Proposed Draft Timer Adjustment

[Dallas Mavs (Kyle)]

Given the behavior of a few rogue owners, I'd like to propose a rule that will help incentivize owners to prepare for their picks more proactively and more importantly ensure that equal information is available to all owners in time for important league schedule milestones such as Summer League, RFA, etc.

As it stands now, the first round may not even be completed prior to RFA or Summer League, giving some owners of later picks extra prospect performance data and early pick owners more roster structure clarity to benefit from that others may not have.

The proposal is as follows:
The draft timer is now active between 8am and 10pm of the owner's local time zone, as determined by commissioner knowledge or overridden by advance owner submission via proactive commissioner notification.

During the time window, an owner has 6 hours to make a selection prior to being skipped. The timer pauses during the overnight period.

[Cleveland Cavaliers (Jon)]

I would agree something needs to change. It’s obvious that certain people are either delaying for their own amusement or possibly for the summer league thoughts.

I think your idea is a bit complicated but maybe instead of 24 hours we go to 12 hours for round 1 and 8 hours for round 2. Here is the thing, we all know a round about time we draft. A basic idea of when you are on the clock. I would second a motion to discuss draft timer changes for future drafts.

[Heat GM (Bryan)]

12 hours and 8 hour clocks sound just fine. With that simple change.

[LA Clippers GM (Remy)]

This is a stupid proposal made by a rich parent's child.

What happens the first morning when one of us turns to pick but we are at work?

You do realize we can be on chat by just looking at the phone, right? Being on chat means jackshit.

But that doesn't mean we are in the headspace to make a decision. Sure, we could just wait until we get home and load up our laptops to make sure we are good, but nooooo big weaselboy here can't wait, dont you see?? We have to rush it !

Some of these teams have been rebuilding for years, that's plural you fuckface. But noow they have to rush it in a couple hours because kyleboy here can't handle the world not adjusting to his wants without him tossing a tantrum.

Grow up dude. Season starts in like 3 months.

[Blazers GM (Tyler)]

I’m all for a shortened clock. 12 hours for Round 1 sounds good to me, but I also understand that some folks have long work shifts and/or life obligations that would make it difficult to jump in and make their selection. I remember in past drafts that if somebody knew they couldn’t physically get their pick in themselves, they would designate a proxy to take their place with a queue of preferred players were they to be available. Seems simple enough.

Can we put it to a league vote?

[Golden State Warriors (Caleb)]

Okay i'm sorry y'all, but this is wild to me.

You have to understand that not everybody experiences the league in the same way you might.  There are 30 people in here with vastly different lives, shit even time zones (yes Kyle I know your proposal covers this).  In this very draft we have had someone who has a legitimately very busy life not make his 24 hour slot.  It wasn't because he was dicking around, it wasn't because he was trying to piss people off, the circumstances of his life and schedule directly dictated his ability to pick. Bman an OG took 17 hours because he was in between guys and then woke up and had to get into his day straight away.  Did anyone's franchise suffer because of this?  No.  Why are we punishing people for having lives? 

  Additionally there are also a ton of other legitimate scenarios in which more than 12 hours would be needed/warranted.  I'll provide an example. Someone goes to bed 2-3 picks away.  They've been debating 3-4 different guys, doing their research but they're all in the same tier.  They wake up and they're up.  They have a performance review at 3/4 that they are mentally preparing for and maybe drinks after.  To me it is totally okay to take the needed time to finish what they need throughout the day and then get home and do what they need to do to process the decision they're gonna make.  Also there are just methodical people that exist and need more time than others to feel comfortable making a decision.  You're literally hand picking a baby hooper to be apart of your squad long term.  It's a big decision! To me 24 hours is fair.    

And Kyle you're really good at this, it's why you've seen success as a franchise and i love you for it!  I'm sure you've been planning and curating your board for months and are ready for anything, but some people don't have that luxury/ability and I'm not punishing them for it. 

This is a free league bro.  It's the summer. People are doing shit. I'm not gonna ask everyone for their daily schedule and waking hours.  Like seriously?  Can you imagine that?  "Hey Chris, I'm gonna need you to send me your shift hours and your schedule after work."  No chance bro. 

I get the whole queue thing to an extent, but often times it's just not that white and black.  That's really more so for people who won't have service and do definitively know their rankings of players who will be soon be available.  Sometimes an owner really wants someone, they get sniped, and now need some time to figure out what they wanna do.  

