-Fame All-Star, and Pro leagues. Occasionally I misjudge an owners ability or call up a owner because they are my only option, in the case where they are no longer competing they will be sent down to the league one lower. This will be determined in the Hall-of-Fame tier by an owner getting last place for consecutive years (based on regular season record). In the All-Star tier, it will be determined by placing in the bottom 2 teams for consecutive years (based on regular season record). The bottom 2 finishers in the Pro tier are automatically demoted to the Play-In league, which also means the top 2 are automatically called up from the Play-In League.
Hall-Of-Fame, All-Star, and Pro Tier takeover and dispersal draft.
Pro Tier- Any new owners brought into the Pro tier via demotion or promotion will draft 5 keepers each from the rosters of the previous teams. Example: In a new season there are 3 new owners in the Pro tier, 1 demoted from the All-Star Tier, and 2 owners called up from the Play-In tier, the previous teams players from those 3 teams are available to the new owners in a 5 round draft. The draft order for this draft will be determined by a random drawing during the off-season video. This rule was made for the Pro tier due to the amount of movement in and out due to automatic promotion/demotion that happens every year and to balance out the teams for new owners. This will happen whether there is a call-up/demotion between the All-Star and Pro or not as their will always be call-ups from the Play-In to tier with the demotion policy in the Pro Tier.
All-Star and Hall-of-Fame tiers If there is a dispersal draft, teams in the dispersal draft will be removed from the lottery and be fixed in their draft position. This will work the same as the Pro tier as far as the dispersal draft goes, but will only happen if their are 2 or more new owners. Removal- Owners are subject to removal from the league for inactivity or poor sportsmanship. I haven’t had many issues with sportsmanship but it has happened. If an owner stops setting their lineup for a long period of time without notifying the Commissioner they are also subject to removal. Improper use of league chat is also cause for removal.
League Chat
I have a chat group for each tier on GroupMe. I expect all member to join the groups as they are a great tool for communicating with league members and also a good tool for members to communicate with each other for negotiating trades. General trade block offers are appropriate for the group chat, but negotiations should be done on a private chat. Courtesy to other members of the league is expected. Lighthearted banter is fine. Hateful comments will not be tolerated. I generally try to keep the league chats league focused. Casual chats by league members should go into another group and are completely optional.
Team Name
Team names should be semi-appropriate without excessive vulgarity. If you have a question please ask. My preference is that people pick a team name with the intention of using that name long term, however, in cases where the team name no longer applies (based off a player name) I can see making a change. Team names should at least be at a minimum kept for 1 season (with the exception of moving a player in the name). My reason for preferring long term team names is for the purposes of assessing who to move up the ranks, with multiple team name changes, it makes it more difficult. Name changes are to be done in the off-season only and only after receiving commissioner approval.
Yearly League Off-season check in policy
In each league, I want to ensure that everyone is active in the league, so I will have some sort of check in both at the end of the season and About 2 months before the season. For the past couple seasons, since I have been using Fantrax for the draft, one of the methods of doing this is accepting the Fantrax league invitation. If I still don't get a response, I will send out messages asking if people are continuing. I do this as I have found that it is necessary to keep active members in my leagues as people sometimes forget about their team or just stop looking at it. If your team is no longer in contention for the year, start looking to improve it, (make trades and acquisitions that will help you for next season)Ignoring it is not acceptable. If I look at the transaction counter and see that you are not doing anything and keeping injured players or empty starter spots unfilled, I will replace you.
Keepers and Keeper Deadline
IFBKL Hall-Of-Fame Tier At the end of each season each team will get to select 10 players to designate as keepers to carry on to their roster to the next season. The Commissioner will set a keeper deadline for about 1 week before the league draft. (usually in August) IFBKL All-Star Tier Same as above except each team is allowed 8 keepers IFBKL Pro Tier Same as above except each team is allowed 5 keepers bottom 2 are relegated automatically. IFBKL Play-In Tier No Keepers allowed this will be a play in league to get to the Pro tier. Top 2 advance automatically.
The number of Keepers in each league is mandatory. You are not allowed to keep less. One way to look at this as you have a set # of team options on your roster that you have to use. If you find a player in free agency you want more than on on your roster after the draft, you can use waivers to pick them up.
New keeper rule going into effect for 2021-2022 exception for teams with extra picks:
Teams that have extra draft picks are allowed to keep less, as long as the keepers + picks adds up to 16. Example: (based on tier 1 rules with 10 keepers): Team A has made trades which has increased their number of picks from 6 to 8. This rule allows this team to keep anywhere from 8 to 10 players. Since this team now has 8 picks, if they decided to only keep 8 players, their 8 players plus their 8 picks put them at 16. This will add an extra 2 players available to the player pool if this team decides to only keep 8. Teams that have not traded for extra picks are still required to keep the full 10 players. This rule does not force a team to keep less, it is only saying that if that team doesn't want a player they may throw them into the pool so someone else has the option. Teams that do not have extra picks still have to keep the full keeper amount.
Draft Lottery and Draft Order The Hall-Of-Fame and All-Star tiers will each have a draft lottery to determine the order of the draft for the first round only. The lotteries will be conducted by using a spreadsheet that uses the real NBA lottery probabilities but portioned for 8 lottery teams. The lottery will be broadcast live more than likely using Youtube. The lottery will determine the order for the top 8 selections with the following percentages:
Playoff teams placed 1st through 8th will pick in reverse order of the regular season standings. In the top tier, Rounds 2-6 will be a fixed order in reverse of the league standings. In the All-Star tier, The 2nd round of the draft will go back to a snake order, with the first place team getting the 17th pick and continue in order of the regular season standings. The Pro tier will have a snake draft with the first round being determined by reverse order of standings with no draft lottery. In the Play-In tier, with it being a redraft league, everything will be flipped, however, because it is a redraft league everything is tied to the owner and it is owners choice of pick rather than set order. The top continuing owner can choose any pick between 1 and 16. Only the winners bracket of the playoffs will effect draft order, so top finishing remaining team in winners bracket, gets top pick and so on, then runner up, semifinalists etc. Tie breaker is regular season record, and non playoff teams draft pick priority will go off regular season record. New owners will get choice of pick based on who contacted me first regarding joining. The draft will snake after the first round in the 4th tier. Tiebreakers for draft order will be determined by regular season head-to-head record of the tied teams, if it is still a tie, it will then go to a coin flip by the commissioner.
Draft ProcessThe draft will be done using Fantrax. I will setup a league in the off-season for the sole purpose of doing a draft. ESPN has limited features regarding drafting, where Fantrax allows for a slow draft.
Each owner is responsible to make sure they do not go over any roster limits. If during the draft, an owner drafts more than the limit of 5 centers and it is not discovered before the next pick, that owner will be required to re-pick that selection from the time the error is discovered picks made after that are not effected. If trades have put a manager over the roster limit, they will be required to drop one player upon completion of the draft.
Conduct
IFBKL will not tolerate harassment of any kind beyond lighthearted banter. If two members know each other and want to go beyond my tolerance, they can do that in a private chat. If you don't know how to behave like an adult, I don't want you in my league. ******Please bring up any discrepancies or gray areas of the league rules with the Commissioner*******
The IFBKL is always recruiting. If you are interested in joining, shoot me a message.