How future NBA’s CBA changes will affect this blog

Lockout in the NBA is still unresolved so clock is ticking on one very important deadline… my come back to posting new content on this blog ;-) And I think it’s a good time – break was probably too long [*] and this time of the year usually fantasy basketball drafts are held so I would like to introduce a new part of this blog.

But more importantly, what changes were “negotiated” after I “locked out” readers for 3 months?
Well, pretty much the same as those in new CBA in the NBA ;-)

More favorable split of the [time] pie for the owner[s].

In the beginning I was able to write 5 or 6 posts per week because I could use my previously prepared material [either data or full posts which just needed to be translated from Polish] and I could still do it but I overestimated how time-consuming it is and in the long run it’s a unsustainable model so I’ve “negotiated” with myself a new one: I will try my best to write every week one post on Monday, one post on Tuesday or Wednesday, one post on Thursday or Friday and (optional) one during weekend. And by optional I mean not only “sometimes” but also in terms of the form: part 2 to Thursday’s post or some shorter points and comments.
Speaking of which…

Shorter guaranteed contracts for the players with smaller raises

I’ve never actually counted words and I won’t do that but while browsing through my old posts I found out that I have a tendency to try for at least a double if not a home-run. Also I try too hard to use tables so it’s time for some singles and walks because there’s nothing wrong with them so expect to see some shorter points or less data heavy posts mixed in ;-)

Harsher penalties for exceeding luxury tax and less ways to exceed it

In the NBA they try to limit spending by rich teams, here it means spending less time promoting my posts. Google results from past 3 months [blog not only haven’t fell into abyss but it had quite steady stream of visits even though I didn’t write anything] and posts like Dre’s reading list have convinced me that it’s a waste of time.
I also think with that kind of profile it’s more important to have a content worth searching for than huge exposure for one-time visitors. Obviously I will still comment on other blogs like I normally would.

Amnesty clause which allow teams to remove one contract from salary cap

Every month I will delete the least popular post on this blog but it will still count against my cap for that week. Obviously it means that… I’m just kidding here ;-)
I totally agree with Henry Abbott’s point that paying 500M$ to players for not playing and ability to sign more contracts with marginally better players is a very um, strange and twisted way to handle huge losses…

More revenue sharing

It’s essential for a small market team in the NBA so maybe it will work as well for a small blog ;-) I’ll try to include more links within my posts to my previous articles and I will add more links to the right panel.

That’s all for bad news – because those were pretty much all concessions – but there is some good news.

During that 3-month break not only I wrote down over 30 new ideas to explore but I’m also anxious and fired up to do it! So I hope it will be a strong come back and I start writing and posting as usual in a somewhat random order of subjects… but because I have a lot ground to cover from past 3 months in the next week or two I’ll write unusual number of non-data posts just to comment on topics related to the lockout.

[*] – if you want to know why break was so long here’s an explanation:
I was worried that with a possible cancellation of NBA season I wouldn’t have enough to write about so I would have to take another break early in 2012. Now, I’m pretty confident that even without the season in place I will be able to keep up with my writing schedule until the summer of 2012.

 

True Reasons Behind Work Stoppage… on this Blog

Lately I was somewhere between mailing it in and full speed mostly because of the lockout in the NBA but there was also one behind-the-scene reason for this: I’ve started to struggle with decisions about this blog.
Not “there’s a lockout so I have nothing to write about” variety but those regarding blog’s nature and future.
To explain why I’ll use some stats in a context of my expectations before starting this whole thing:

Blog had over 10.000 views in less than 3 months. I consider that part a huge success.
Maybe my bar was set low, maybe those were mostly spammers or maybe I was simply lucky that Neil Paine was kind enough to include this blog on a StatHead [which I’m still grateful for] but either way that’s a really positive sign for me. What’s even more encouraging is fun with translate.google.com to understand why people from China or Italy or any other unexpected location have found one of my posts useful.

But inadvertently it created a lot of questions for me which I haven’t anticipated [mostly because I haven’t thought about it at all], for example:

• how much I should write for myself [obscure subjects, comments about others’ work etc] vs potential/actual readers [new analysis/topics as current and interesting as possible]?
• Should it become a personal diary of topics researched or should I try to reach as many people as possible?
• How much time should I spend researching for new posts vs promoting posts which I’ve already finished?