The other thing is the season doesn't start for 3 months.  Like why are are we rushing people to make a decision in less than 24 hours? So that they don't get summer league footage?!  To me that's negligible.  Shit I drafted Kevin Knox purely based off his summer league performance and look how that turned out.  Someone could go off in summer league and it get posted in chat and at-least 3 motherfuckers would say something along the lines of, "It's summer league it doesn't mean anything."  Like what's the worst that happens? A guy you were considering at 41 goes off and you took someone else?  If a guy having a good summer league game is the reason you pick him, he's a shot in the dark.  You have hours of film of most prospects accessible.  

Bman took Hendricks who "technically" sits in a worse spot now than 2 days ago when he originally made the pick. (Don't worry Bman still a very bright future!).  Is that fair?  Are we going to move the draft back now to make sure that we have all the info we need to draft? Sometimes news may break during our draft, whether it be a trade, an extension, an injury, shit happens bro.  We can't control everything.  

Shit this has been a slow draft and even then I'd be shocked if the first round isn't done by summer league tipping.  The California classic/Salt Lake league (8 teams) starts in 7 days.  Last Vegas starts in 11 days.... Additionally there are plenty of owners have made their picks in an efficient manner.  99% of the time if a GM knows who they want and their guy is there, they pick in a timely fashion.  And bro even if there is someone who is a jackass and knows exactly who they are taking and chooses to milk the clock it's okay man.  Are the unfairly benefiting? No.  I know it can be frustrating, but I promise you will be fine.

You guys know I'm always open to new rules and adjustments/tweaks... I genuinely want what's best for this league and will always act in a manner in which I feel is best for the league. But this rule is essentially implying one of two things. 1. The frustration that you feel from waiting for your pick is more important than certain (not all) owners having the ability to have the time necessary to make the pick OR 2.  That you feel summer league potentially starting starting is too much of a competitive advantage for teams drafting in what the 50's? Maybe mid 40's?  If that's really what you are worried about i'd rather start the draft after summer league than rush it and make it harder for certain owners.  But we all know what the reception to that would be.  

In summary, while this rule change may improve certain owners' experience of the draft, to me it negatively impacts other owners, and for that reason I can't get behind it.    

[Royce]

Agree with Caleb

[Cleveland Cavaliers (Jon)]

I agree with 99% of this. As a person who’s been in a 14 year dynasty league and has helped run the draft for quite a while. We’ve found the quicker the draft moves the more engaged people are and we can then move on. The slower it takes more people become less engaged and that leads to longer clocks because people aren’t checking. They are under the assumption they have more time and then picks get delayed or auto picked.

We’ve found when you set a date in advance and set a time clock that people all contribute and it moves accordingly. We will always have a few who will not be able to be active and those will be auto picked or can leave picks with a commissioner to be taken on their behalf.

I think that the frustration came from one GM who was active in chat for an entire day and just not making or trading the pick. I wasn’t upset about spurs at all. Real life happens and it’s totally understandable.

[Phoenix Suns (Tyler)]

I agree with Caleb, everyone has lives, family and jobs outside of this.
With that being said it is more of the teams that are that are purposely taking extended time picking. Like if you want to take a few hours and explore some possible late trade offers or even reevaluate a prospect based on a possible time fit/draft slide is one thing. Just letting the clock run to extend youre time is something different. But you can’t really prove that, and even harder to probably have something in writing

[Cleveland Cavaliers (Jon)]

Jun 27, 2023 9:17:55 GMT -5 Phoenix Suns (Tyler) said:

I agree with Caleb, everyone has lives, family and jobs outside of this.
With that being said it is more of the teams that are that are purposely taking extended time picking. Like if you want to take a few hours and explore some possible late trade offers or even reevaluate a prospect based on a possible time fit/draft slide is one thing. Just letting the clock run to extend youre time is something different. But you can’t really prove that, and even harder to probably have something in writing

I think if you are going to hold up the draft, don’t chat in the discord the whole time. I think that’s where the proof was.

[Oklahoma City Thunder (Loren)]

I agree with everything Caleb says except for the statement about Kyle (Mavs) having success here.

[Toronto Raptors (Perk)]

Good point about whoever was active all day in the chat holding it up on purpose, that may be excessive. I think I have an idea which may help the draft run a little bit quicker by making the prep work a little less for those who aren't diving into hours of film and data. Can we have a post in this site with the 60 picks that were made in order and the team that they were traded to or on by the end of the NBA draft night? From there, can we have a volunteer who puts a line through each name then drafted in our league, as each pick is made or close to it? It may seem minor and I'm sure many of you have your own physical lists that you work off of, but I'm wondering if a system like that would help someone see who is still available from the actual draft based on their draft order, and from there if they have no clue who they are picking then at least they can do a little digging with the players presented to them without having to scout every player?

That reasoning from me isn't perfect but maybe people would see value in it. If the draft pick clock changes I'd say the second round picks should be allotted the same amount of time as the first round out of fairness.