It’s even more difficult when I try to include following aspects…

Counting this one I’ve written 87 posts in less than 100 days. I have very mixed feelings about this part.
On one hand “nice efficiency!”, “I’ve explored so many topics!” and “on that pace I will finish all of my half-baked ideas this year!” but on the other hand I’ve spent waaaaaay too much time on this blog not only more than I’ve expected but probably more than I should have. What’s more, I started to wonder about things like “did quantity hurt quality?” and “have I became too… robot-like?”… and I don’t have enough data to answer it because…

Blog had 319 comments but more than a half of them were pingbacks. I consider that part a huge failure.
Average of less than one not-mine comment per post? Either there’s something really fundamentally off here [too much data? not interesting enough?] or again my expectations were simply wrong but I’m totally disappointed in number of discussions created. Especially when that was one the points behind creating this blog. Ironic thing about this topic is… how can I answer these questions without any feedback? ;-)

Even though those 3 weeks didn’t help with any of above topics [and I’m not sure what will] an emphatic remainder that there won’t be NBA for a long time made a few things very clear for me:

There’s really no point in uber-activity during summer while winter appears to be so uneventful sport-wise.
At least right now I can focus on a winner in a race for my second favorite sport…

I should take a break from writing.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the whole experience, I think I still have a lot to explore and I definitely will be back [late August? Early September? Right now I have no idea when] but I feel like I need to slow down, take a step back and take a break for a fresher point of view, to recharge NBA batteries and maybe to come up with some conclusions about long-term plans for this blog… See you soon!

EDIT on 19th September: Yikes!
I wrote “maybe I was simply lucky that Neil Paine was kind enough to include this blog on a StatHead [which I’m still grateful for]”… and 5 weeks later there’s news “Stathead is Closing Down….” (http://www.sports-reference.com/stathead/2011/09/stathead-is-closing-down/).
Fortunately there are some positive news on the lockout front… Oh, wait… Yeah…

 

Somewhere between Mailing in and Full Speed…

We are in the middle of summer and lockout so it’s a very uneventful period for the NBA which makes it a very slow time for most NBA sites… which include this blog. On one hand I could simply use this as an excuse to take a break but on the other hand I’d like to keep my streak of weekly schedule alive so I’ve decided to make a compromise: I’ll use next couple of weeks to publish some data-heavy but time-friendly posts about marginal statistics which probably very few people [if any] will find useful but IMHO it simply should be published somewhere on the internet. Hell, when I’ll come back to full speed I may use them for a post or two… but until then… I wish you happy and sunny summer!

 

Old but Still Fresh, Updates around the Blog

Technically I didn’t write new post today but I’ve spent so much time updating old one that it feels like new version which IMHO is worth a reminder. I’m talking about Salary and contracts of NBA coaches because thanks to users of RealGM forum open project for coaching salaries is progressing quite nicely.
Here are the reasons why it became my by far most edited post:
– I added 30 additional salaries including around 20 provided by users of RealGM forum,
– I added new column with information “which year of contract it is/was”,
– Thanks to prosportstransactions.com I’ve updated EVERY information about contract’s length so this column is full but there are still 62 out of 309 salaries missing so if you know any of them please let me know.

What’s more, I quadrupled size of “About” page with some F.A.Q-style answers ;-)

 

Introduction

Hello World! Because WordPress.com really needed another blog ;-)

My name is Michael ‘wiLQ’ Wilczynski and I’m really passionate about the NBA, optimal efficiency and all kinds of rare oddities, atypical strategies, unusual events etc… plus fantasy sports which kind of combine all of aforementioned things.

In the beginning let’s get obvious out-of-the-way: I won’t be the smartest guy writing about the NBA, nor the most skilled one, nor the funniest one, nor the most accomplished fantasy GM plus I have zero inside connections and my writing skills in English are awfully rusty.

Quite frankly there’s only one reason to write this blog other than “practice”:
I’m pretty sure my curiosity is off the charts and I’d like to channel it somewhere public. In the last 6 years I wrote on local usenet group and even though I still love this format it’s slowly dying so I’d like to try a new form.

Because the biggest problem with curiosity is that you ask a lot of questions and then you attempt to find answers which can satisfy it. Is some cases you can do it on your own [and then it’s very quickly lost in your head] but in most cases you can’t… so you are welcome to comment or ask about anything.
It’s worth mentioning that I believe in mantra “there are no stupid questions” ;-)

With all that said you can easily figure out what you will find here but let’s make it clear:
– some comments about real events, articles or podcasts,
– some surprisingly solid ideas with bad execution like this one: http://www.82games.com/wilq.htm,
– some questionable analysis with solid objective like this one: http://www.82games.com/wilq3.htm,
– most often you will find something like this http://www.82games.com/wilq2.htm.
I can only hope you will enjoy it the same way as me ;-)

BTW, e-mail address in aforementioned links is no longer active [and it was a painful lesson because spam killed it within months] so if you want to contact me write to this e-mail alias: wilq[at_sign]pro.wp.pl.